Mother Teresa a saint?

The Popes didn't charge around the world opening shelters for dying children Many who died from poverty

Does anyone know if any 'Saint' has even been 'de sanctified' if there is such a word? I mean in the same way people have been stripped of a knighthood, for example, when their evil was discovered posthumously.

I think , almost sure , a Saint is infallible so couldn't be de whatever

The pope is the infallible one but I'll google it to see if saints can be decanonised.

I think the Pope is considered infallible in matters of faith and doctrine - but that only became formalised in 1870. Several saints have been removed from the calendar for being mythical eg St George. I must admit I find the whole concept of declaring people to be saints rather odd. But then I'm not a Catholic.

Quoting Annie: If your not a R C why does it matter?

Well yes perhaps in the UK where the Roman Catholic Church has little power and is very much a minority. But don't forget that in huge areas of the world, including very poor 3rd world areas- there is no alternative to RC and it still has massive power and influence on the people.

Yes granjura i am aware of the influence and power of the RC church in parts of the word, my words were addressed to posters who were speaking of their views of faith and non belief in saints, I have close friends who are RC and it matters to them

Yes I know the pope is considered infallible. The wife of a former bishop here wrote a book about saints and I think I read in her book that saints were also considered infallible

Being brought up a RC and being educated in a boarding school by nuns I was taught that, yes, the pope is infallible in 'matters of faith and doctrine' . And I was led to believe that everyone who has entered heaven is a saint- but sainthood has to be proved, by miracles. There were also steps on the way to sainthood - one such was to be proclaimed 'blesséd' eg The Blesséd Teresa.

All I can say is and I'm sorry if that offends. I admire those who life their life according to a religious belief, unless that belief includes hatred of other religions or non- religions, in which case I'd say that religion is the cause of many of the ills that beset the world.

I am not sure about any saints being de-canonized but I'm sure some have been 'demoted'.
Wasn't St Francis of Assisi demoted? Could be wrong.

Sorry, not St Francis, it was St Christopher - on the grounds that he may not have actually existed, which seems a fair enough reason!

abcnews.go.com/International/saint-saint-kind-demoted/story?id=23477573

Anya - your words resonate with me and ditto, I was brought up a RC, went to a strict convent, not a boarding school, but nevertheless taught by nuns, who even then struck me, bar one, as pretty uncharitable people who didn't embody the spirit of Christianity at all. I have read about Mother Teresa, and some of her very questionable practices, but to be fair we didn't know about all of that then. I'm sure that the nature of the RC religion has changed somewhat given all the scandals uncovered, but at the time I was at school you were expected not to question anything. Reading about the Spanish Inquisition, the Borgias in my teens and then later on coming to terms with the the corrupt nature of the inner workings of the church was my undoing. Although I still consider myself a believer of sorts, once a Catholic some of it stays with you.

Being brought up a strict Catholic 50 or so years ago, is something you would have had to live to understand how it was for many of us, a blind faith was expected, no discussion, no dissent whatsoever. We probably could have done with Richard Dawkins back then. I think those who don't have a religion imposed upon them but hold their religious beliefs having made an "informed choice" possibly their perspective is somewhat different.

Ditto for me TerriBull it's amazing how little was allowed by way of discussion back then.

St Francis was denoted but not de sanctified

Meant St Christopher

TerriBull, that could have been my post.

I was fortunate having parents who were both Christians but encouraged me to question from a young age. A child's view of nuns who are teachers are no different to views of children who attended not faith school . I think nuns are judged unfairly, no use comparing how people acted over fifty years ago with now

On the matter of infallibility only popes are empowered with it and from what I recall being taught they make dogmatic pronouncements ex cathedra (from a particular chair). I presume this still prevails.

I'm not a believer, and was not brought up a Catholic, so I might have this wrong, but my understanding is that canonisation is not like a religious Oscar for good works.

Canonisation a belief that God singled out this individual for special Godly-doings and had a hotline to God in order to do this work, to which they responded. That's where the miracles come in - without the hotline, miracles would not occur.

So no one is 'elevated' to sainthood - they were a saint all along, and the Church just reveals the truth of it.

Some people may do wondrous works, but they are 'Blessed' rather than actually canonised.

Catholics and ex-Catholics, feel free to correct me.

As for Hitchins, he was an excellent writer, thinker and debunker. He softened a wee bit as he got closer to death, acknowledging that many of the people who said they'd be praying for him were wasting their time, but meant well.

anniebach ditto re St Francis and St Christopher

I am just wondering if it affected the sales of all those St Christopher medallions worn by apprehensive travellers.
Every action has an opposite and equal reaction.

It requires one 'miracle' for beatification and two for canonization I think.
MT was beatified several years ago and they have presumably been searching for another 'miracle' since then.

However, being made a canon of the cathedral does not involve 'being canonized'!
Confusing.

Are there canons in the RC Church?

Whilst I take your point AB, that nuns were teachers and any person who attended a non secular school half a century or more ago would levy the same charge of uncharitable behaviour against lay teachers. However, in my opinion the behaviour of some nuns and priests went further than just a sharp tongue. We now know what has been uncovered in Ireland, the story of Philomena, The Magdalene sisters and the enforced labour of unmarried mothers in laundries and the like, not to mention the enforced adoption of babies born to unmarried mothers and then more recently the uncovering of mass graves of babies in rural Ireland, can't remember the name of the place. The misery some immigrant Catholic children suffered in places such as Australia and Canada where they were sent, it's all well documented.

My personal experience of nuns is that they were fairly unpleasant, frustrated and uncharitable people who didn't particularly care for the children they were supposed to be teaching. I can only speak for myself. I went to a Sacred Heart convent, but believe me there didn't appear to be anything sacred about the nuns and they had very little heart. They took in a quota of us from my state Catholic junior school, I believe they had an arrangement with the parish priest whereby they waived the fees for us in exchange for some financial propping up from the parish funds. All the other pupils were fee payers, the majority were non Catholics, and believe me, whilst the nuns liked their money, they sure as hell slagged them off behind their backs whenever the opportunity presented itself such as the times the Catholic contingent were being herded off to hear mass on saints days "the prods" were no sooner down the corridor when we were being urged to pray for their protestant souls to save them from eternal damnation and were also told never, never enter one of their churches because God almighty won't be there, non Catholic churches allegedly were godless places The nuns duplicitous nature however didn't preclude them from simultaneously sucking up to the "proddy godless fee payers" by telling them they had excellent breeding, and we the lowly state school kids didn't have any breeding apparently. Clearly we were the spawn of Frankenstein, but at least we were Catholic trash! There was a third highly elevated species at our convent. Catholics who paid fees, thus deeming them non trash, not only did they have excellent breeding but their souls were not sullied by entering "godless churches" on Sundays. It just couldn't get any better than that. Loads of grovelling and sucking up to their parents, until the unexpected happened and one set of parents from that category got divorced which demoted their offspring into sort of unspecified limbo land and she was viewed by the lovely nuns as a deviant once her circumstances became common knowledge. All in all this was typical of the drivel they delivered on a daily basis.

I'd like to think that sort of person isn't teaching children anymore, I have no idea, I'll take your word for it things have improved.

Wow, terribull, your own schooling does sound pretty awful. I don't remember our order being that bad. They were mainly French with a couple of Irish nuns. The latter were the least likeable. Yes I do remember our being asked to pray for the poor non Catholic girls, but that was just the thinking of the time. Sunday Mass, too, always ended with a prayer for the conversion of England ! The RC church has given up on that one nowadays! Again, just a reflection of times when, too, females were second class citizens and social mores very different.

I do understand TerriBull, what we don't allow for is the fact they were of their time, parents put their pregnant daughters into those homes. The nuns themselves had parents yes? What is a pity is no nun from that time can write a book. The babies in those homes had grandparents , quite possibly g grandparents , did they treat the unmarried mother and baby any more kindly ? We can go back and say how cruel witch hunts were. We can't seem able to accept people within their time .

Was their church wrong? Yes, but many condemned were victims too