Tuesday, April 29, 2014



What had to be striking to anyone who pays close attention to the media was the almost total absence of criticism of the idea of canonizing saints or of approaching the two new saints directly as “intercessors”—mediators between believers and God.

This silence or positive press about “double-new-saints” day may be taken for granted around much of the world today, but such responses contrast with attitudes from at least the time of the Council of Trent (1545-1563) when official Roman Catholicism fought back against the first Protestants, who engaged in heated polemics about most saints-talk.

Those of us with memories that go back to pre-Pope John XXIII or who consult church histories will find that the Protestant Reformers focused very much on what they saw as abuses in the practice of prayer invoking saints. (The Orthodox Christians looked on, devoted to saints but un-devoted to Roman Catholic canonization processes.)

Read it all.

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