The first millennial to be canonized
The BBC solemnly informs us that a teenager is going to “become a saint.”
Carlo Acutis died in 2006, at the age of 15, meaning he would be the first millennial – a person born in the early 1980s to late 1990s – to be canonised. It follows Pope Francis attributing a second miracle to him. It involved the healing of [a] university student in Florence who had bleeding on the brain after suffering head trauma.
So why did Carlo Acutis die? If he can heal a university student in Florence why can’t he cure himself?
Carlo Acutis had been beatified – the first step towards sainthood – in 2020, after he was attributed with his first miracle – healing a Brazilian child of a congenital disease affecting his pancreas.
Two! He’s a two-miracles guy! So why couldn’t he heal himself, if only so that he could heal more people? Seems only sensible.
The second miracle was approved by the Pope following a meeting with the Vatican’s saint-making department.
Ah yes the saint-making department, right next door to the water into wine department and across from the covering up priestly child abuse department.
Miracles are typically investigated and assessed over a period of several months, with a person being eligible for sainthood after they have two to their name.
Oh good. Good good. That’s very reassuring. No rushing into things here, it’s all very deliberate and careful. I’m impressed.
H/t Acolyte of Sagan
Last week I came across the droll headline: Vatican Tightens Rules on Supernatural Phenomena. It seems they are looking slightly more skeptically (less gullibly?) at statues that weep and portraits of Jesus appearing on toast being miraculous. The church has backed off some of the nonsense the nuns tried to put in my head, limbo no longer exists for example. But they persist with some wacky stuff. Transsubstantiation? Still makes me chuckle.
I thought you needed three miracles? Or is this the result of cheating for Mother Teresa?
I always wonder about, well, many things, but also: “Oh, please, dead-person-who-is-not-a-saint-but-might-become-one-someday, help me, and I’ll do you a solid by adding this incident to your resume of miracles! You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours, what do you say?” Or perhaps it’s: “This situation is hopeless, so I’m not going to pray to God or some saint or beatified person and give them a black eye, I’ll just pray to this pathetic non-entity, so it will be no big deal when nothing happens.”
I’m listening to The Rest is History podcast back catalogue (no spoilers please!). They talk about the origin of Blood Libel being with an English Cathedral that really wanted a saint of its own to attract pilgrims – basically tourists you can fleece of funds really. Their opportunity came when a young local boy disappeared. Blame the Jews and claim miracles. Two hits with one stroke. It was so successful another Cathedral in England followed suit with the same playbook a bit later. The whole thing is such a scam. You can understand that hundreds of years ago people looked at things they didn’t understand and attributed it to divine intervention, but these days…
Contrast that with the discovery by the JWST of a very old, isolated, quiescent dwarf galaxy. The cosmological models couldn’t account for this. The scientists didn’t run around screaming ‘miracle’. They said ‘This shows us there is stuff we don’t know and can’t account for. We need to learn more to improve our understanding.” That’s how it’s done. They could have said ‘hey, in an infinite universe weird shit happens’ and most of us would have shrugged and nodded our heads.
What kind of Master Plan of the All-Knowing, All-Seeing, All-Powerful Creator of the Universe is so slap-dash that it needs the constant tweaking of saints to keep it on track? I mean really, did God mean to cause that brain-bleed, or not?
Because God wanted him as a Saint, of course!!
Hahahaha “Vatican Tightens Rules on Supernatural Phenomena” – that’s hilarious.
Bernadette Soubirous, the nun whose visions of the Blessed Virgin started the whole Lourdes thing, died of tuberculosis at age 35. So, fat lot of good the Virgin did her. I also point out that one person who doesn’t make a pilgrimage to Lourdes when he gets sick is the pope.
Assuming he really believed in the Catholic version of heaven, why wouldn’t he want to die ASAP and get his halo and harp? I realize that Christians aren’t supposed to commit suicide, but short of that, if they really do believe they’ve led a good life (as defined by whatever church they belong to), shouldn’t they welcome death?
Seriously. Which is it? Heaven is glorious and you get to hang out with The Big Man also we do miracles to delay your trip to glorious Heaven. Make it make sense.
So much about heaven doesn’t make sense. I mean, you hear people saying they’re going to be with their families when they get there. Well, ok, but which families? I mean, suppose you want to spend eternity hanging out with your parents, who want to spend eternity with their parents, who… etc.? Though I guess there’s time to visit.
But then what happens if one of your loved ones doesn’t make the cut? What if your child who fell victim to depression and killed herself is condemned to eternal punishment? Wouldn’t you miss her? Would you really want to go through eternity knowing she’s suffering? Wouldn’t that take away from the joy you’re supposed to feel?
And what if your abusive spouse or parent or the kid that bullied you in eighth grade is up there with you? Would you really want to be in the same place as them forever more, even if they had repented?
I’ll skip that eternity, thanks. I’d rather hang out in Valhalla eating boar and getting drunk, or come back as a worm, or just stop existing.
Any Christians who believe they will go to Heaven haven’t read the final book of the Bible. Revelations clearly states that Heaven is strictly for the boss and his angelic hordes. When mortals die they are essentially put on standby mode until the morning of the post-Apocolypse Day of Judgement when they will rise from their graves to face God.* Those who pass the test then get to live forever under the rule of Christ in his kingdom, which will be on Earth. The rest will undergo a second death for 1000 years, at which time they will again rise and be given a second chance to pledge loyalty to the boss. If they fail again they undergo a final, permanent death. The lakes of fire are for Satan and his demons.
* Which is why Christians are buried facing east. Early Christian leaders equated the sun with God to make converting sun-worshipping pagans easier, and so the dead are buried in such a way that they will rise facing God as he appears over the horizon.
It’d be nice if they would just admit there’s no such thing as miracles.
My mother was never a particularly religious person, but she once said “if there aren’t birds in heaven, I don’t want to go.”
How does that saying go?
Heaven for the climate, hell for the company?
WaM, I intend to spend eternity as a bunch of atoms, all of which were once part of me, but which all now exist in perpetuity in the universe, sometimes taking up residence in good people, sometimes in bad people, sometimes in religious people, sometimes in atheists, and sometimes, because atoms make up everything, in rocks and hippos and, yes, otters.
iknklast,
Many, perhaps most, of the atoms that have made up my body in the past have already passed on to other places such as you describe. When I die, “I”, by which I mean this complex chemical reaction (or sets of reaction) that has (have) given rise to the illusion of continuity from a very early stage of my life, will cease to exist in any meaningful sense.
Which is really too bad, because Valhalla sounds like it could be a fun place.
I am immortal.
Heaven doesn’t want me, and Hell’s afraid I’ll take over.
Also, after recently listening to “Old Harry’s Game” I quite like the idea of spending eternity with Gary.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008m4f8
‘Old Harry’s Game’s is utterly brilliant, as is another Andy Hamilton radio comedy, ‘Revolting People’, a hilarious take on life in Baltimore just prior to and during the American Revolutionary War.
Does anyone else recall the song “Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven, But Nobody Wants To Die?”
Julia F, I know that the Blues artist, Albert King, recorded a version of it. I haven’t heard it for years.
I’ve always been disappointed that “canonization” doesn’t involve firing the newly-minted saint’s remains from an artillery piece. It would be a real crowd-pleaser I’m sure.