Crossroads Podcast: Sainthood And The Struggle To Translate Faith

After 40-plus years on the Godbeat, let me offer this observation: It’s extremely difficult to write about ancient, complex, often mysterious religious beliefs and doctrines in language that is both accurate and easily understandable in the mainstream media.

If you want evidence of that, please listen to this week’s “Crossroads” podcast which focuses on some of the news coverage of the declaration by Pope Leo XIV (sermon text here) that 15-year-old computer whiz Carlo Acutis is officially a Catholic saint.

Consider one very basic fact in this story, one demonstrated by this Associated Press headline: “Pope Leo XIV declares teen computer whiz Carlo Acutis the first millennial saint.” The “first millennial saint” reference appeared in almost every press report. 

Certainly, St. Carlos Acutis is the first member of the millennial generation — people born between 1981 and 1996 — to be canonized through the complex procedures used by Vatican officials. However, as Catholic writer Matthew Hazell noted on X: 

I appreciate that "first millennial saint" makes for good headlines, and I am pleased that Carlo Acutis is being canonised today. But he's not the first as, lest we forget, 19 of the 21 Coptic Martyrs (2015), recognised by the Catholic Church as saints in 2023, were millennials.

If you have forgotten the men who were beheaded by Islamist terrorists on a beach in Libya, then click here for some non-graphic images about that event. In 2023, Pope Francis announced that they would be added to the Roman Martyrology, the book-length calendar of saints and martyrs remembered by Catholics at Mass.

The question: Are these martyrs “saints” in the same sense as men and women who are formally canonized by Rome in a process that is, well, easy for reporters to cover? And is there a difference between a “saint” and a “martyr saint”? This question is relevant in other cases, as suggested by this very recent National Catholic Register headline: “Are the Minneapolis Church Shooting Victims Martyrs?”

But that wasn’t the most important issue in the coverage of St. Carlo Acutis — which I would state this way: What is a saint and why are they important figures in the prayers of ancient Christian churches? 

To dig into that question, consider this pivotal passage in this CNN story: “Carlo Acutis, nicknamed ‘God’s influencer,’ becomes the first ‘millennial’ saint.” I have added some bold type for emphasis:

Acutis’ path to sainthood has been unusually swift. A canonization, which is normally a long and expensive process, can take centuries and requires a forensic examination of a candidate’s life. Normally, two miracles must be attributed to a prospective saint’s intercession. Evidence for these miracles is examined by different teams of medical experts and theologians appointed by the Vatican.

Acutis was beatified (declared “blessed”) in 2020 after his first miracle, when he reportedly healed a Brazilian boy with a birth defect that left him unable to eat normally. The boy was reportedly healed after his mother said she prayed to Acutis to intercede and help heal her son.

The second miracle attributed to Acutis relates to the reported healing of a girl from Costa Rica who had suffered a head trauma after falling from her bicycle in Florence, Italy, where she was studying. Her mother said she prayed for her daughter’s recovery at the tomb of Acutis in Assisi.

Here is the crucial question for CNN and other news organizations: Who healed the children in these two case studies examined by the Vatican?

The CNN report clearly states (pay close attention to the grammar) that Acutis was “beatified … in 2020 after his first miracle, when he reportedly healed a Brazilian boy with a birth defect.” 

In other words, Acutis healed the boy. Right or wrong? 

The small-o orthodox answer, of course, is “wrong.” That CNN sentence will require major repairs, in order to be accurate.

In Christian theology, only God can heal. The key word here is “intercede.” Believers ask the saints to intercede, to pray WITH them, to God for healing or other interventions in their lives and the lives of other people. It is common to hear believers say that they pray “to” a saint, but believers are actually asking a saint to intercede with God, with Jesus Christ, on their behalf. 

The saints, especially St. Mary the Mother of God, offer their prayers with us — as part of the Body of Christ. As one beloved Orthodox prayer states: “You, O Lady, are the glory of those in heaven and the helper of those on earth; you are the hope and succor of those who flee unto you and ask for your holy assistance; you are the fervent intercessor before your Son and our God, for the prayers of a Mother do much to soften the heart of the Master.”

Now, do Christian believers pray directly to God and Jesus? Of course they do and they are urged to do so in all ancient Christian rites and prayers. But they also are urged to seek the intercession of the saints in the heavenly “cloud of witnesses.” 

Note that the CNN story also said: “The boy was reportedly healed after his mother said she prayed to Acutis to intercede and help heal her son.” This leads to a logical question: To intercede with …?” That would be God, of course. The presence of the word “help” also implies that the saint plays a role in healing, but not the main actor.

The bottom line: Why not say that the mother “prayed to Acutis to intercede with God to heal her son.” What’s hard about that? Well, the cynic in me wonders if journalists struggle to include references to God that suggest that God, you know, might be real and active in the real world?

Just asking. Actually, skeptical journalists are only — to be accurate — asked to make this statement of fact: That believers actually believe that God is real. The ancient faiths also believe that there is evidence, in the real world, that God can heal. These are crucial concepts, to say the least, in many religion-news stories.

Yes, this is complex, but essential, material in a news story of this kind. Accuracy is important, yes, even when dealing with ancient beliefs and mysteries.

In the podcast, host Todd Wilken and I talked about some other mysterious and, to some even bizarre, claims about saints. For example, consider this passage in the AP report: 

In October 2006, at age 15, Acutis fell ill with what was quickly diagnosed as acute leukemia. Within days, he was dead. He was entombed in Assisi, which known for its association with another popular saint, St. Francis.

In the years since his death, young Catholics have flocked by the millions to Assisi, where they can see the young Acutis through a glass-sided tomb, dressed in jeans, Nike sneakers and a sweatshirt. He seems as if he’s sleeping, and questions have swirled about how his body was so well preserved, especially since parts of his heart have even toured the world as relics.

In other words, some critics think that Catholic authorities may have managed some kind of trickery here, with pilgrims viewing a kind of holy equivalent of the glass sarcophagus in Moscow that holds the scientifically preserved body of Vladimir Lenin, a saint of atheistic Communism.

It would only take a sentence for AP to note that, for centuries, Christians have insisted that the bodies of some saints are incorrupt — as in miraculously preserved after death, defying normal decomposition. Trust me on this. I have been in the Caves Lavra of the Kyiv Holy Dormition monastery. Do the bodies of many saints look like they are alive? No. Are the bodies THERE, even after centuries? Yes, they are.

While the AP story contains that vague note about questions concerning the body of St. Carlo Acutis, the CNN story goes further.

At his tomb in Assisi, where he’s laid out wearing jeans, Nike sneakers and casual top and which is viewable live through a webcam, a steady stream of young visitors now comes to visit. …

Twelve years and three months after his death, Acutis’ body was exhumed and then placed in a wax covering, which was molded to look like him before his burial and he was then placed in a glass sarcophagus in the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Assisi.

Wait a minute. His entire body — sneakers, jeans and all — is protected by a wax cover of some kind? Or (see the embedded video above) has the church approved having his face covered somehow?

I don’t know. But I do know that these reports — if they were going to raise this subject — needed a few more sentences of accurate commentary to help readers understand this issue.

You think? 

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