Beatification causing quite a stir

Beatifying and canonizing people by the scores are hallmarks of the current papacy; so is stirring up controversy by the choices of men and women to be elevated to sainthood. Such previous choices as Edith Stein and Maximilian Kolbe have drawn objections from some Jewish groups, who charge that Catholics are encroaching on the special Jewish character of the Holocaust and trying to claim it as their own.

The upcoming beatification of Pius IX, who created the Albany Diocese in 1847, has drawn a negative reaction from Jews but for another reason. It has also drawn the ire of some Italian Catholics and even an American priest.

Jews remember Pius as the pope under whom an Italian Jewish boy -- allegedly baptized by a Catholic maid -- was kidnaped from his home and raised in Church-run institutions in Rome. The case caused an international sensation in the mid-19th century. "I think it is absurd and a serious mistake to beatify Pius IX, especially in a Jubilee Year in which [John Paul II] wants the Church to reflect on its errors," said Elena Mortara, a relative of the kidnaped child.

Some Italian Catholic groups don't want Pius honored because they see him as the pope who (to quote Catholic News Service) "clung to the last vestiges of temporal power in Italy, refusing to recognize the formation of the Italian state and excommunicating its leaders, preferring to remain a `prisoner of the Vatican' as the papal empire collapsed around him. Others are questioning why, at the start of a new millennium, the Church has chosen to honor a pope who published the `Syllabus of Errors,' declaring that no Roman pontiff should reconcile himself with `progress, liberalism and modern society.'"

Also objecting strenuously to the beatification is an American priest, Father Sean McManus, president of the Irish National Caucus, a human rights lobby in Washington, D.C. Irish-Americans should oppose the beatification, he believes, because Pius excommunicated members of the Fenian Brotherhood (see page 2).

The Fenian Brotherhood "had massive support among Irish-Americans -- those who in great measure built the Catholic Church in the U.S.," Father McManus said. "Yet Pope Pius IX excommunicated them" because they were a secret society. "And now we are expected to honor that pope -- even pray to him as a saint? No way in hell."

Saint-making was once a quiet and routine operation that stirred little interest and no controversy. By the number of his choices, John Paul II has created interest. By the nature of some of his choices, he has provoked controversy. The result is that many more people are thinking and talking about what holiness means, which for our modern times is a positive by-product of an age-old process.

(07-13-00)