Pope canonises Brazil's first saint

The Pope has canonised Brazil's first native-born saint, Galvao, an 18th-century monk who handed out tiny rice pills inscribed with prayers. Brazil is the world's largest Catholic country, home to more than 120 million of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics. Observers there have described the canonisation as "huge". You can watch our slideshow on TimesOnline and see more links on our faith page. This picture shows him speaking to thousands of young Catholics, instructing them to avoid premarital sex, remain faithful once they are married and to promote life from 'its beginning to natural end'.

Everything is bigger in Brazil. Fr Galvao is credited with no fewer than 5,000 miracle cures. How many others in the canonisation queue can claim as many?

But as Tom Hennigan reports in The Times, his visit got off to a shaky start, after officials from the Vatican and the Brazilian government clashed over proposed changes to abortion legislation. Local church leaders have condemned plans to hold a referendum on changing Brazilian abortion laws, which permit a termination only in the case of rape or if the pregnancy threatens the life of the woman. Pope Benedict said that he backed the Church position of excommunicating politicians who voted for legalisation. According to the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper, the Vatican is also pushing to have religious instruction again made obligatory in Brazilian public schools, a change that would require a change to the constitution.

One interesting facet of the visit which has escaped much comment so far however is his meeting with the leading Brazilian Rabbi Henry Sobel. Rabbi Sobel, who earlier this year was arrested in Palm Beach on a shoplifting charge, is well thought of in Brazil because of his interfaith work and his passionate defence of human rights. In a story that has only been reported in Portugese - and I hope my limited Portugese has permitted a correct translation here - it appears that the Pope gave his personal blessing to Rabbi Sobel, and the Rabbi blessed him in return. I understand that this is the first time this has ever happened. And that even John Paul II, known for his philo-Semitism, did not exchange in such benedictional intimacy, if that is the right phrase to use in the circumstances. (If it is not, forgive me, I couldn't resist the pun.)

Nevertheless, despite the badly-needed evidence of interreligious harmony that this offers, the real thrust of the Brazil visit appears to be further expression of the Vatican's growing alarm about the secular challenge - from gay marriage and co-habitation to euthanasia, as well as abortion and contraception. And the clues as to what is behind this lie closer to home, in Italy.

It is from there that Richard Owen, Times Rome Correspondent, writes to say: 'Tomorrow, on Saturday 12 May, when the Pope goes to the shrine of Aparecida before Mass on Sunday inaugurating the Fifth General Conference of the Episcopate of Latin America and the Caribbean, the main event back in Rome will be "Family Day", a mass rally supported by the Church which is intended to assert "traditional values" in the European heartland of the faith.

'Many will applaud this as standing up for what is right in a godless world. But for some in Italy, it is yet more evidence that the Church is increasingly remote from everyday modern life in Europe, let alone Latin America.

'The "Family Day" rally is being organised at St John Lateran by Catholic movements including Communion and Liberation, the Focolari, Azione Cattolica, and Christian Democrat politicians, with the aim of blocking a proposed Italian law (dubbed DICO) which would legalise the rights of couples who live together without getting married (gay or otherwise).

'As Rino Fisichella, the rector of the Lateran University, points out, the Church has the right - "indeed the duty" - to lobby for its views in a democracy, plus "Catholics did not invent the idea that marriage is a union between a man and woman for the purpose of procreation." True: but as I have said before, in practice it is difficult to disentangle the Italian Church from the Vatican - and the tone of both is becoming shrill.

'Take the quite extraordinary article in L'Osservatore Romano the other day accusing the compere of a May Day pop concert - broadcast live on Italian state television - of "terrorism" for having a go at the Church's stand on euthanasia.

'Terrorism? Really? Here's what L'Osservatore Romano said: "Attacking the Church is terrorism. Fuelling blind and irrational fury against someone who always speaks in the name of love is terrorism. It is vile and terrorist to throw stones at the Pope while feeling protected by shouts of approval from an easily excitable crowd".

'This was not much reported outside Italy, either because it left news editors baffled or because it seemed arcane - one of those foreign stories which are so laborious to explain that the average reader loses the thread and gives up (only one British paper made an attempt). But it was symptomatic of a wider Vatican anxiety, even alarm.

'Father Federico Lombardi, the Pope's spokesman, later rowed back, saying that while "disrespectful comments" about the Pope and the Church during the May Day concert were clearly "irresponsible", at the same time "it is right that everyone should act to defuse tensions and recreate the conditions for serene dialogue in our society.....What was an evident act of silliness should not become a tragedy, nor should it be an opportunity to rekindle disproportionate conflicts".

'The pop concert compere, Andrea Rivera, is not exactly a heavyweight commentator: he is a former street busker and comic. He later said he was "sorry" about the furore his statements had sparked off, and said he had had no intention of "offending any individual or religion".

'So what really happened? In off the cuff remarks, Rivera criticised the Church for denying a religious funeral to Piergiorgio Welby, a sufferer from muscular dystrophy who last December persuaded a doctor to remove him from an artificial respirator.   

"The Pope says he doesn't believe in the theory of evolution", Rivera told the pop concert crowd of half a million from a stage next to the Basilica of St John Lateran, the traditional venue for May Day concerts. "I agree, the Church has not evolved. I cannot accept that the Vatican refused a funeral for Welby." By contrast, he said, the Church had authorised religious rituals for the funerals of dictators like Franco and Pinochet.

'Provocative stuff, especially next to St John Lateran. But terrorism? It looks to me as if the Vatican over-reacted because of a climate of anti clericalism: the May Day incident followed death threats against Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, the head of the Italian Bishops Conference and archbishop of Genoa, over his outspoken opposition to proposed legal recognition in Italy for gay couples and co-habitees. He says Mass under police protection nowadays.

'But anti clericalism can only thrive if the Church falls into the trap of provoking it. Monsignor Bagnasco not only spoke out against the draft law giving rights to unmarried and gay couples, he suggested such a step would ultimately lead to the legal acceptance of incest and paedophilia! In the end, it is difficult to say who was more over the top, the pop concert compere or the archbishop.

'One can quite see how it looks from the Apostolic Palace: one minute Mexico votes to legalise abortion and Italy moves toward legalising same sex unions, the next Italian television broadcasts an attack over euthanasia. All this and the groiwng power of evangelical Protestantism in Brazil, with Cardinal Hummes openly asking: "How much longer will Latin America be a Catholic continent?"

'Here in Italy Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the former Secretary of State, says he is very worried by a growing atmosphere of "hostility" towards the Church, and calls for a return to "mutual respect." Quite: but the Church also has to recognise that society has changed - and that intemperate rhetoric makes matters worse.

'Corriere della Sera reported the other day that the number of children born outside marriage in Italy has risen in a decade from 8% of the total to 14%, and the number of single parents has risen from 16% to 23%. You can applaud, or deplore, or shrug, but it is a fact.

'Meanwhile, people leave the Church: the Italian Bishops Conference recently reminded Catholics that the penalty for having oneself "de-baptised" is excommunication - though those de-baptising themselves presumably know this already. The Italian Association for Debaptism, at Fano in Le Marche, says 3000 Italians have informed their parish priest they have been"de-baptised", but the true number is obviously much greater, since not all tell the priest about it. They just stop going to Church.

'Worrying, indeed: but what is the answer? I don't pretend to know - but to lash out at a pop concert compere who favours euthanasia and then have to admit that this was "disproportionate" suggests the Vatican doesn't know either.'

Thank you Richard.

Comments

[Londiniensis]

Heredal, There is a misunderstanding. The miracles accepted by the Church as proofs of sainthood occur after the death of the candidate for canonisation, irrespective of the miracles attributed to him in life, and are rigorously scrutinised. I quote below from a report in the online edition of today's Herald (unfortunately I was not able to track down a Vatican press release).

"However, the miracle that is said to have paved the way for Friar Galvao to be beatified by the late Pope John Paul II in 1998 took place in 1990. At that time a four-year-old girl, who was in a Sao Paulo hospital, suffering from life-threatening liver and kidney problems, was healed after she ingested Galvao's pills, which were produced by an order of nuns in Sao Paulo.

The friar's second miracle - necessary for his canonisation and acknowledged by Benedict XVI in December 2006 - refers to a 37-year- old woman with womb malformations that led to miscarriages. In 1999, the woman was pregnant again. She started to pray to Friar Galvao for her baby's wellbeing, and started to take his pills. Miraculously, in December, she gave birth to a child by Caesarean section."

[heredal]

Thanks Martin, but this just adds to the problem.

Fr Galvao lived from 1739 to 1822. Are we to assume then that he 'cured' this girl whom the doctors of the 17th/18th centuries had deemed incurable? After Galvao's death, the world still had to wait a further 37 years, for example, before Pasteur wrote a paper suggesting that micro-organisms may cause many human and animal diseases, and a further 70 years before Landsteiner discovered the existence of different human blood types.

How much credibility are we then to place on the news that the doctors of the time had deemed this girl incurable, given their lack of knowledge then?

Back in the 18th century, infant mortality rates ranged from 300 or 400 deaths per 1,000 live births, while today that figure is less than seven per 1,000. Life expectancy for adults is now into the high 70s and 80s. These dramatic improvements in the life expectancy of billions on the planet that we have seen from the 19th century onwards are the triumph of science, not of religion, and certainly not of 'miracles' performed by priests.

[Martin]

"the late John Paul II, who had to be dead before he could perform said miracle"

Saints do not perform miracles. Miracles, if authenticated, are regarded as having been granted through the intercession of the saint.

[Martin]

"Friar Galvao's elevation to the sainthood came after the Catholic Church said it had established that he had performed at least two miracles - including healing a young girl whom doctors had deemed incurable."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6647661.stm

The Congregation for the Causes of Saints examines any evidence of sanctity, and authenticates miracles (those cures attributed to the intercession of the person under investigation and which cannot be found to have any natural cause) as well as examining the life and any writings of the examined person.

http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20070511_frei-galvao_it.html

[heredal]

"He has two authenticated miracles, not the reputed 5000."

Martin, please could you tell us what these are and by what process they were "authenticated", by whom, and when.

[Emanuel Appel]

a letter from America

Dear Mr. Boulanger,

It seemed an amazing thing to me that the Virgin Mary or other Christian signs did not appear in the New World until after the Spanish and Portuguese conquests. Did Jesus and his companions only travel aboard sailing ships? If so, did they get a cabin or travel below decks?

What about the millions and millions of Indians that were born and died without baptism? Poor them.

Creating local "saints" was a clever device of a religious empire to promote local loyalty. I see it as creating a Viceroy from one of the locals.

[Martin]

"Tell me that this was not a political move on the Pope's part.
After all the saints created by JP2, they finally get around to a man who is reputed to have done 5,000 miracles.
Incredible!"

Canonisation occurs when the Church has completed the process of investigation. Two miracles which cannot be otherwise explained and which have been thoroughly authenticated are required. Only then is the person declared to have given evidence that they are in heaven. That is what a saint is - saints are not "created" by the Church, they are people whom the Church believes to be in heaven as a result of having lived lives of heroic virtue and of having been responsible, through their intercession, for miracles.

Saint Antonio Galvao would not have been canonised unless this process was complete. He has two authenticated miracles, not the reputed 5000.

[Christopher Gillibrand]

"Really now. Tell me that this was not a political move on the Pope's part.

After all the saints created by JP2, they finally get around to a man who is reputed to have done 5,000 miracles.

Incredible!"

And with a public cult, unlike Pope John Paul II who people seem to have left off calling great.

[heredal]

There is an alleged miracle being investigated for the process of granting sainthood for the late John Paul II, who had to be dead before he could perform said miracle. This has been covered in another thread on this blog. Am I right in thinking that these days only two are required for sainthood, and they have to be investigated by theologians and/or doctors?

Fr Galvao is credited it seems with 5,000 miracles, although I have no information on the split between those performed while he was alive and those while dead, or how these were attested.

John-Paul II seems to be a long way short on sainthood qualifications than Fr Galvao. Times have surely changed.

Ruth, the link you give to Wikipedia doesn't seem to work, and Conservapedia has nothing on Fr Galvao either, as far as I can see.

[Andre Boulanger]

Really now. Tell me that this was not a political move on the Pope's part.
After all the saints created by JP2, they finally get around to a man who is reputed to have done 5,000 miracles.
Incredible!

[Londiniensis]

Perhaps the newly declared Saint Antonio Galvao, who was renowned for healing the sick, will forgive Mr Appel's comment on his canonisation and heal the bitterness in the mind and heart of his fellow South American, so that we may argue different viewpoints in the blogosphere with full freedom but without insult and rancour.

[Emanuel Appel]

a letter from America

Dear Ruth,

Creating Saints is so much easier in Latin America where I was born. The Spanish padres had a very easy time converting Aztecs and Incas since one superstition could easily replace another using the gun and the pike.

The Indian, new world variety, loves theater, bright things,and theater. What, the new saint only performed 5,000 miracles?