Pauli Murray was a dear friend and mentor. This is just amazing and gratifying news for all of us who knew her.
- Anne LeVeque

Don't mean to be a stickler about this but it makes me uncomfortable to read about the Episcopal Church "elevating" folks to sainthood. This is part of what all the debate over Holy Women, Holy Men is about, I think.

But I suppose it doesn't sound as good to say "added to the commemoration calendar."

-Jesse

["Saint" is shorthand for the press. We agree the correct formulation is "added to the calendar .... -eds.]

The point is a good one, however. "Shorthand for the press" does not do us any favors with those who think The Episcopal Church is pretty presumptuous these days, taking upon ourselves the responsibility for matters belonging to the church universal. "Added to the calendar" is indeed correct...and should be used invariably.

Sigh. My Roman Catholic roots keep showing!

None of this conversation is to take away, of course, from the excellence of Pauli Murry, whom I enjoyed reading about!

Right, Jesse. Lets not get away from what's to be celebrated,

1. We have a Catholic convert working on The Lead. Woohoo! And, more broadly, The Episcopal Church is gaining Catholic converts -- meaning us old hands should be empathetic to them as they adapt to our peculiar ways. Teachable moments should be welcoming moments, too.

2. Bravo, Pauli Murray. If she's not a saint in the fancy sense, she's a saint in the real sense.

I think we need to get over our squeamishness about the use of the word "saint" to describe the people in our calendar.

Look at lines of the Prayers of the People in which they're mentioned. In Form I, we say, "In the communion of [ ______________ and of all the] saints"; in Form V we have "Rejoicing in the fellowship of [the ever-blessed Virgin Mary, (blessed N.) and] all the saints...

And what exactly is the technical name for the calendar of fixed day commemorations? It's a Sanctoral. Face it: they're saints. The Episcopal Church has a different theology of sainthood than other bodies, and we skip formal canonization for inclusion in the calendar, but yeah, we've got saints.

The supposed controversy is ironic considering that many of those in our calendar were called saints long before there was an Episcopal Church in the USA: Patrick, Gregory of Nyssa, David of Wales. It's particularly ironic considering that some of the more modern people from other Churches whose names we've "poached" for our calendar - Elizabeth Seton, Innocent of Alaska, et al., have been formally canonized by their home Communions.

For that matter, take a look at the subtitle of Holy Women, Holy Men itself: http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Women-Men-Celebrating-Saints/dp/0898696372/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342743263&sr=8-1&keywords=holy+women+holy+men

And a look at the quote from the present Presiding Bishop opposite the table of contents, the foreward written by Bishop Griswold, and the preface really leave no doubt as to what HWHM is intended to be.

From ++KJS: "...a major addition to the calendar of the saints..."

From +FTG: HWHM "seeks to expand the worshipping community's awareness of the communion of saints..."

From the preface: HWHM "marks a further stage in the recovery within the Episcopal Church of the liturgical commemoration of the saints..." and "To assist the liturgical commemoration of these saints' days, Collects in both traditional and modern language have been provided..."

Besides, for the love of Noah Webster, what do you imagine is the distinction between calling these people "holy women, holy men" and calling them "saints"? What do you think "saint" means?

(Sorry for the multiple posts, btw)

My squeamishness doesn't come from the use of the word "saint" but from the idea of "elevating" (which is the word I put in quotation marks in the initial post). Used in the New Testament sense, "saint" applies to all the faithful. I completely agree.

"Elevating" is a verb form that strikes me as particularly Roman (which doesn't make it wrong) but comes after a lengthy process of beatification and canonization. We have nothing like that in the Episcopal Church, in part because our understanding of what saints are is different.

So by all means let's remember and honour the ministry of those who have gone before—in fact, I think in addition to the official commemoration calendar, it makes sense that each of us has a personal calendar of folks important to us that we remember throughout the year—but let's not say that we've "elevated" them to some status they were not at before.

-Jesse

Oh, pooh, Jesse. Of course they've been elevated, if only in the Church's consciousness. We can't really have it both ways - assigning days in the calendar, writing collects and assigning propers for them on the one hand, and claiming they're nothing special, everyone's a saint, nothing to see here, move along, on the other. These people are not just saints in the NT sense of the word. I may be a NT saint, but I don't have a feast day in the calendar, no collect written for me, and no churches are likely to be named after me any time soon.

Canonization, even in the RCC, doesn't imply a change in the saints' eternal status, but a recognition of a status they already have; any elevation involved is as a public example, and declaring them worthy of honor and imitation. Which is what putting them in LFF or HWHM does, call it what you will.

Whether one traces the word "canonize" to adding someone's name to the canon of saints, or applying a standard - a canon - of holiness to their lives to see if they measure up, we do indeed canonize folk, and maybe that's the term we ought to start using.

God bless different perspectives! I guess we see now why we're having such debate about Holy Women, Holy Men in the church!

-Jesse

It's funny - I don't have much use for several aspects of HWHM, but after reading the material before and after the propers themselves, my opinion of the people who worked on it improved greatly (although it's odd that several of the newer proposals for inclusion seem to clash with that material, and in some cases made it in in flagrant disregard of the "Guidelines and Procedures for Continuing Alteration of the Calendar of the Episcopal Church" beginning on p. 742).

Bill, I have a gut feeling that if we start using the language about this that the rest of the catholic churches use, and really mean it, then folks will be somewhat more reluctant to propose adding a person to The List. Some folks like the way these saints make them feel, or like the way adding these saints make them feel, and would find a good ol fashioned process of discernment and investigation somewhat inconvenient for their feelings. I know little about our process in this matter, but it looks as if we are a little too willing to just vote and add. Perhaps a couple of intermediate steps, such as local veneration first, then perhaps diocesan veneration before being submitted to the wider Church, or what have you. Perhaps "blessed" is appropriate until we see that other parts of the Communion have recognized the holiness of the person so elevated. We can all get behind a St. Nicholas Ferrar or a St. David Oakerhater; but some of the rest, well, we'll have to see. We don't need a holy inquisition about this, but an innate skepticism about canonizing someone should be the norm. There has to be more "holy manna showered all around" than just some good feelings about a good person.

As a matter of fact, Clint, according to the "Guidelines and Procedures" I alluded to above the sort of local cultus you mention is supposed to exist before inclusion in the wider calendar is considered (743). That this, and the principle that "Baptism is...a necessary prerequisite for inclusion in the Calendar" (742) have been ignored points to a profound disconnect between the theory we've laid out as a Church and its implementation.

Another potential problem is the disregard for the principle called "Perspective" on p 743 - that two generations or 50 years should separate a person's death and inclusion in the calendar. Just in the edition authorized by GC2009 there are 17 commemorations and proposed commemorations that didn't meet that standard. I'm not arguing that those who don't meet that standard - like Pauli Murray - shouldn't be included absolutely, but 17 is a high enough answer for it to seem that we haven't taken that standard very seriously.