Why was Joan of Arc a Saint?

[Seamus619]

I was born and raised a Catholic but only recently began becoming interested so I apologize if this comes off as a stupid question. Why was Joan of Arc recognized as a Saint? Wasn’t she schiznophrenic? And if she was, wouldn’t her visions of Christ have been just effects of her mental illness?

 

[puzzleannie]

I was born and raised a Catholic but only recently began becoming interested so I apologize if this comes off as a stupid question. Why was Joan of Arc recognized as a Saint? Wasn’t she schiznophrenic? And if she was, wouldn’t her visions of Christ have been just effects of her mental illness?

there is no evidence of her having schizophrenia. the evidence of events as they played out in French history showed that her visions, whatever their source, were giving her good instructions. They did not have psychiatry as a science back then so there is no way hundreds of years later to diagnose her, if she did in fact have a disorder. She is a saint because she obeyed God completely and implicitly, as she understood his commands, and was martyred for it. Even that would not have been enough for sainthood had she not also exhibted heroic virtue and holiness throughout her short life.

 

[patrick457]

I was born and raised a Catholic but only recently began becoming interested so I apologize if this comes off as a stupid question. Why was Joan of Arc recognized as a Saint? Wasn’t she schiznophrenic? And if she was, wouldn’t her visions of Christ have been just effects of her mental illness?

Well, for one thing, we don’t really know whether St. Joan had any mental illnesses. The idea that she had something like schizophrenia is just something that some people thought of, perhaps in order to explain her visions in a ‘rational’ way.

 

[AnneElizabeth]

She wasn’t schizophrenic because what she was enabled to do, no schizophrenic would have been able to do.

She didn’t have mental issues either, because she did not manifest in her actions things that are normally associated with mental illness. (Besides the claim to have spoken with a few saints and with God- but if that alone denotes mental illness than so were Moses and all the other prophets and saints. So that alone never denotes mental illness -unless you are a staunch atheist. I guess to them this would all be crazy.) She was said to be bright and alert and controlled in temperament. She was not emotionally or behaviorally unstable. Most of all she was virtuous.

A lot of the movies these days portray her more as a some sort of wild male-like modern day feminist crazed warrior, but be warned that most of these movies were made only for the sensationalism of an idea and not made to show the truth about her. She was definitely NOT a feminist, nor had any of that feminist spirit you see today. She in fact dissuaded women who tried to do what she was doing because she knew it was not a woman’s place and that she was only occupying that role because the Lord had specifically instructed her to do so.

St. Joan of Arc is a fascinating saint and I highly recommend you read a Catholic biography on her as you will see quickly by all that was said of her and noted of her she could not have been mentally ill but most definitely a saint of God, her heart united to His.

 

[Trishie]

I was born and raised a Catholic but only recently began becoming interested so I apologize if this comes off as a stupid question. Why was Joan of Arc recognized as a Saint? Wasn’t she schiznophrenic? And if she was, wouldn’t her visions of Christ have been just effects of her mental illness?

The bottom line is that she faithfully lived what she believed was God’s will to the absolute limit of her capacity, even to giving up her life. This is her basic example to us, to live God’s will fully as we understand it.