What does it take to achieve literal sainthood – do Serra, Clemente qualify?

What does it take to become an officially-recognized saint of the Catholic church? It seems the criteria are ever evolving to the point where future saints aren’t going to be universally recognized.

With our current society being in a mode of wanting to turn every possible issue into a politically partisan brawl, how long will it be until our choice of saints becomes an issue to pick a fight over?

WHAT MOTIVATED ME to think about this was a pair of stories I stumbled across last week – one about the fact that Father Junipero Serra will be canonized as a saint. The other about the fact that certain people want to make a saint of one-time Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Roberto Clemente.

For those who are scratching their heads at the mention of Serra, he’s a character most of us encountered briefly in elementary school history classes. He was a Catholic friar who helped create the settlements that have evolved into California’s major cities.

Which means he helped create the first European settlements in what is now the United States. Although my own memories recall being in a fifth grade class in which none of my classmates could even fathom how to pronounce Serra’s name.

Serra helped to bring the Catholic church and European ways to the indigenous peoples who previously had called the west coast their home. We certainly wouldn’t have our modern-day society if not for his efforts.

OF COURSE, THE Los Angeles Times reported that is what ticks some people off to the point where they’re going to resent the fact that Pope Francis has given the 18^th century friar the highest recognition the church can bestow upon his memory.

Because the Catholic church, in its desire to spread its influence and “save the savages” from eternal damnation, imposed such pressure to assimilate that the tribal influences were devastated – along with many of the individuals to whom foreign diseases brought by the church’s individuals wound up being deadly.

Serra – the saint who created our society, or some sort of Catholic killer?!? I’m sure there are those who can come up with even more over-the-top rhetoric when expressing their contempt for the lack of a native presence in California.

Then again, there are those who are all too eager to believe that California – and just about everything west of St. Louis – was a vast land of emptiness until the white settlers came along in the 19^th century.

I’M SURE THEY’LL be the ones who will aggressively push Serra’s sainthood because it fits their notion of what the world ought to be.

Although I wonder what they’ll think of the notion of slugger Sammy Sosa’s idol also being recognized as a Catholic saint? It hasn’t happened yet – and may never happen. These kinds of things take time.

But the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported how the producer of a documentary film about Clemente’s life now wants to document the “miracles” he performed so that he can get official Catholic recognition.

Clemente was a ball player from 1955 until 1972 and is likely the best ball player the Pittsburgh Pirates ever had – whose career, and life, came to a sudden end when the airplane he was riding while filled with goods for victims of a Nicaragua earthquake crashed into the ocean near San Juan.

CLEMENTE’S BODY WAS never recovered. Although his memory became all-the-more elevated. Baseball gave Roberto its highest honor when it eliminated the five-year waiting period and immediately inducted him into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Apparently, that isn’t good enough for some.

Richard Rossi, who made the documentary and is trying to build actual support for sainthood, cites evidence of Clemente’s knowledge of pressure points and how they could be used to help ease pain. Does that amount to the ability to heal the sick? By that definition, just about every chiropractor qualifies for sainthood!

But how many chiropractors could win the World Series MVP (in 1971, against the Baltimore Orioles) while also inspiring the Latin American community? Or create a culture along the West Coast?

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How some people choose to expend energy; on warpath for pseudo-Chief

I’m not a University of Illinois alumnus, so I always have trouble identifying with the people who want to view it as a holy crusade, of sorts, to fight for the image of Chief Illiniwek.

The old stomping grounds of generations of pseudo-Chiefs

 

My alma mater’s mascot/honored symbol/whatever label you try to tag it with, was a student in a Titan costume – and a cheap one at that. It wasn’t something somebody would get upset over.

YET TO THIS day, there are people who want to view it as a travesty that the university did away with the image of a white student doing what was supposed to be a sacred native dance while wearing a tribal costume that was supposed to be distinctly authentic to the tribes native to what is now Illinois.

Of course, the matter that was bringing out all this imagery? The notion that the Fighting Illini sports teams might get their butts kicked a little less viciously than they usually do.

In all, not exactly something that the real natives would have ever used such sacred imagery for. Which is the point that the non-Indian tribal people always miss when they try to defend such things as Chief Wahoo in Cleveland or the Washington Redskins football team!

The distortion of native images is so laughable. It is more ridiculous than the distortion that occurred when the hippy-dippy types of the 1960s got themselves all into the images and cultures of India.

BUT IN A comical way that no real Indian person would ever do. Just like no real person whose ethnic origins trace back to the indigenous tribes of this nation (a fake Indian, because of the fact that Christopher Columbus was not so much a discoverer of nations, but was lost!) would ever think there was anything real about Illiniwek.

Which is what makes their fight seem so trivial.

Ever since Illiniwek (I actually once met a former Illiniwek back in the days when I worked at the state Capitol in Springfield – he’s now a corporate executive for railroad interests) disappeared in 2007, there has been a group calling itself the Honor the Chief Society.

Chief as long-gone as this melted ice sculpture

They are a batch of disgruntled student types who want to think the hippy-dippy types have taken over the world from decent, respectable types like themselves! Which means they think the rest of the world should shut up and do what they tell them to do.

THEY WENT SO far as to try to register the Chief Illiniwek logo for themselves, claiming the university had abandoned it.

Which has resulted in lawsuits, legal action and attorneys getting richer and richer – because the university didn’t want anyone doing something with the logo that would have reflected negatively on the Urbana-based college.

The two sides came to an agreement this week that really maintains the status quo. They can’t create an Indian mascot and call it the New Chief Illiniwek. They can’t make any merchandise of their own with the Illiniwek logo.

They can make their own merchandise with the phrase “Honor the Chief.” Although their website and promotional materials will be required to contain the phrase, “The Honor the Chief Society is not sponsored, licensed, approved or endorsed by the University of Illinois.”

IN SHORT, THE great Illiniwek legal battle resulted in the group being treated like a pack of cigarettes – they have to have a warning label of sorts to let you know that something bad exists here.

And in return for accepting a warning label, the group will get to sell t-shirts and perhaps a coffee mug or two. Is this really a fight about merchandising?

All of which I suspect will only be purchased by people more interested in making conservative ideological statements. While the student body will shrug off the issue as a whole lot of nonsense about nothing.

Because the rest of us who attended a college and that type of experience remember the parties, the pressure of classes, the intellectual rewards and even some of the ballgames – not the student who wore a funny costume because he wasn’t good enough to actually play on one of the athletic teams.

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