The Philadelphia Saints?

New Orleans' football may have the “Saints,” but Philadelphia Catholics may soon have the real thing. The city is already the hometown of one of America's three canonized saints St. John Neumann was a bishop of Philadelphia. If Mother Katharine Drexel's latest miracle is authenticated, the city can claim two of its country's four saints. Mother Drexel, who founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, has one authenticated miracle credited to her already.

“Born to affluence, Blessed Katherine renounced her role as a leading member of Philadelphia society at age 31 to dedicate herself and her fortune to the cause of African and Native Americans, establishing elementary schools, convents, and missionary churches throughout the country. During her lifetime she donated $20 million to her charitable work,” the Business Wire reported in announcing an event at Drexel University. The university was founded by members of Bl. Katherine's family.

Her canonization awaits authentication of a healing, which would be her second recognized miracle, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer (March 3). “In her first miracle, Mother Drexel was credited by the Church with miraculously healing Robert Gutherman, who had suffered partial hearing loss 14 years earlier when an infection destroyed the tiny bones in one ear. Somehow, the bones grew back, with hearing restored, after his family prayed to Mother Drexel.”

The Philadelphia Daily News (March 3) reported that her second miracle also involved the healing of a hearing loss though officials won't release names or details.

In addition to St. John Neumann, Maryland's Mother Elizabeth Seton and New York's Mother Frances Cabrini are canonized American saints.

Archbishop Says Politicians' Morality Matters

In an address to Catholic educators at the Mile High Congress, Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput was frank about prevailing views of politics and religion, according to an article in the Denver Post (March 2).

The notion that a politician's private life doesn't matter is “spectacular nonsense,” he is quoted saying, explaining that candidates too often run on a campaign of “high ideals and then tell us that their personal moral behavior has nothing to do with their public service. Look at the political environment in Washington. It would be laughable if it weren't so fatal to public trust. In America in 1998, what's ‘true’ is whatever a spin doctor can establish as plausible and defensible. We're becoming a people of alibis instead of principles.”

He also told the educators that Americans have become “slaves to the idolatry of choice, and the choices become our distractions and our chains.” He said Christmas “is the easy part of the Christian message, but there's much less consumer demand for Good Friday,” and Christians “want to soften the rough edges. We leave out the part about the bloody nails.”

“We Christians talk a good line about suffering but very few of us experience much of it.”

He also called for more silence less constant playing of music and radios and a more vigorous education in the Church's teachings against abortion, contraception, euthanasia, discrimination, and premarital sex.

Ash Wednesday Grammy Awards and Gen X

“[O]n Grammy night,” reported the New York Post (March 2) “comic Mike Myers, an Anglican, wore a cross of ash on his forehead as both a fashion statement and a religious one. On that Ash Wednesday, Catholic churches reported record turnouts, with older and younger members proudly wearing their ashes about town like fresh tattoos.”

The paper was reporting on a new trend among young New Yorkers: religion. It mentioned this evidence of the change:

1 Full Bible—study classes at Generation X-oriented Fifth Avenue Presbyterian, and even fuller dances and socials there.

1 Many young Promise Keepers members.

1 A new popularity in Christian Rock as more and more pop artists find God.

Church Attendance Higher Than Thought

For some years, surveys have placed the number of weekly Church—goers at 40% a number that was two times too high, according to many critics. But the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill now reports that the number 40% is not as inflated as many thought. About 30% attend Church weekly, the University news service reported.

The American Sociological Review reported in 1993 that only half of the people who reported weekly attendance were being truthful. The journal suggested that the question “Do you attend Church weekly?” was being interpreted as “Are you a good Christian?”

The journal also suggested that these factors increased the percentage that reported Church attendance: Churchgoers are more likely to be home, answering the telephone; they are more likely to be cooperative with pollsters; and Protestant ministers reporting Church attendance often counted donations or cars rather than heads.

The University is set to release new findings in the American Sociological Review that are based on head-counts at churches, and include underreported groups such as Eastern Rite Catholics, Newman centers at colleges, and shrines, greatly increasing numbers.