They thought of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, did they?
The pope says it’s kosher – John Henry Newman did miraculously cure Deacon Jack Sullivan of a nasty spinal problem.
Deacon Sullivan, 71, said he prayed for the cardinal’s help in August 2001 after being diagnosed with severe spinal disc and vertebrae deformities, a condition, he said, which left him “bent double” and in “excruciating pain”. The deacon said he had watched a television programme in the US about Cardinal Newman and had then prayed to him first in June 2000. He said: “The following morning I got out of bed pain-free, whereas previously I was in agony. I thought, ‘wow, what’s happening?’. My prayer was answered to Cardinal Newman.” He said he then went through a pain-free period, which doctors had no explanation for, before the pain returned the following April.
Right, right, I get all that – and it’s very impressive and exciting. The part I don’t get though is exactly how the pope knows that’s what happened. Obviously there was a miracle – I’m not questioning that – but the details seem hard to verify. What I wonder is, is the Deacon sure it was John Henry Newman he prayed to? And is he sure it was the right John Henry Newman? Is he sure it wasn’t a different John Henry Newman, who lived in Kidderminster and was not known for his work with the poor?
Can he be sure, for instance, he didn’t pray to some other eminent Victorian – Gladstone, perhaps, or Harriet Martineau? If he prayed to all three of them, can he be sure Newman was the one who did the job? Or maybe he misremembers, and he didn’t pray to Newman, but sang to him, or read him a poem, or just thought about him. Or maybe it was George Eliot he thought about.
And is he sure he has his dates right? Is he sure all this didn’t happen in June 1999, or October 2000? Which would throw the whole thing off, one assumes. Is he sure he didn’t think about Jane Carlyle in April 2002? And is the pope sure? And if the pope is sure, how is he sure? How does he manage it? How does he check all these possibilities? They never say, do they – they just say he’s decided.
I suppose they must have a technique. And they wouldn’t want to tell us about it, would they, because then we might start doing the same thing, and then there would be more saints than anyone could handle. All right, that sounds good enough. I won’t say another word about it.
I don’t know that much about miracles but why would someone in excruciating pain get the fine benefit of having it end, only to have it come back “the following April”? Did Deacon Sullivan do something punishable around then? If I were in the business of toting up miracles, I wouldn’t count this as a whole one. Perhaps a discount miracle, about 20 cents worth.
And his description of being in paradise in the hospital post-surgery. . . again, I didn’t go to medical school or anything but I do remember something in an IV tube in the recovery room once, and it was extremely paradisey.
This is just so silly. If they want to name the guy a saint, why not just employ a speech act: Pope: I am the Pope and I hereby declare you a genuine saint.
Reminds me of something I read earlier today. The late brilliant American inventor John Kanzius, except that instead of prayer he treated himself up with radio waves and took himself off chemotherapy. For a few months in Fall 2008, he felt better, and for a while even his bloodwork showed signs of improvement. Then came the crash. He passed on early this year. I guess the moral of the story is that placebos work, but not for very long.
See, I just pray to Lytton Strachey so I benefit from the intercession of all the Eminent Victorians by proxy, as it were. One must have a method about these things.
Isn’t it all just a bit too convenient? One week you invite disaffected Anglicans to jump ship, and just a week later, an Anglican who did jump ship is on the way to canonization! Quite aside from the idiocy of the whole process – imagine all these people taking this kind of thing with deadly seriousness! – isn’t this just a bit too serendipitous? Quelle cynicism!
Before Cardinal Newman had converted to Roman Catholicism, he claimed the pope was an Anti-christ. Is it not ironic now that the present pope is presently going to make this venerable – once staunch Anglican character, a saint!?
This ‘superstitious’ by nature, character, before he “fell under the influence of the creed” and forsook the bible, in his early life was also a large figure-head in the Oxford Movement to bring the CofE back to its RC roots.
The timing of the miracle is perfectly right, as it will fit in nicely with the popes arrival in Britain to canonise Newman.
The Vatican Media is sending out subliminal messages.
Blimey! If that’s subliminal I’d hate to see them try something unsubtle. Wait, we do see that, all the time, and I do hate it. So that’s alright then.
God’s ambitions have certainly diminished in recent years. He used to go around creating universes, smiting the sinful, murdering thousands, and parting waters. These days it’s just back pains and cripples.
I assume that the Vatican has a lot of kick-ass theologians on the pay-roll and that they go along with Joey Ratz on this. If you pick the right dead person to ask, they’ll get god to sort out your personal problems. Literally. Not as a metaphor or a way of ‘knowing’ but by actually intervening in the physical world. God as an individual who can be petitioned to alter the nature of reality if you ask in the right way.
Did Karen Armstrong miss a memo somewhere?
This is what the church teaches and what believers believe. If that ain’t religion, what is? A warm fuzzy?
William: The modern term for it is ‘downsizing’. It seems that everyone in the Ubniverse (and beyond) is into it these days.
“Did Karen Armstrong miss a memo somewhere?”
Or maybe it was the pope who missed the memo from Karen Armstrong?
One of them must be on the wrong page – at a minimum.
Deacon Jack Sullivan delivered a homily at Westminster Cathedral. See: Independent Catholic News. The beatification ground is being prepared as we speak.
You all know the origin of the term ‘Devil’s Advocate’? His job (technically Promotor Fidei) is exactly to raise all these questions. Checking wiki I see that the role was indeed downsized in 1983 by Pope John Paul II to ‘streamline’ the process. According to wiki he cannonised almost 500 new saints vs. 98 during the prior part of the 20th century.
Perhaps they’re moving in the direction of Claire Ramsey’s comment:
“This is just so silly. If they want to name the guy a saint, why not just employ a speech act: Pope: I am the Pope and I hereby declare you a genuine saint.”
They did summon Hitchens to be advocatus diaboli in the matter of ‘Mother’ Teresa. A bit of ironic humour if nothing else.