Venerating Holy Protestant Christians as Saints

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ChristMyLife

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Does anyone see anything wrong with venerating extremely holy Protestants who are almost certainly in heaven?

I personally have no problem venerating the following who I consider Saints:

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St. C.S. Lewis, pray for us

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St. Evelyn Underhill, pray for us

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St. Martin Luther King Jr, pray for us

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St. Sadhu Sundar Singh, pray for us

IMO, these three holy men and one holy woman give any of the great Catholic saints a run for their money in the sanctity department.

(Evelyn Underhill is questionable whether she should be considered a Protestant. She was basically a Catholic. Sadhu was an Anglican. CS Lewis was an Anglican also… So all three of these were basically Catholic… But MLK was a Baptist.)

What’s your opinion?
 
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Those folks might be in heaven, we have no way of knowing since there has been no investigation such as the Catholic church does. If you personally want to pray to them it’s your choice but I wouldn’t promote them to anyone else. They are not officially saints.
 
ChristMyLife said:
Does anyone see anything wrong with venerating extremely holy Protestants who are almost certainly in heaven?
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Yes, I don’t see this as appropriate.
ChristMyLife said:
I personally have no problem venerating the following who I consider Saints:
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It’s rather presumptuous to assume that someone is a Saint or worthy of Veneration. The Catholic Church goes through an exhausting process to Canonize someone. We do not Canonize people of other denominations.
 
Salmonslayer said:
And MLK? Dubious he’s in heaven given his adulterous lifestyle.
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That was my thought as well. As much as I love and respect MLK, public knowledge of his adulterous lifestyle would be difficult to overcome even if he were Catholic and could go through the canonization process.
 
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Cruciferi said:
The Catholic Church goes through an exhausting process to Canonize someone. We do not Canonize people of other denominations.
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Canonization for the 1st thousand years of the Church was by popular veneration, and the cult of a saint still plays an important role in the canonization of them today.

The Catholic Church in the year 2000 recognised MLK as a martyr.

Pope Francis declared St. Gregory of Narek a Doctor of the Church a few years ago - but he wasn’t Catholic, he was Armenian Orthodox.

I believe MLK was killed “in odium fidei” - in hatred of faith in Christ. Therefore I venerate him as a Martyr (as do many Episcopalians and Lutherans).
 
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Salmonslayer said:
But even the best of us can have some demons in the closet. Sad really.
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He was a sinner no doubt.

He also held some erroneous theological opinions.

But I also believe he was a preacher of righteousness, a disciple of Christ Jesus, and was killed for hatred of the Gospel he preached…

Therefore I say, Saint Martin Luther King Jr, ora pro nobis!
 
I can’t believe those icons. Icons should only represent those who the Church has Beatified or Canonized.

The reason we venerate saints is becuase they lived lives of heroic virtue and set examples for us. Not belonging to Christ’s Church when you very well could have is most certainly not an example for us to follow.
 
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mrsdizzyd said:
even if he were Catholic
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I have strong doubts as to whether “being Catholic” is a prerequisite for canonized Sainthood so much as simply “being Christian.”

Eastern Catholics venerate St. Gregory of Palamas as a Saint, and he was a non-Catholic Eastern Orthodox Christian.

Pope Francis declared St. Gregory of Narek, a non-Catholic Armenian Orthodox Christian a Doctor of the Church.

Pope Francis also declared the 10 Coptic Christian martyrs to be Martyrs of the Faith, although they were non-Catholic in that they were Oriental Orthodox.
 
ChristMyLife said:
The Catholic Church in the year 2000 recognised MLK as a martyr.
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As far as I know, this never happened. For a time there was some consideration to creating a way to identify non-Catholic martyrs, but nothing came of it.

Do you have a source?
 
Not something that I will ever do, but it seems that it’s allowed.
 
semper_catholicus said:
can’t believe those icons.

The reason we venerate saints is becuase they lived lives of heroic virtue and set examples for us. Not belonging to Christ’s Church when you very well could have is most certainly not an example for us to follow.
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That’s a very narrow view to take.

I reject such a stance as non-Christlike.
 
ChristMyLife said:
IMO, these three holy men and one holy woman give any of the great Catholic saints a run for their money in the sanctity department.
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I’m pretty bothered by this statement. As someone else said MLK is rumored to have many affairs and similar.

Many of the great Catholic saints that we venerate gave their lives for Christ and His Church. Many suffered horrific deaths for the Church. Catholic saints are the ones who built the Church and the missionaries, seminaries, convents and hospitals attached to it.

I can’t say much about the lives of these people you mention here but I am very hard pressed to believe that they even come close to the holy Catholic saints of the past.
 
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MagdalenaRita said:
I can’t say much about the lives of these people you mention here but I am very hard pressed to believe that they even come close to the holy Catholic saints of the past.
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These Saints were every bit as much God’s Children as even St. Peter himself.
 
What’s not Christ-like is failing to belong to His Church.
 
ChristMyLife said:
These Saints were every bit as much God’s Children as even St. Peter himself.
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I am not saying they were not God’s children but to put them in the same category as the great Catholic saints or to say they give the great Catholic saints a run for their money is a big stretch. I can’t say whether they are in heaven or not either. That is only for God to know at present. Salvation is found in the Catholic church, no where else.
Rather than pray to them, we should pray for them. Pray that they received final repentance and that their souls were in a state of grace when they died. This we should pray for everyone.
 
semper_catholicus said:
What’s not Christ-like is failing to belong to His Church
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By virtue of their baptism, the witness they gave to the Gospel, their discipleship of Christ, and their belonging to “mere Christianity,” they were mystically united to the Church.

I’m not saying Protestants who preached anti-Catholicism or heresy should be venerated - for example, I would never venerate John Calvin or Martin Luther.

But some Anglo-Catholics who held to basically all Catholic doctrines (Lewis, Underhill and Sadhu) and never preached against Catholicism or taught open heresy, or Christians who died as martyrs after living “mere Christianity” like the Coptic Martyrs and MLK - these I believe are Saints.

Pope Francis has also been pretty clear he considers such as Saints as well.
 
It is not enough to be mystically united to Christ’s Church when you are able to be formally apart of it. Everyone has the duty to do so. Failure to do so would certainly not be virtuous.
 
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