Bill Briggs's Blog - Posts Tagged "saint"
Holy Sticker Shock!
What is the price of sainthood?
As high as $1 million.
From long, splashy PR campaigns held in the candidate’s home parishes to legal fees and travel expenses paid to globe-trotting miracle investigators to, ultimately, the gargantuan celebration ceremonies held in St. Peter’s Square, gaining eternal veneration in the Catholic Church is big business.
Even the pope gets a cut. During canonization masses in Vatican City, representatives of the new saint often climb a long flight of stairs to hand an offering to the pontiff – many times, a large check.
All of these costs, and all of these payoffs, have long been accepted pieces of the pageant-like process. But it’s also fair, I think, for the faithful and the skeptical alike to ask: Couldn’t this money be better spent on aiding people in need? Isn’t that one of the core callings of Christianity and other religions – help thy neighbor?
As I disclose in “The Third Miracle,” some sisters at the Saint Mary-of-the-Woods convent and college near Terre Haute, Indiana opposed the century-long sanctification push for their foundress, Mother Theodore Guerin. Many of the dissenters felt the cause was an unwise use of the order’s funds. (The convent’s treasurer refused to reveal to me how much money the sisters had ultimately invested to see their matriarch sainted). But to help pay for Mother Theodore’s campaign, the sisters set up a separate fund into which local parishioners and alumni of college dumped their dollars for decades.
Today, contributions for many sainthood causes are solicited through websites launched to publicize the campaigns. In Wichita, Kansas, modern fans of Father Emil Kapaun are seeking his canonization. Father Kapaun was a U.S. Army Chaplain who served in the Korean War and who was eventually captured. He spent months in a prison camp ministering to other men of many faiths before the priest died of a blood clot in 1951. On the website supporting his sanctification, a line reads: “If you would like to help with this cause for the Canonization of Father Kapaun, please go to the You Can Assist Page to make your donation by Credit Card.” It also notes that donations can be mailed to the chancery office in Wichita.
While researching my book in 2009, I visited the Rome headquarters for the sainthood cause of Pope John Paul II. In a cramped office, a small band of workers sorted envelopes containing urgent prayer requests, tales of miraculous cures and, sometimes, money sent from distant lands.
The team also published bi-monthly issues of Totus Tuus (Latin for “Totally Yours”) – a magazine jammed with articles and photos of the late pontiff’s humanitarian efforts. (Annual subscriptions were priced at $17). In addition, the staff operated a website trumpeting the late pope’s cause.
Funding that nerve center has often been an expensive venture. In 2007, for example, the office exhausted its entire yearly postal budget after the website was bombarded with thousands of requests for John Paul II prayer cards, each embedded with a piece of a white cassock once worn by the pope.
Franciscan Brother Chris Gaffrey, a Totus Tuus translator, told the Catholic News Service in March 2007 that it cost $5 to mail just one prayer card and a copy of the magazine overseas. And without a boost in donations, the office could not meet demands. The comments sparked stern media criticism that the people behind John Paul’s cause were selling relics – something the Catholic Church does not condone. The Diocese of Rome quickly issued statements reassuring all Catholics that the prayer cards were “completely free” and that “relics absolutely cannot be bought or sold because they are sacred objects.” However, the diocese also mentioned: “it is possible for those with the means to make a free-will offering to support the cost of printing and mailing.”
During my tour of that same business hub, I noticed a rectangular piece of paper taped to a closet door. As I leaned closer, I noticed it was a personal check, sent from someone in Macon, Georgia, and made out “direct to the pope.” The amount: $20.
The Third Miracle: An Ordinary Man, a Medical Mystery, and a Trial of Faith
As high as $1 million.
From long, splashy PR campaigns held in the candidate’s home parishes to legal fees and travel expenses paid to globe-trotting miracle investigators to, ultimately, the gargantuan celebration ceremonies held in St. Peter’s Square, gaining eternal veneration in the Catholic Church is big business.
Even the pope gets a cut. During canonization masses in Vatican City, representatives of the new saint often climb a long flight of stairs to hand an offering to the pontiff – many times, a large check.
All of these costs, and all of these payoffs, have long been accepted pieces of the pageant-like process. But it’s also fair, I think, for the faithful and the skeptical alike to ask: Couldn’t this money be better spent on aiding people in need? Isn’t that one of the core callings of Christianity and other religions – help thy neighbor?
As I disclose in “The Third Miracle,” some sisters at the Saint Mary-of-the-Woods convent and college near Terre Haute, Indiana opposed the century-long sanctification push for their foundress, Mother Theodore Guerin. Many of the dissenters felt the cause was an unwise use of the order’s funds. (The convent’s treasurer refused to reveal to me how much money the sisters had ultimately invested to see their matriarch sainted). But to help pay for Mother Theodore’s campaign, the sisters set up a separate fund into which local parishioners and alumni of college dumped their dollars for decades.
Today, contributions for many sainthood causes are solicited through websites launched to publicize the campaigns. In Wichita, Kansas, modern fans of Father Emil Kapaun are seeking his canonization. Father Kapaun was a U.S. Army Chaplain who served in the Korean War and who was eventually captured. He spent months in a prison camp ministering to other men of many faiths before the priest died of a blood clot in 1951. On the website supporting his sanctification, a line reads: “If you would like to help with this cause for the Canonization of Father Kapaun, please go to the You Can Assist Page to make your donation by Credit Card.” It also notes that donations can be mailed to the chancery office in Wichita.
While researching my book in 2009, I visited the Rome headquarters for the sainthood cause of Pope John Paul II. In a cramped office, a small band of workers sorted envelopes containing urgent prayer requests, tales of miraculous cures and, sometimes, money sent from distant lands.
The team also published bi-monthly issues of Totus Tuus (Latin for “Totally Yours”) – a magazine jammed with articles and photos of the late pontiff’s humanitarian efforts. (Annual subscriptions were priced at $17). In addition, the staff operated a website trumpeting the late pope’s cause.
Funding that nerve center has often been an expensive venture. In 2007, for example, the office exhausted its entire yearly postal budget after the website was bombarded with thousands of requests for John Paul II prayer cards, each embedded with a piece of a white cassock once worn by the pope.
Franciscan Brother Chris Gaffrey, a Totus Tuus translator, told the Catholic News Service in March 2007 that it cost $5 to mail just one prayer card and a copy of the magazine overseas. And without a boost in donations, the office could not meet demands. The comments sparked stern media criticism that the people behind John Paul’s cause were selling relics – something the Catholic Church does not condone. The Diocese of Rome quickly issued statements reassuring all Catholics that the prayer cards were “completely free” and that “relics absolutely cannot be bought or sold because they are sacred objects.” However, the diocese also mentioned: “it is possible for those with the means to make a free-will offering to support the cost of printing and mailing.”
During my tour of that same business hub, I noticed a rectangular piece of paper taped to a closet door. As I leaned closer, I noticed it was a personal check, sent from someone in Macon, Georgia, and made out “direct to the pope.” The amount: $20.
The Third Miracle: An Ordinary Man, a Medical Mystery, and a Trial of Faith
