In his Friday feature column, John Allen points to questions being raised about a figure scheduled for beatification:
Declaring someone a saint, in Catholic theology, has never meant that he or she lived a perfect life, a point that applies with special force to martyrs. Even great sinners, the church believes, are redeemed by shedding their blood for the faith.
In principle, therefore, the discovery that a martyr has skeletons in the closet does nothing to weaken the value of his or her sacrifice. Yet in practice it can raise hard questions — if not about the sanctity of their death, then the wisdom of publicly applauding their lives. Such may be the case with one of the 498 martyrs of the Spanish Civil War set for beatification in Rome on Oct. 28: Augustinian Fr. Gabino Olaso Zabala, who was among 98 Augustinian priests and seminarians executed by Republican forces from 1936 to 1939.
In a nutshell, the charge is that during a much earlier period in his life, when he was a young missionary in the Philippines, Olaso was guilty of torture.
Gosh, didn’t Saul of Tarsus hold the coat of one of the people stoning St. Stephen to death? Didn’t Saul hunt down, persecute and torture the young Christian community in Palestine? I think he did. Yet, he lived many years thereafter and died a martyr as Paul.
Assuming the accusation against him is in all ways exactly accurate, couldn’t this young priest in question have been to confession at least once in all the intervening years?
Actually, I get a great deal of comfort from contemplating the sins of the saints. Not that I don’t admire them the most for overcoming them. Bad-tempered, stubborn, old St. Jerome for me!
As a Filipino Catholic, I support this beatification! Whatever crimes he may have committed in my country, were washed away by the shedding of his blood for Christ. That is what truly matters.
I personally think that the Philippine Church should vocally support this beatification. It will be a beautiful sign of reconciliation between the Philippines and Spain. The Philippine Revolution took place some 111 years ago; it is time to move on!
My reaction was similar to Marianne’s. The point is to show the greatness of God’s grace in the person who sinned back in the day prior to the saintly act or habits and that is shown better sometimes in the not always good people. The point is not always to show how great the person was but how great God is in him or her. The always virtuous saints like Aquinas and Teresa of Lisieux have always been juxtaposed with the saints that had checkered pasts…Augustine and Jerome. Allen seems unaware too that the condemnation of torture is recent (Vatican II and Splendor of the Truth) and not as complete as people think according to an essay by Father Brian Harrison at the Roman Forum on line.:
http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt119.html
This is a tempest in a teapot and John Allen should be ashamed for retailing this. Those raising it are grinding axes, they have to be griding axes because, anyone who knows anything about saints knows that beatification and canonization do not in any way say the person never sinned; and for all the reasons and examples noted above.
This is being raised simply to try to discredit the Church in her process of canonizing saints. Don’t feed the trolls, Amy.
But remember that the book is by an Episcopalian. Feel free to doubt!
I’m actually thankful that John Allen broke this story before the secular press did, and that he did so in a manner that was fair and balanced.