"British Museum finds relics of 39 saints after 100 years"

Toooooo Coooool:

The new medieval gallery at the British Museum is full of beautiful images of saints in ivory, stone, gold and wood - but invisible to visitors, it also holds the bones of 39 real saints, whose discovery came as a shock to their curator.

The relics, packed in tiny bundles of cloth including one scrap of fabric over 1,000 years old, were found when a 12th-century German portable altar was opened for the first time since it came into the British Museum collection in 1902.

... at some point one [of the relics] was lost as there are 40 engraved names but only 39 saintly bundles.

[Full text & video at the UK Guardian.]

Oh no! There's a rogue relic floating around out there!

Find information on every Saint and Blessed in one place!

A friend of mine was closely involved with this project. From the press release:

For the first time ever, the Vatican’s official list of saints is available online. eCatholicHub.net has created a searchable database of saints and blesseds based on the Roman Martyrology, the Vatican’s saint list. The database comprises 6,882 entries of men and women recognized for their sanctity by the Catholic Church.

While several saint databases are available online, none have the authoritative scope of the Roman Martyrology like the eCatholicHub database. The eCatholicHub database does not leave out any saint or blessed, making it the most comprehensive source for saint information on the Internet.

Mark Giszczak, a graduate student at Catholic University of America, teamed up with Jim Zapapas, a Denver database programmer, to create the database.

Check it out: http://www.ecatholichub.net/study/saints

They also have an extremely powerful way of searching the database, which is useful.

Here is a sample saint profile.

Confirmed: Pope approves 'heroic virtues' of Knights of Columbus founder

From the Canadian Press, Vatican City press office:

Pope Benedict on Saturday set the founder of the Knights of Columbus, one of the world's largest lay Catholic groups, on the path to possible beatification and sainthood, the Vatican said.

The Pope recognized the "heroic virtues" of reverend Michael McGivney, who in 1882 created a fraternal society for Catholic men who suffered discrimination because of their religion and immigrant origins.

...

The effort to canonize him was opened in 1997. That process received important support last year, when the Vatican's No. 2 official, Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, celebrated mass at the Knights of Columbus annual meeting in Tennessee and said he would work to have the priest declared a saint.

update: the Hartford Courant has more. The KofC have issued a press release and a news release with the reminder that Father McGivney would be the first American born priest to be declared a saint.

The KofC has a website dedicated to Father McGivney info, including a page on his sainthood cause:

... Only one who has lived the Christian life in an extraordinary manner, who has manifested "heroic virtue," can be seriously considered for canonization.

The Holy Father looks to a sign from God as confirmation of God's positive judgment concerning beatification or canonization. Miracles are a positive sign that God indeed confirms the decision of the Church.

The chief postulator of Father McGivney’s cause for canonization is the Dominican priest Fr. Gabriel O'Donnell, O.P., who serves as my Academic Dean at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception.

update 2: from the Vatican Bulletino (March 17):

"The Holy Father today received in private audience Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins C.M.F., prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and authorised the promulgation of decrees concerning the following causes ... Servant of God Michael McGivney, American diocesan priest and founder of the Knights of Columbus (1852-1890).

Breaking: Cardinal John Henry Newman to be Beatified soon!

update: Looks like the reporter jumped the gun and plans to beatify Cardinal Newman are not imminent.

Damian Thompson of the UK Telegraph reports:

"Cardinal John Henry Newman is about to be beatified, the Vatican has announced. This is news that will be greeted with joy by the whole English Catholic community – and everyone who admires this greatest of all Anglican converts to Rome."

Read the rest.

More on Newman at his extensive Wiki page.

Updating link to related news items.

Huzzah!

One to watch: 6-year-old "Nennolina" advances towards sainthood

CNA reports:

An Italian girl who died of cancer at the age of six and a half could soon become one of the youngest saints canonized in recent years.

On Monday Pope Benedict XVI signed papers confirming the “heroic virtues” of Antonietta Meo, who was born in Rome in 1930.

According to Vatican Radio, Meo, nicknamed “Nennolinia,” was a cheerful girl who was diagnosed with bone cancer at the age of five and as a result had to have a leg amputated. She accepted her fate and, wearing a heavy prosthetic leg, continued to play with the other children at her kindergarten.

She wrote many prayers in the form of letters which, according to Vatican experts, reveal a “truly extraordinary life of mystical union” with God. In one of the letters she wrote: “Dear baby Jesus, you are holy, you are good. Help me, grant me your grace and give me back my leg. If you don't want to, then may your will be done.”

Meo died on July 3, 1937.

Church authorities are generally cautious about proclaiming young children saints. But in 1981 the head of the Vatican Congregation for Saints said “'It is possible to speak of a human being being precocious in their sense of good and evil.”

... If canonized, Antonietta Meo would be the youngest canonized saint who did not die as a martyr.

Call it a hunch, but I think she has a really good chance of rapidly becoming beatified and sainted.

Fr. Z. has a short post on her, and there is a Nennolina website (in English here).

Vultus Christi has the text of what Pope Benedict recently said of her, including: "I hope that her cause of beatification may be brought quickly to a happy conclusion." Read the full text here.

St. Gabriel Possenti: "Patron Saint of Handgunners"

No, I'm not kidding. Or at least, these folks aren't.

From the St. Gabriel Possenti Society website:

The St. Gabriel Possenti Society promotes the public recognition of St. Gabriel Possenti, including his Vatican designation as Patron Saint of Handgunners.

St. Gabriel Possenti was a Catholic seminarian whose marksmanship and proficiency with handguns single-handedly saved the village of Isola, Italy from a band of 20 terrorists in 1860.

The Possenti Society offers a variety of materials related to St. Gabriel Possenti and a biblical understanding of self-defense.

So why the pistol and lizard in their emblem? Well, the story goes:

In 1860, a band of soldiers from the army of Garibaldi entered the mountain village of Isola, Italy. They began to burn and pillage the town, terrorizing its inhabitants.

Possenti, with his seminary rector's permission, walked into the center of town, unarmed, to face the terrorists. One of the soldiers was dragging off a young woman he intended to rape when he saw Possenti and made a snickering remark about such a young monk being all alone.

Possenti quickly grabbed the soldier's revolver from his belt and ordered the marauder to release the woman. The startled soldier complied, as Possenti grabbed the revolver of another soldier who came by. Hearing the commotion, the rest of the soldiers came running in Possenti's direction, determined to overcome the rebellious monk.

At that moment a small lizard ran across the road between Possenti and the soldiers. When the lizard briefly paused, Possenti took careful aim and struck the lizard with one shot. Turning his two handguns on the approaching soldiers, Possenti commanded them to drop their weapons. Having seen his handiwork with a pistol, the soldiers complied. Possenti ordered them to put out the fires they had set, and upon finishing, marched the whole lot out of town, ordering them never to return. The grateful townspeople escorted Possenti in triumphant procession back to the seminary, thereafter referring to him as "the Savior of Isola".

Aspiring Catholic movie makers, I think you've found your plot. (But read on....)

If you want to understand the society a bit better, a look at their links page reveals a list of resources on Saint Gabriel Possenti ... as well as "Firearm links." You can also buy St. Gabriel Possenti tokens and the founder of the society exhibits materials (including the Saint's biography entitled "Gun Saint") at NRA meetings. The "What you can do" page recommends distributing the tokens at "gun shows and in gun stores" or "deposit[ing] them in church collection baskets."

Most recently, the interdenominational society presented an award to the woman who fired upon a "madman" who killed two worshippers at New Life Chuch in Colorado Springs last week.

Personally, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the petition to designate St. Gabriel Possenti the "Patron Saint of Handgunners" to get approved.

As for the legend of St. Gabriel's gunslinging ways, it appears to be just that.

The Wikipedia author, for instance, is very skeptical (and cites sources):

A campaign is under way in the United States to have Saint Gabriel declared patron of hand-gunners. This is in reference to an apocryphal story which has the saint rescuing the town of Isola from marauding bandits, using the skills from hunting he had learnt as a boy. Whilst this story is mentioned in one biography of the saint,[15] the author admits that some of the accounts in his book were invented to “enliven” the story.[16] No account of the alleged event is present in another independently researched biography of the saint[17][18][19][20], in particular early sources of the saint’s life[21][22][23] making such an incident seem unlikely. Moreover at the time of the alleged incident (1860) Gabriel was in the later stages of tuberculosis making such a strenuous exercise impossible for one in such a condition.[24]

His Catholic Encyclopedia entry makes no mention of the tale.

Fr. Robert F. McNamara reproduces the story but adds:

"Recently, some pistol fans have asked the present pope to name St. Gabriel Possenti the patron saint of pistol-bearers. The Passionists have rightly rejected such a thought. Even if Gabriel knew how to use a gun in self-defense, he would surely have deplored showing any fondness for a weapon that has been used to assassinate Pope John Paul II and many other victims of modern terrorism."

The God, Guns & Glory blog isn't so discerning.

Catholic Enyclopedia notes:

It is the express wish of Leo XIII and Pius X that he should be regarded as the chief patron of the youth of today, and especially as the patron of young religious, both novices and professed, in all that concerns their interior lives.

... for reasons other than his excellent markmenship, I'd wager.

Still, we can certainly pray to St. Gabriel Possenti for gun safety.

(And maybe for success in lizard hunting?)

[photo 1: St. Gabriel Possenti Society.]
[photo 2: The Shot. Copyright by John Michael Snyder.]

St. Gianna Beretta Molla's second miracle

Fr. Z presents the article he wrote (if you don't see it immediatly, scrolling down to the bottom).

I had the honor of attending St. Gianna Beretta Molla's canonization Mass with JP2 in May 2004.