{"id":122298,"date":"2020-11-28T21:13:11","date_gmt":"2020-11-28T18:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/carlo-acutis-rushed-to-sainthood-while-others-wait-centuries\/"},"modified":"2020-11-28T21:13:11","modified_gmt":"2020-11-28T18:13:11","slug":"carlo-acutis-rushed-to-sainthood-while-others-wait-centuries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/carlo-acutis-rushed-to-sainthood-while-others-wait-centuries\/","title":{"rendered":"#Carlo Acutis rushed to sainthood while others wait centuries"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Carlo Acutis rushed to sainthood while others wait centuries<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n Last month, 41,000 Catholics flocked to the ancient Italian city of Assisi to view the body of a curly-haired teenager dressed in a tracksuit and Nike sneakers.<\/p>\n

Carlo Acutis was just 15 when he died of leukemia in 2006. His fervent faith inspired him to create websites cataloging Catholic miracles and to minister to the homeless and hungry in his native Milan.<\/p>\n

After his beatification this year, Acutis, dubbed \u201cthe Millennial Saint\u201d and \u201cthe patron of the Internet,\u201d is a single step away from canonization<\/a> \u2014 one of the youngest Catholics ever, and the first member of his generation, to reach this sacred stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe gives me this hope that our time is just as good as any other to be holy,\u201d Emmanuelle Rebeix, 23, told Catholic News Agency<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Kansas-born Emil Kapaun, who died at 35 in a brutal North Korean prisoner-of-war camp in 1951, is also regarded as worthy of sainthood \u2014 but his cause remains stuck on a complicated path since 1993, when he achieved the first step toward canonization.<\/p>\n

A humble parish priest before he became a US Army chaplain, Kapaun\u2019s heroic efforts to protect and minister to the troops, regardless of their faith, earned him a posthumous Medal of Honor and a place in the Pentagon\u2019s Hall of Heroes. His saintly deeds in the camp, where he underwent torture rather than betray his faith or his men, made him a role model back home. While one miracle cure has been attributed to Acutis, two miracles have been linked to Kapaun \u2014 but, unlike Acutis, the hero soldier has yet to be beatified.<\/p>\n

So why has Acutis reached God\u2019s gateway so quick, while Kapaun continues to trudge down an arduous road?<\/p>\n

\"A
A friar visits the Assisi tomb of Carlo Acutis on the eve of his beatification ceremony.<\/span>Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The answer comes down to two very human weaknesses \u2014 money and politics \u2014 explains author Joe Drape in his book \u201cThe Saint Makers<\/a>\u201d (Hachette), out Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cKapaun\u2019s cause just doesn\u2019t tick the right boxes for the Vatican,\u201d Drape told The Post. \u201cThis is a Kansas parish priest, a military chaplain from the heartland. It\u2019s not a huge market for anybody.\u201d Meanwhile, \u201cthe marketing power is in this 15-year-old kid in Italy. A computer-savvy millennial saint is someone that says, \u2018We are a modern church.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Catholic doctrine, sainthood simply means that the soul of a deceased person is with God in heaven, and everyone can aspire to that state of grace.<\/p>\n

Since 1982, when Pope John Paul II loosened the rules of canonization, the Catholic Church\u2019s business of saint-making has been booming. During the last three pontificates, 1,425 holy men and women<\/a> have been officially recognized as saints, more than quadruple the number named in the previous four centuries. Not even the Vatican can say for sure how many saints have been named throughout the Church\u2019s two millennia. But 1,727 of them have been canonized since 1588, when the process was regularized by Pope Sixtus V.<\/p>\n

\"The
The canonization of American soldier Emil Kapaun, who died in 1951, drags on.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe ways of holiness are many, according to the vocation of each individual,\u201d John Paul II wrote in 2001. But there\u2019s nothing simple about being recognized as a saint by the Church here on earth.<\/p>\n

\u201cSainthood is a marketing ploy,\u201d Drape said. \u201cJohn Paul II decided he was going to use saints to spread the word about Catholicism and to promote the Church to populations that were underserved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gregarious and evangelical by nature, the Polish pope was fluent in at least eight languages and loved travel<\/a>ing the globe. When he arrived in a new country, he liked nothing better than to canonize a deserving local hero.<\/p>\n

He would send word over to the Vatican office that oversees the process and say, \u201cYou know, \u2018I\u2019m going to Ecuador, who do we have over there to saint?\u2019 \u201d Drape said.<\/p>\n

Pope Francis, the former archbishop of Buenos Aires, has canonized a record 898 saints since he took charge of the Holy See in 2013. As the Church\u2019s first-ever New World pope, Francis has sought to make saints in places where the faith is looking to grow, or to defend against Protestant expansion.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the last few years it\u2019s been Latin America and Asia as the new saint hot spots,\u201d Drape said.<\/p>\n

Despite this gusher of godliness, sainthood remains unevenly spread. Italians have a strong home-field advantage: They still make up 47 percent of the Communion of Saints. Less than 15 percent of all saints hail from outside Europe, a 2011 study found<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Italian
Tragic Italian web-designer Carlo Acutis is well on the path to sainthood just years after his death in 2006.<\/span>Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After 450 years of Catholic history on this continent, only three women born in the United States or in colonial America \u2014 Elizabeth Seton, Katharine Drexel, and Kateri Tekakwitha \u2014 have become saints. St. Kateri<\/a>, a 17th-century Mohawk convert who lived in what is now upstate New York, had a particularly long 332-year wait before she was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.<\/p>\n

No American-born man has yet become a saint. Only four are at the \u201cblessed\u201d level that Acutis has achieved \u2014 all of them added in the last three years. One, Connecticut\u2019s Michael McGivney<\/a>, was beatified just last month, 130 years after the Knights of Columbus founder died in the flu pandemic of 1890.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is tension between the American church and the Vatican,\u201d Drape said. \u201cWe\u2019re a young country in their eyes. We were still a mission territory as late as 1908.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"As
As a US Army chaplain, Kapaun often conducted Mass on the battlefield and ministered to the troops regardless of their faith.<\/span>AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kapaun\u2019s case for sainthood goes back to 1953, when the Korean War ended and word finally reached his hometown of Pilsen, Kan., that its favorite son had died two years before at the hands of his Chinese captors. His daring battlefield rescues of wounded comrades under enemy fire had already earned him a Bronze Star and a Distinguished Service Cross.<\/p>\n

In the prison camp, the priest had continually risked his life for his fellow prisoners \u2014 stealing food to supplement their starvation rations, sneaking through the night to administer last rites to the dying, picking lice off the living, washing their ragged clothes, tending their festering wounds, and spurring Catholics and non-Catholics alike to persevere.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a Jew, but that man will always live in my heart,\u201d said Capt. Gerald Fink, who arrived at the camp after Kapaun died \u2014 and knew him only through the tales of the awestruck men he left behind. \u201cHe represented to me saintliness in its purest form and manliness in its rarest form.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018He had nothing, and he was able to use what little he had in service to others.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u00a0–\u00a0John Hotze, on saint candidate Emil Kapaun<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Canonization is a painstaking, and usually lengthy, four-step process: First, a candidate must be named a Servant of God; secondly, a life of \u201cheroic virtue\u201d must be proved; thirdly, after a verified miracle, the candidate is beatified and referred to as \u201cBlessed.\u201d Finally, after another miracle is confirmed, the candidate is canonized and considered a saint.<\/p>\n

The timeline for Kapaun\u2019s cause is about on par with Church norms. In the modern era, the time between death and canonization has averaged 181 years, although recent popes have reduced the wait to a century or so.<\/p>\n

Kapaun achieved the first step in 1993 when he was named a \u201cServant of God.\u201d That designation, bestowed 42 years after his death, allowed his home Diocese of Wichita to open a formal investigation into his life and works.<\/p>\n

The often lengthy investigation stage doesn\u2019t come cheap. \u201cThe price of sainthood is about $600,000, but it can go as high as a million,\u201d Drape said.<\/p>\n

\"After
Only three women born in North America \u2014 Elizabeth Seton (from left), Katharine Drexel, and Kateri Tekakwitha \u2014 have become saints. Connecticut\u2019s Michael McGivney was beatified just last month, 130 years after he died in the flu pandemic of 1890.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the cause of a layperson like Acutis or a parish priest like Kapaun, much of that cash goes to pay a postulator, a canon lawyer hired to shepherd the case through the Vatican\u2019s thickets.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe postulator runs the meter, and that meter just keeps running,\u201d Drape said. \u201cIf you think about the amount of time from death to canonization, you\u2019ve got a lot of guys making a lot of money.\u201d<\/p>\n

For decades, the Catholics of central Kansas have raised money for Kapaun\u2019s canonization bid. Two lay fellowship groups, Kapaun\u2019s Men<\/a> and the Father Kapaun Guild<\/a>, hawk books, T-shirts, baseball caps, rosaries, mugs, magnets and red-white-and-blue \u201cKapaun for Sainthood\u201d bumper stickers. All told, donors and the Diocese of Wichita have spent $500,000 \u2014 and counting \u2014 on Kapaun\u2019s cause.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very grass-roots cause,\u201d Drape said. \u201cIt\u2019s quarters in the box in the little church in Pilsen, it\u2019s pancake breakfasts \u2014 anywhere they can get a nickel, basically.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Where
Where canonized Catholics from 1590-2009 have hailed from. From a research paper by Harvard University\u2019s Robert J. Barro and Rachel M. McCleary, \u201cSaints Marching In,\u201d 2011.<\/span>NY Post\/Mike Guillen<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Just as important, Drape says, is the \u201cground game<\/a>\u201d that continues to build Kapaun\u2019s reputation. Devotees in Kansas and in US military communities from Japan to Bosnia have established chapels, schools and memorials in his honor. The lay groups promote the priest\u2019s story with pilgrimages and podcasts, and sponsor speaking tours for the Army veterans whose lives he touched seven decades ago.<\/p>\n

But, despite the 8,000 pages of documents the Diocese of Wichita sent to the Vatican, the military honors for his heroics, and the medically unexplained cures of two young Kansans \u2014 a 12-year-old with a rare autoimmune disease in 2006 and a brain-injured, comatose college athlete in 2008 \u2014 Father Emil Kapaun, Servant of God, may never get the sainthood nod from Rome.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of being made a saint is not only having a virtuous life that we can imitate, it\u2019s being relatable,\u201d Drape said. \u201cIt\u2019s being somebody that the faithful can see themselves in.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cKapaun was a soldier-slash-priest, and that doesn\u2019t really scream \u2018empathy and sympathy\u2019 to Catholics outside the US,\u201d he said. \u201cHe represents the American military\u201d \u2014 something to resent, not a point of patriotic pride \u2014 \u201cand nobody\u2019s going to do America a favor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the cause of a good-looking computer-programming teenager is possibly too irresistible for a Church eager to recruit a new generation of smartphone-addicted youths.<\/p>\n

Acutis\u2019 beatification ceremony on Oct. 10 drew thousands of young Catholics, who packed Assisi\u2019s medieval streets during a 19-day period of veneration. Pope Francis joined the crowd to pray before the young man\u2019s body in its glass-fronted tomb, which is now the focus of a round-the-clock webcam<\/a>. The Diocese of Milan, the sponsor of Acutis\u2019 sainthood cause, is currently on the hunt for a second miracle cure that will prove his saintly worth.<\/p>\n

It seems not long before Blessed Carlo becomes a fully fledged saint. But his quick recognition won\u2019t discourage the supporters of Kapaun, who say they are willing to wait as long as it takes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was just an average guy,\u201d John Hotze, the Wichita priest who investigated Kapaun\u2019s life to prepare his sainthood cause, tells Drape in the book. \u201cHe had nothing, and he was able to use what little he had in service to others.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he becomes a saint, then there\u2019s hope for each and every one of us to be a saint.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Carlo Acutis rushed to sainthood while others wait centuries” Last month, 41,000 Catholics flocked to the ancient Italian city of Assisi to view the body of a curly-haired teenager dressed in a tracksuit and Nike sneakers. Carlo Acutis was just 15 when he died of leukemia in 2006. His fervent faith inspired him to create…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":122299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/11\/Saint-Quick-Carlo-Acutis.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[82056,72677,71829,71012,75480],"class_list":["post-122298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-11-28-20","tag-catholic","tag-catholic-church","tag-religion","tag-saints"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}