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Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
A Way to Understand Pope Leo XIV's Mission of Love
Want to stay current with Arthur's writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out. Confounding the prognostication of oddsmakers and Vatican watchers everywhere, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was elected as Pope Leo XIV on May 8, becoming the first pope in history from the United States. The new Holy Father served for many years as a missionary in South America and is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Peru. In his first remarks as pope, from the balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square, he declared, 'Together, we must look for ways to be a missionary Church' and called on all Catholics 'to be missionaries.' This is neither a radical agenda nor a new one. Missionary work has been at the heart of the Catholic Church from its earliest days. This has not usually been of the knocking-on-doors sort; Catholics tend to be 'service missionaries' who mingle their faith with an earthly vocation. Catholic movements throughout history have typically formed in response to a pressing worldly need. Some missionaries in these movements have cared for the sick (for example, the Brothers Hospitallers), while others have taught young people (the Jesuits) or fed the hungry (the Missionaries of Charity). The ethos is to treat both bodies and souls. As a lay Catholic myself, I consider my secular writing, speaking, and teaching to be the principal way that I share my faith publicly. As the new pope charges Catholics to be service missionaries representing a missionary Church, then, the question is this: What pressing need do we face? Leo named it himself at his inaugural mass: 'Brothers and sisters, this is the hour for love!' To bind up the wounds in our families, nations, and Church is the mission we need today—a mission of true love for a suffering world. [Francis X. Rocca: The conclave just did the unthinkable] Love is central to the Christian faith. In the Book of Genesis, God said, 'Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness.' In the New Testament, the apostle John clarifies that likeness: 'God is love'; thus, we are made to love. As to precisely what that means, Saint Thomas Aquinas provides a compelling answer in his Summa Theologiae, written in the years before his death in 1274: 'To love is to will the good of the other.' But as they say, the devil is in the details. Willing the good of others can take many different forms. Some might argue that in our messy world, a mission of love should emphasize simple empathy toward others, accepting people as they are without judgment. For psychologists, empathy means 'adopting another person's emotional state.' This is what leads parents to say 'You are only as happy as your unhappiest child.' An attitude of empathy can even imply the coupling of brains through the activation of mirror neurons. If empathy were Leo's charge, then the mission of love would be to live and let live, without challenging views or behaviors that are at variance with natural law and Church teaching and without criticizing wrongdoing. Leo is unlikely to take this path. Not that he lacks empathy—quite the opposite, based on his work and preaching. But he is also a canon lawyer, with deep expertise in the laws of the Catholic Church, which teach that mercy is incoherent without being accompanied by the recognition of right and wrong. Human suffering is very often the fruit of our own mistakes, and not all viewpoints are consistent with Church teaching. In these cases, what is needed is not just mercy but honesty. A faithful medical missionary would not neglect to give corrective advice about physical well-being; the same goes for moral well-being, even when correction is unwelcome. Getting along is great, but going along is not so great. As the Church has made clear, 'the salvation of souls' is 'the supreme law in the Church,' which is always 'to be kept before one's eyes.' If you think this simply sounds like inflexible theology, consider that behavioral-science research has found little support for the hypothesis that empathy is the best way to help others. As I have written before, a truer, more effective expression of love is compassion. People tend to use the terms compassion and empathy interchangeably, but their meanings are very different. Compassion encompasses empathy but also requires understanding the source of another's pain rationally and possessing the courage and forthrightness to name it and suggest a remedy, even if doing so might be difficult or unpopular. To see the difference, think of being the parent of an angst-ridden, rebellious teenager. Empathy imposes no rules. But compassion says, 'These are the rules that will keep you safe. I insist on them because I love you, even if you hate me for doing so right now.' Empathy is easier than compassion, but not better. In fact, research has found that it is far less beneficial to the helper. It might even cause harm to the sufferer, because it can prejudice us toward some people and against others. As the psychologist Paul Bloom, who has studied the topic exhaustively, puts it, 'Empathy is biased and parochial; it focuses you on certain people at the expense of others; and it is innumerate, so it distorts our moral and policy decisions in ways that cause suffering instead of relieving it.' Love-as-empathy can invite us to share the mission of love only with those who are like us and encourage us to treat others as outsiders. Think of the political 'my-side bias' so many people have today, which makes them very forgiving of the errors of people on their own side of an issue but utterly condemnatory of people on the other side. This is not at all the message of Jesus, and it makes ideological polarization worse. True compassion means speaking forthrightly about faith and morality. And that's where things get even harder: Imparting a difficult truth (as you understand it) to someone when you have no love for them is not hard; doing it with love is the challenge. You may have found, as I have, that when you are impelled to criticize someone for their conduct, whatever feelings of warmth you had toward them are diminished, perhaps as a way to maintain your resolve. To criticize without love also tends to be counterproductive—for both parties. It usually increases unwanted attitudes and behaviors. Think how you are affected when someone with whom you disagree on an issue—say, the environment—contemptuously tells you how stupid your position is. You are very unlikely to think, Wow, they're right—I do want to spoil God's beautiful creation out of pure selfishness! On the contrary, it makes you double down on your own position, a phenomenon psychologists call the 'boomerang effect.' Missionary work requires using your values as a gift, not as a weapon. That means presenting these values with love and rejecting the culture of contempt that rewards insults with clicks, likes, and eyeballs. And remember: People are extremely adept at reading your feelings, so if you are bringing moral correction but are inauthentic in your claim that you care about others, they will know it. The key to threading the needle of correction while maintaining love is found in one of the most famous passages in the Gospel, Jesus's teaching in the Sermon on the Mount to 'love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.' As a commentary on the problem of feeling that love, Martin Luther King Jr.—a man with plenty of experience in moral correction of others based in love—said this in a 1957 sermon: 'If you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and to transform your enemies. But if you love your enemies, you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption.' Once again, what's morally right turns out to be empirically correct: Praying for others increases your capacity to forgive them. [Randy Boyagoda: The fraught relationship between a pope and his home] Achieving that mission of love will also serve the second goal Leo named in his inaugural mass: to build 'a united Church, a sign of unity and communion, which becomes a leaven for a reconciled world.' To non-Catholics, that might sound like a bromide. I see it differently, as the pope's acknowledgment that the Church itself has tremendous division and strife to overcome—as we have seen in the past decade's bitter fracturing between its conservative and progressive wings. If we can learn to love truly, which means to will the well-being of another, we can achieve unity. Some of my most treasured friendships are with people who disagree with me on politics, religion, and social issues but who care deeply about me as a person despite my possibly foolish beliefs. You can surely say the same for someone significant in your life. And it all begins at home. My wife and I disagree on many things and even voted differently in the most recent presidential election. But our adoration of, and admiration for, each other; our shared love of our children and grandchildren; and our commitment to the Catholic Church make such differences shrink to insignificance. Love unites. Judging by his first words as pope, Leo XIV might launch the love mission the Church needs. And a missionary Church of love could be just what the world needs. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
3 days ago
- General
- Atlantic
How the Pope Might Make the World a Happier Place
Want to stay current with Arthur's writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out. Confounding the prognostication of oddsmakers and Vatican watchers everywhere, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was elected as Pope Leo XIV on May 8, becoming the first pope in history from the United States. The new Holy Father served for many years as a missionary in South America and is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Peru. In his first remarks as pope, from the balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square, he declared, 'Together, we must look for ways to be a missionary Church' and called on all Catholics 'to be missionaries.' This is neither a radical agenda nor a new one. Missionary work has been at the heart of the Catholic Church from its earliest days. This has not usually been of the knocking-on-doors sort; Catholics tend to be 'service missionaries' who mingle their faith with an earthly vocation. Catholic movements throughout history have typically formed in response to a pressing worldly need. Some missionaries in these movements have cared for the sick (for example, the Brothers Hospitallers), while others have taught young people (the Jesuits) or fed the hungry (the Missionaries of Charity). The ethos is to treat both bodies and souls. As a lay Catholic myself, I consider my secular writing, speaking, and teaching to be the principal way that I share my faith publicly. As the new pope charges Catholics to be service missionaries representing a missionary Church, then, the question is this: What pressing need do we face? Leo named it himself at his inaugural mass: 'Brothers and sisters, this is the hour for love!' To bind up the wounds in our families, nations, and Church is the mission we need today—a mission of true love for a suffering world. Francis X. Rocca: The conclave just did the unthinkable Love is central to the Christian faith. In the Book of Genesis, God said, 'Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness.' In the New Testament, the apostle John clarifies that likeness: 'God is love'; thus, we are made to love. As to precisely what that means, Saint Thomas Aquinas provides a compelling answer in his Summa Theologiae, written in the years before his death in 1274: 'To love is to will the good of the other.' But as they say, the devil is in the details. Willing the good of others can take many different forms. Some might argue that in our messy world, a mission of love should emphasize simple empathy toward others, accepting people as they are without judgment. For psychologists, empathy means 'adopting another person's emotional state.' This is what leads parents to say 'You are only as happy as your unhappiest child.' An attitude of empathy can even imply the coupling of brains through the activation of mirror neurons. If empathy were Leo's charge, then the mission of love would be to live and let live, without challenging views or behaviors that are at variance with natural law and Church teaching and without criticizing wrongdoing. Leo is unlikely to take this path. Not that he lacks empathy—quite the opposite, based on his work and preaching. But he is also a canon lawyer, with deep expertise in the laws of the Catholic Church, which teach that mercy is incoherent without being accompanied by the recognition of right and wrong. Human suffering is very often the fruit of our own mistakes, and not all viewpoints are consistent with Church teaching. In these cases, what is needed is not just mercy but honesty. A faithful medical missionary would not neglect to give corrective advice about physical well-being; the same goes for moral well-being, even when correction is unwelcome. Getting along is great, but going along is not so great. As the Church has made clear, 'the salvation of souls' is 'the supreme law in the Church,' which is always 'to be kept before one's eyes.' If you think this simply sounds like inflexible theology, consider that behavioral-science research has found little support for the hypothesis that empathy is the best way to help others. As I have written before, a truer, more effective expression of love is compassion. People tend to use the terms compassion and empathy interchangeably, but their meanings are very different. Compassion encompasses empathy but also requires understanding the source of another's pain rationally and possessing the courage and forthrightness to name it and suggest a remedy, even if doing so might be difficult or unpopular. To see the difference, think of being the parent of an angst-ridden, rebellious teenager. Empathy imposes no rules. But compassion says, 'These are the rules that will keep you safe. I insist on them because I love you, even if you hate me for doing so right now.' Empathy is easier than compassion, but not better. In fact, research has found that it is far less beneficial to the helper. It might even cause harm to the sufferer, because it can prejudice us toward some people and against others. As the psychologist Paul Bloom, who has studied the topic exhaustively, puts it, 'Empathy is biased and parochial; it focuses you on certain people at the expense of others; and it is innumerate, so it distorts our moral and policy decisions in ways that cause suffering instead of relieving it.' Love-as-empathy can invite us to share the mission of love only with those who are like us and encourage us to treat others as outsiders. Think of the political 'my-side bias' so many people have today, which makes them very forgiving of the errors of people on their own side of an issue but utterly condemnatory of people on the other side. This is not at all the message of Jesus, and it makes ideological polarization worse. True compassion means speaking forthrightly about faith and morality. And that's where things get even harder: Imparting a difficult truth (as you understand it) to someone when you have no love for them is not hard; doing it with love is the challenge. You may have found, as I have, that when you are impelled to criticize someone for their conduct, whatever feelings of warmth you had toward them are diminished, perhaps as a way to maintain your resolve. To criticize without love also tends to be counterproductive—for both parties. It usually increases unwanted attitudes and behaviors. Think how you are affected when someone with whom you disagree on an issue—say, the environment—contemptuously tells you how stupid your position is. You are very unlikely to think, Wow, they're right—I do want to spoil God's beautiful creation out of pure selfishness! On the contrary, it makes you double down on your own position, a phenomenon psychologists call the 'boomerang effect.' Missionary work requires using your values as a gift, not as a weapon. That means presenting these values with love and rejecting the culture of contempt that rewards insults with clicks, likes, and eyeballs. And remember: People are extremely adept at reading your feelings, so if you are bringing moral correction but are inauthentic in your claim that you care about others, they will know it. The key to threading the needle of correction while maintaining love is found in one of the most famous passages in the Gospel, Jesus's teaching in the Sermon on the Mount to 'love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.' As a commentary on the problem of feeling that love, Martin Luther King Jr.—a man with plenty of experience in moral correction of others based in love— said this in a 1957 sermon: 'If you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and to transform your enemies. But if you love your enemies, you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption.' Once again, what's morally right turns out to be empirically correct: Praying for others increases your capacity to forgive them. Randy Boyagoda: The fraught relationship between a pope and his home Achieving that mission of love will also serve the second goal Leo named in his inaugural mass: to build 'a united Church, a sign of unity and communion, which becomes a leaven for a reconciled world.' To non-Catholics, that might sound like a bromide. I see it differently, as the pope's acknowledgment that the Church itself has tremendous division and strife to overcome—as we have seen in the past decade's bitter fracturing between its conservative and progressive wings. If we can learn to love truly, which means to will the well-being of another, we can achieve unity. Some of my most treasured friendships are with people who disagree with me on politics, religion, and social issues but who care deeply about me as a person despite my possibly foolish beliefs. You can surely say the same for someone significant in your life. And it all begins at home. My wife and I disagree on many things and even voted differently in the most recent presidential election. But our adoration of, and admiration for, each other; our shared love of our children and grandchildren; and our commitment to the Catholic Church make such differences shrink to insignificance. Love unites.
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
St. Teresa of Calcutta church upholds legacy of Mother Teresa
MAHANOY CITY — On Palm Sunday, the streets resounded with the sound of cracking whips and the sobbing of mourners as Christ staggered under the weight of his cross. For the 36th year, Active Christian Teens in Our Neighborhood, or ACTION, held its annual live Stations of the Cross. 'We wanted to show our community how much he sacrificed for us,' said Debbie Walker, ACTION director. 'It was a beautiful start to Holy Week.' Walker, who has been with the ACTION youth group for 40 years, said the participation of 35 people in the annual ritual is reflective of the deep-rooted faith of the community. With the exception of several years during the COVID-19 pandemic, the live Stations of the Cross has been held every year since 1982. Most of the participants were students in eighth grade and high school, as well as some youngsters who portrayed the children of Jerusalem. ACTION youth group is associated with St. Teresa of Calcutta Catholic Church, named for Saint Mother Teresa. * Victor Hanley, a senior at Mahanoy Area High School, portrayed Jesus in a live Stations of the Cross on Palm Sunday in Mahanoy City. (SUBMITTED) * Sienna Napoli played Mary, Mother of Jesus, in a live Stations of the Cross on Palm Sunday in Mahanoy City. (SUBMITTED) * Saint Teresa of Calcutta Catholic Church in Mahanoy City, pictured Friday, April 25, 2025. (MATTHEW PERSCHALL/MULTIMEDIA EDITOR) * Plants adorn the altar at Saint Teresa of Calcutta in Mahanoy City, Friday, April 25, 2025. (MATTHEW PERSCHALL/MULTIMEDIA EDITOR) * The main aisle leads to the altar at Saint Teresa of Calcutta in Mahanoy City, Friday, April 25, 2025. (MATTHEW PERSCHALL/MULTIMEDIA EDITOR) Show Caption 1 of 5 Victor Hanley, a senior at Mahanoy Area High School, portrayed Jesus in a live Stations of the Cross on Palm Sunday in Mahanoy City. (SUBMITTED) Expand A Saint's Visit On June 17, 1995, Mother Teresa concluded her visit to the United States in Mahanoy City, where a branch of her Missionaries of Charity had been established at then-St. Joseph's Church. In a town whose churches were founded by immigrant coal miners from Europe, throngs of people reached out to touch Mother Teresa as she walked down the church's aisle with her hands folded in prayer. A frail, stooped figure, she spoke out against abortion and in support of adoptions after an hourlong Mass celebrated by Bishop Thomas J. Welsh of the Allentown Catholic Diocese and priests from a five-county area. 'Families that pray together stay together,' said the 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, who spoke for 15 minutes inside the church and another 15 minutes to a crowd of faithful outside. Saint Teresa of Calcutta church will celebrate the 30th anniversary of Mother Teresa's visit on June 30. The Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa's order, still has a convent in Mahanoy City. Fr. Kevin Gallagher came to Mahanoy City 16 years ago as the founding pastor, when St. Teresa of Calcutta was formed with the merger of six parishes. He has kept treasures from the previous parishes to preserve their continuity. 'The heritage and the faith of the people is phenomenal,' Gallagher said. 'This town has spawned so many vocations.' The Sorrowful Way As the Palm Sunday procession made its way up Catawissa Street to Saint Teresa's, Debbie Walker thought of the Via Dolorosa, the path Jesus followed on his way to crucifixion. 'It was very much like Jesus' walk to Calvary,' recalls Walker. 'We were right there with him.' As Jesus, Victor Hanley, a senior at Mahanoy Area High School, carried the cross. Sienna Napoli, a junior at Mahanoy Area, played Mary, watching in agony as her son endured his fate at the hands of Roman guards. The ACTION presentation of the live Stations of the Cross was dedicated to Carlos Acutis, the late 15-year-old Italian boy who was to be canonized on Sunday, April 27. It was postponed due to the death of Pope Francis. The event was also dedicated to the memory of John Usalis, a former Republican Herald reporter, who wrote extensively about religious affairs. 'The live stations deepen their understanding of faith,' said Walker, office manager at St. Patrick Catholic Church, Pottsville. 'They are feeling the pain of the fall, the nails and the sadness of Jesus' mother Mary.'
The Hindu
23-04-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
The Shepherd who listened: Pope Francis and the Dream of an inclusive Church
The world mourns the passing of Pope Francis—a shepherd whose life was defined by quiet, transformative gestures. As religion weaves faith into life, his passing feels deeply personal this Easter season. I had returned to Kolkata to spend Holy Week with my parents, and during the Maundy Thursday service—a ritual that has moved me since childhood—I witnessed a revolution. In a striking break from tradition, the priest washed the feet of women in the re-enactment of the Last Supper. It was a powerful moment, one that addressed a long-standing absence of visible female representation in Church rituals. Yet, even as I welcomed this change, I couldn't help but wonder: if women are present here, why not at the altar? Why can't nuns—the Church's steadfast backbone—be priests? As we reflect on Pope Francis's legacy, especially his compassion for the marginalised, his passing invites us to dream of a more inclusive Church—where leadership is shared by all. Pope Francis brought about sweeping change through small but deeply symbolic acts—gestures that carried powerful resonance. In 2013, just weeks into his papacy, he washed the feet of women, Muslims, and prisoners, during the Maundy Thursday ritual, transcending traditional boundaries of Catholic rituals. In 2016, he formalized women's inclusion in the rite . Over the years, he opened ministries like lector and acolyte to women , appointed women to Vatican roles—such as Francesca Di Giovanni as undersecretary — and in 2023, gave women voting rights at the Synod of Bishops, a historic first. He called for a theology embracing the 'feminine genius,' challenging patriarchal norms. To see these reforms come alive in my own parish in Kolkata renewed optimism. In a city where nuns run top schools and globally recognized charities like the Missionaries of Charity, the symbolic washing of women's feet by a parish priest was deeply moving. Indian nuns have long demanded recognition pointing to a 'glass ceiling' that reflects broader structural inequities. While Pope Francis's reforms were often slow, cautious, and criticized for not going far enough, they nonetheless sparked a conversation that had long been overdue. Still, the ceiling holds. Canon Law 1024 continues to bar women from priesthood. Feminist theologians argue that this exclusion is rooted in human tradition, not divine will. The Bible's proclamation that 'there is neither male nor female' in Christ, and the early Church's inclusion of deaconesses, suggest a different origin story—one of shared leadership. Ordaining women, particularly nuns who are already the Church's backbone, would be a radical but necessary step toward dismantling institutional inequality, resonating deeply in a country like India where justice and equity are pressing concerns. This commitment to the margins is especially important in countries like India, where the Church's gender question is compounded by caste. For women like me—raised in the Church, educated by nuns, shaped by its teachings—Pope Francis's papacy marked a meaningful shift. I grew up watching nuns with compassion, care for the vulnerable with fierce devotion, and also lead communities with authority. Yet at every Mass, the altar was reserved for men. The message was subtle but unmissable: women could serve, but never lead. Pope Francis didn't shatter that divide, but he illuminated its contradictions—and invited the faithful to wrestle with them. In an institution steeped in centuries of male authority, his choices felt quietly seismic. His acts of inclusion were not just symbolic. They made the Church's sacred language more expansive. They cracked open theological conversations that had long been sealed by tradition. They told young girls, that faith is not only something to be inherited, but something that can be reimagined. He understood that gender inequality within the Church could not be separated from broader systems of exclusion. He denounced clericalism and centralized power, urging instead a Church that listens—to women, to the poor, to the marginalized. His vision of authority was profoundly Christ-like: not rooted in dominance, but in humility, service, and love. As a psychologist, I understand the profound stakes in shaping agency. When girls grow up never seeing women in spiritual leadership, it subtly informs the boundaries of what they believe is possible—for themselves and others. But when the Pope himself kneels to wash the feet of a woman—or a prisoner, or a Muslim—it tells a radically different story. One of equality, mercy, and the courage that empowers. Religion binds communities; an inclusive Church can only strengthen that bond, offering a moral center that resonates across lines of gender, class, caste, and belief. Change is hopeful and slow, and such powerful symbolic inclusivity may find soft acceptance in urban parishes; their reception in more rural or conservative dioceses is likely to be more fraught. In many conservative communities, tradition is often tightly held—not only as a matter of faith but as a form of cultural continuity and resistance to modernity. The inclusion of women in liturgical rituals may be viewed with suspicion or even outright opposition, seen as a dilution of doctrine. Yet it is precisely in these spaces—where gender norms remain most entrenched—that such gestures carry the most radical potential. Change here will be met with resistance, and at times, silence. But it must still be welcomed—with pastoral care, theological clarity, and above all, patience. Because the true test of reform is not in where it begins, but in how far its ripple can reach. Now, as we mourn the loss of Pope Francis, we also reckon with a legacy left unfinished. His reforms may not have gone far enough, but they were rooted in a rare moral clarity. He reminded us that tradition is not a cage—it is a living conversation, one that must be willing to listen, evolve, and include. As we grieve, let us carry forward his quiet revolution: a vision of a Church where women and the marginalized don't merely serve, but lead. What might his legacy inspire next? Let's keep the conversation going. 'This article is part of sponsored content programme.'
The Hindu
22-04-2025
- General
- The Hindu
From Mother Teresa to the Martyrs of Otranto: People canonised by Pope Francis
The Pope can make decrees to honour Catholics to honour them in their death as saints. This act of publicly revering the person after death and entering their name in the canon catalogue is called canonisation. Pope Francis has canonised 911 saints in 68 causes, which includes the 813 Martyrs of Otranto as a group. Who are the Martyrs of Otranto? On May 12, 2013, Pope Francis announced the canonisation of Antonio Primaldo and his companions, better known as the 'Martyrs of Otranto' , who gained the term 'martyr' as they died at the hands of the Turkish invaders in 1480 for refusing to convert to Islam. A fleet of Ottoman Empire reached Otranto on June 28, 1480. The Italian coastal town, then under the king of Naples, had a little more than 800 inhabitants. With the commander fleeing, the inhabitants were left to defend themselves. They took shelter in the castle, which was eventually breached on August 12. It is said that the Turks urged the residents to convert to Islam, and since none agreed, they were all executed at the Colle della Minerva, now known as Martyrs' Hills. The names of the martyrs are unknown, except Antonio Primaldo, who is believed to be the first one to be beheaded. Though beatified by Clement XIV in 1771, it was Benedict XVI who officially proclaimed them martyrs for the faith. Who are some prominent Indians canonised by Pope Francis? Mother Teresa was canonised as a saint on September 4, 2021, by Pope Francis, 19 years after her death . She was committed to serving the poor and sick on the streets of Kolkata and did so for 45 years. 'Pope Francis today approved Mother Teresa's elevation to sainthood and set September 4 as the date for her canonisation,' said a message from the Vatican to the Mother's House, the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata. Devasahayam Pillai was the first Indian layman to be declared a saint by Pope Francis. He embraced Christianity in the 18th century and received his canonisation by the Pope on May 15 during an impressive canonisation ceremony at the Vatican. Devasahayam was recommended for the process of Beatification by the Vatican in 2004, at the request of the Kottar diocese, Tamil Nadu Bishops' Council and the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India. Can the Pope strip anyone of sainthood? Canonisation or ascribing sainthood is considered, or an unerring and perfect act, only when the pope himself proclaims a person a saint . Once declared a saint, the person remains one permanently; they cannot be 'de-canonised'. However, there are instances where the Church has re-evaluated past beatifications (ceremony recognising a deceased person as worthy of limited public veneration) or questioned historical figures' reputations. Some of them are: Saint Junípero Serra – Although there was much criticism towards this, Pope Francis canonised Junípero Serra in 2015. Much of the criticism was regarding his role in the mistreatment of Indigenous peoples in California. Pope Pius XII - Pope Pius XII's actions during WWII, particularly concerning the Holocaust, were a cause of concern. Pope Francis ordered the unsealing of it in the Vatican archives to re-evaluate his beatification. Beatification of Archbishop Óscar Romero - Óscar Romero, a Salvadoran archbishop, was assassinated in 1980. The cause for his beatification being blocked multiple times in the past under previous popes was due to claims of leftist political ties. Pope Francis changed that by canonising him a saint in 2018. Father Giuseppe Beotti - Pope Francis halted the beatification of Father Giuseppe Beotti, an Italian priest executed by Nazis, in 2023 over doubts regarding his documentation.
