Wednesday, September 07, 2016

Why the rush to make saints?

First it was Karol Wojtyla (aka Pope John Paul II), now it’s Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (aka Mother Theresa).Why does Jorge Bergoglio (aka Pope Francis I) insist on sprinkling saints hither and asking questions later?

We all know that neither Wojtyla (pronounced woy-TEE-wah) nor Bojaxhiu (bo-YAH-joo) will withstand the test of time.

There’s a Rasputin-like murky figure who stowed away evidence of Wojtyla’s hiding pedophile priests in Krakow; that will eventually all come out. Then there’s Bojaxhiu’s little romp with Charles Keating, the 1980s savings-and-loan fraudster whose donations of ill-gotten money she took, then refused to return (perhaps thinking she was paid for the character witness testimony she delivered to a U.S. court on his behalf).

Apparently, there’s more in Bojaxhiu’s dossier, concerning her disregard for needs of poor people in Calcutta and her outrageous celebrity seeking.

There is nothing even remotely redeemable in Wojtyla’s life to warrant putting him up as a model of Christian behavior, even if we dismiss his efforts to avert a scandal he personally did not cause. But Bojaxhiu appears to be downright reprehensible.

Couldn’t the Vatican, which usually thinks in centuries, have waited a tad and investigated more thoroughly?

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