NEWS FEATURE: Saints’ popularity diminishing among younger Catholics

c. 1999 Religion News Service STUART, Fla. _ When Peggy Meissner wanted to sell her home here, she buried a small statue of St. Joseph in the yard and prayed for his assistance. She says it worked. Whenever Dan Hadlock, also of Stuart, finds himself in a bind, he shoots a prayer off to St. […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

STUART, Fla. _ When Peggy Meissner wanted to sell her home here, she buried a small statue of St. Joseph in the yard and prayed for his assistance. She says it worked.

Whenever Dan Hadlock, also of Stuart, finds himself in a bind, he shoots a prayer off to St. Jude. He’s so grateful for Jude’s assistance, his son’s middle name is Jude, in honor of the first century martyr.


And before the Rev. Robert Magee, pastor of St. Martin de Porres Catholic Church in Jensen Beach, Fla., goes to bed each night, he prays to”The Little Flower,”St. Teresa of Lisieux, for guidance and the hope that they may one day together worship God.

The devotion to saints has long been a trademark of the Roman Catholic Church. For believers like Meissner, Hadlock, Magee and millions of other U.S. Catholics, the saints of long ago are an integral part of their faith. While they do not replace God, they are, Meissner said,”friends in high places.””We keep all of them busy, the angels and saints, but it’s wonderful God gives us all of these helps,”said Meissner, who attends daily Mass at St.

Joseph Catholic Church in Stuart.

The Catholic church has ushered in a flurry of new saints in the waning years of the 20th century. Pope John Paul II has beatified or canonized more saints than all of his 20th century predecessors combined. He’s committed to recognizing as many modern would-be saints as possible from all corners of the globe.

Just months after Mother Teresa’s death in 1997, John Paul II waived the traditional five-year waiting period before sainthood could be considered for the Calcutta nun. Other popular (and controversial) canonization campaigns involve Pope Pius XII, the pope during World War II, and Dorothy Day, the American-born Catholic convert who helped found the Catholic Worker movement.

But even as the ranks of saints increase, a new study expected to be released next year says the country’s younger Catholics _ those under age 40 _ feel little attachment to the saints who their tradition says intercede on their behalf with God.

As the Catholic church prepares to enter its third millennium, some say adding saints will mean little if they are insignificant to the parishioners in the pews.

In the Catholic church, saints are just about everywhere. Churches, schools and even cities have been named after them. Books about them occupy the top of Catholic best-seller lists and campaigns to canonize would-be saints have rallied millions of faithful to their cause.


In contrast, Protestant churches generally shun paying homage to saints, except for pockets with the Lutheran and Anglican-Episcopal traditions that honor some saints, but do not ask for their intercession in the way Catholics do. The Catholic prominence given to the saints was one of the fissures that led to the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.

Orthodox Christians, on the other hand, venerate the saints as mediators between humans and God in much the same way as do Catholics.

According to Catholic doctrine, saints are those whose lives were lived or sacrificed entirely for God. Their special devotion and connection to God has earned them a special place in heaven where they can intercede for the requests of humans.

Sainthood is anything but automatic. Generally, at least five years must pass after a person’s death before he or she can be considered for sainthood (unless a pope decides otherwise, as with Mother Teresa). Once nominated, church leaders”investigate”the person’s life and examine his or her”heroic exercise of virtue.”The would-be saint must be credited with at least one miracle after death for another Vatican panel to offer the candidate for”beatification,”the penultimate step before sainthood.

The candidate must be credited with another miracle, unless he or she was martyred, to become an official saint of the church. The pope makes the ultimate decision on who will or will not be a saint.

Once officially recognized by the church, saints often develop groups of followers and admirers. There are patron saints for just about everything _ grave diggers (Anthony the Abbot), cab drivers (Fiacre), lost items (Anthony of Padua) and even ice skaters (Lidwina).


The idea of a patron saint for anything and everything does not devalue their importance, Catholics say. Rather, the idea is to create a connection with as many people as possible and strengthen their faith.”It establishes a real bond between those two people,”said the Rev. John Pallard, director of evangelization for the Diocese of Palm Beach, Fla.”That’s a special relationship, and it doesn’t mean that God’s out of the picture or left aside. And it doesn’t cheapen the relationship.” Some of the most popular books within the Catholic publishing industry are books by and about saints, said Jay McKee, marketing director for New Jersey-based Catholic Book Publishing Co.”People are seeing and hearing more and more about modern saints within our lifetime who they can identify with,”he said.

Meissner, the 76-year-old Stuart woman who believes a buried statue of St. Joseph helped her sell her house, is a member of the older, more traditional generation of American Catholics whose religious identities pre-date Vatican II _ a watershed event that forever altered the modern Catholic church.

The Vatican conference, held from 1962-1965, made the church more open by, among other things, increasing the role of the laity and changing the Mass from Latin to the native vernacular. Prior to Vatican II, saints played a much larger role in the life of the church.

But for the generation that came of age after Vatican II, the attention given to saints (and even statues of them) has noticeably declined. Like the rosary and the Latin Mass, saints were pushed down a peg or two by Vatican II.”Generally, there’s been a decline in the role that the saints play in people’s sense of spirituality,”said William Dinges, an assistant professor of religion at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

Dinges and a team of researchers have spent the past three years surveying young Catholics about how they relate to the modern Catholic church. They expect their findings to be released in a book next year.

Part of their research indicates that increasingly fewer younger Catholics feel a connection to the saints. Dinges said he’s not sure what that means for the future of the church, but he’s worried that the virtuous examples found in the lives of the saints are not being applied to the lives of younger Catholics.”Part of the vitality of a tradition is its ability to reappropriate itself for a new generation,”Dinges said.”There are things that are virtuous and heroic that we need to transform into our own culture.” It’s a concern shared by several members of the clergy. The Rev. Jack Barrow, pastor of St. Andrew Catholic Church in Port Salerno, Fla., said society has become so dominated by movie stars and sports heroes that it’s no wonder people pay little attention to the lives of long-dead clerics and martyrs.”Our heroes today are heroes that are in society,”Barrow said.”We’re not concentrating on the moral issues but people who have made it financially. The most important thing to us is money, and those who make the most money are the people we pay attention to.” Church leaders say part of the reason for the influx of new saints by Pope John Paul II is his desire for modern Catholics to be able to connect with modern saints. The inability of younger Catholics to identify with ancient saints is not surprising in a culture dominated by Hollywood, not 14th century virgin martyrs, Barrow says.


(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

For religious traditions where the saints have always figured prominently, a declining lack of interest is a troubling trend for religious leaders such as the Rev. Michael Sopoliga.

Sopoliga is the pastor of Sts. Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Church in Fort Pierce, Fla. In the Byzantine rite _ Catholics who share allegiance to and sacraments with the Vatican but celebrate a 4th century liturgy _ saints always have played a large role.

Sopoliga’s church is adorned with portraits and icons of the saints. He said he understands the lost connection, but said it would be a mistake for younger Catholics to forget their saintly heritage.”Let’s be honest, if the saints could have a hit single on MTV, they’d be popular with that age group,”he said.”To ignore them or say they’re irrelevant would be a big mistake.”IR END ECKSTROM

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