Catholic Church

Mother Teresa: Do miracles have a place in the modern-day Catholic Church?

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As Catholics around the world celebrate the canonisation of their newest saint Mother Teresa, debate is raging over whether miracles have a place in the modern-day Church.

The path to sainthood in the Catholic Church is usually a long one. Among the prerequisites is proof of two miracles approved by the Vatican’s own investigators.

In the case of Mother Teresa, both involved curing cancer.

Mother Teresa

For the first, Indian woman Monica Bersa said a cancerous tumour in her abdomen had been cured in 1998 after a beam of light had emanated from a picture of Mother Teresa contained in a locket. The miracle was recognised by the Church in 2002.

The second, recognised in 2015, involved the 2008 healing of a Brazilian man with multiple brain tumours.

Australia’s own Saint Mary McKillop also had two miracles attributed to her involving two more cured cancer patients.

But the so-called saint-making machine came under fire last year, when two exposes revealed sainthoods could cost the Vatican up to $735,000 each, forcing the Pope to impose transparency measures.

There has also been debate about whether miracles have a place in the modern-day Church.

Former Catholic priest turned church historian and theologian Paul Collins said he had a “sheepish embarrassment” about miracles.

“My problem is I don’t believe in a God who constantly intervenes in the business of nature to suspend nature,” he said.

“I don’t believe that God is constantly intervening in life. I think God’s interaction with us is much more subtle, much deeper.”

Less-developed societies ‘far more ready to accept miracles’

He said most “miracles” were often claimed where there was no scientific or medical explanation for an event.

“The argument is: science can’t explain it,” he said.

“There are a few things still in life that science doesn’t explain, and we don’t necessarily call them miracles.

“I suppose most progressive Catholics in Australia would feel that way. But … we live in a post-enlightenment society. We live in a scientific society.

“But the Catholic Church is a universal church … and many, many Catholics do not live in that kind of a society.

“People in … less-developed societies … they are far more ready to accept miracles.”

Choosing saints ‘a political process’: Collins

Mr Collins said the Vatican office that investigated miracles had been set up in the mid-18th century and currently sat in a building behind the Holy See’s press office.

“It goes through a historical process of looking at the person, looking at their work, their beliefs, their lives, their morality, how they behaved and it teases all of that out in what is really a quite tedious process,” he said.

“In the end, it makes a decision as to whether this person can be put forward as a model of Christian life.

“But, of course, as a number of people have pointed out … this is a political process.

“John Paul II wanted a certain type of Christian, so the people he proposed were the ones who fulfilled that.”

St Peter's Square at canonisation of Mother Teresa

Church ‘moving away’ from miracles

Mr Collins said the church was moving away from the emphasis on miracles under Pope Francis.

“I think Francesco, he perhaps believes it, but it’s at the side of his agenda,” he said.

“What Pope Francis is trying to do is to re-emphasise mercy, of reaching out to other people, or caring for others, of serving their needs.

“He’s kind of taken Mother Teresa and her canonisation as a happy accident to be able to illustrate that.”

Mr Collins said Mother Teresa did not need to perform miracles to make her a saint.

“I think Mother Teresa’s miracle is her life. You don’t need any spectacular suspensions of nature,” he said.

“This is a woman who left a teaching career behind … she saw the state of the poor, she decided to do something about it.

“The test of her is in the work that she’s done. I think that’s where the miracle is.”

Menstrual regulation and the sacra rosa—escaping religious rigidity.

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Countries that are strongly Muslim or Roman Catholic find abortion unacceptable, but Bangladesh, a Muslim country, has found a clever way of helping women who might be pregnant and don’t want to be.

In Bangladesh induced abortion is illegal unless a woman’s life is threatened. But a woman who has missed a period may in the next eight to ten weeks undergo menstrual regulation to ensure that she is not pregnant. Menstrual regulation has been undertaken with manual vacuum aspiration, but increasingly drugs are being used. It is very important not to do a pregnancy test: if it was known that the woman was pregnant then the procedure would be an abortion and so illegal.

In 2010 some 650 000 women had menstrual regulation performed, but there were also 640 000 induced abortions, most of them illegal. Around 570 000 of the women suffer complications, and about 1%—some 6400—die. Women undergo unsafe abortions because they are unaware of menstrual regulation, lack access to the procedure, or don’t understand the difference between menstrual regulation and unsafe abortion. Unsurprisingly poor and rural women are more likely to undergo unsafe abortion.

Menstrual regulation, which seems to me a very clever idea, has been available in Bangladesh since 1979. It’s been suggested to me that it became acceptable because of the systematic raping of women during the War of Liberation, when what was East Pakistan fought off the dominance of West Pakistan and became Bangladesh, still a Muslim country, but steeped in the richness of Bengali culture.

As far as I know, other countries that are opposed to abortion on religious grounds don’t allow menstrual regulation—but perhaps they should.

I’m impressed by the ingenuity of menstrual regulation, and I was describing it to an Italian friend, who said that it reminded him what he called the sacra rosa. The way he described it even a married couple who had had children could be allowed a divorce by the Catholic Church on the grounds that one or other or both of the couple had not been thinking of sex while conceiving the children. For my friend it was a form of corruption, and the Church would need generous payment for allowing such a divorce.

I can’t find mention of the sacra rosa online, but I have learnt about the “declaration of nullity.” The Church, it seems, can’t allow separation of a couple whom God have joined, but it can accept that there are circumstances in which true marriage never took place even though the couple went through the ceremony in a church. Non-consummation is the best known cause, and both the Church and God expect sex to occur. But it also seems that “not intending, when marrying, to remain faithful to the spouse (simulation of consent)” can mean that true marriage never took place.

This would seem to be a marvellous out for the world’s many philanderers, but it leaves me wondering why all the fuss around Henry VIII and why we need the Church of England. I know the answer: it was all about politics, power, and money.

Perhaps with more of the mental ingenuity that has given us menstrual regulation and the declaration of nullity we could avoid the considerable pain and suffering that result from ideological and religious rigidity.

Source: BMJ

 

 

The cultural challenge of HIV/AIDS.

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As the HIV epidemic enters its fourth decade, HIV transmission in several parts of the world shows no sign of abating—for example, in sub-Saharan Africa an estimated 1·9 million people became newly infected in 2010.1 Certain affected populations in the epidemic are more marginalised than others, notably gay men and other men who have sex with men. A biologically heightened vulnerability to HIV and the limited uptake and use of barrier methods, especially among younger cohorts of men who have sex with men, fuelled by stigma and in some parts of the world criminalisation, makes addressing the issue of HIV/AIDS in men who have sex with men complex, as this Lancet Series shows.2—9

In the past year, the dialogue around HIV/AIDS has centred on ending the epidemic after release of the HPTN052 study findings, which showed that early initiation of antiretroviral therapy reduced the risk of HIV transmission to uninfected partners by 96%.10 Several studies have confirmed the potential of similar interventions to help prevent HIV infection. These scientific advances have to some extent prompted a renewal in efforts towards achieving an AIDS-Free Generation. Indeed, last year Hillary Clinton announced the US Government’s commitment towards this goal,11 one that builds on the global programmatic successes of treatment and prevention technologies to date. And from a research perspective, the HIV cure agenda has had a recent resurgence of interest and optimism with the launch of a global scientific strategy.12 Although these efforts are welcome, there is a sense that the HIV/AIDS response is taking the wrong road.

The power of science has been, and continues to be, a huge benefit to the AIDS response. But science is also the Achilles’ heel of HIV prevention and control. The science of HIV can mislead us into thinking there are technical solutions to the epidemic. If we could only roll out more antiretrovirals in the developing world, develop the right regimen for treatment as prevention, or develop an effective vaccine or the right microbicide all will be well. But, in truth, the underlying challenge of HIV is only partly technical. A more important barrier is cultural: stigma and alienation apply not only to the HIV epidemic among men who have sex with men but also among heterosexuals.

Our Series aims to unite two vital elements in the fight against AIDS. One is the application of science to defeat the epidemic, and the second neglected, yet crucial, element is the cultural dimension of stigma and homophobia. Men who have sex with men have been, and continue to be, pushed to the margins of the HIV/AIDS response. Our Series not only aims to put men who have sex with men back into the centre of those debates, but to reassert the importance of the cultural and political dimensions of HIV/AIDS, which have been neglected in our fascination with technical breakthroughs.

Although there are many countries that should be credited for showing enlightened responses to HIV/AIDS in communities of men who have sex with men, such as Brazil and South Africa, the extraordinary global polarisation around basic human rights for these men—in what Dennis Altman and colleagues9 in this Series call “political homophobia”—points to the existence of deeply rooted cultural barriers. While South Africa led the world in recognising sexual rights in its Constitution, about 80 countries still criminalise homosexual behaviour. In many African and Caribbean countries, the former Soviet Union, and most of the Middle East, citizens face persecution for discussing safe sex behaviour, are unable to access harm reduction services, are unable to talk openly about their lives, and cannot get tested for HIV without the fear of being stigmatised.

There is no technical solution to HIV that is a panacea for all communities and all countries. There is only going to be a solution that involves a broad understanding and acceptance of diverse sexual behaviours among men and women. Achieving this goal will mean discussing matters that people often wish to avoid. These issues invite us all to ask challenging questions about human sexuality and behaviour. Whether it is the Catholic Church or academia, aid donors or recipient countries, these predicaments are not being prioritised as they should be. These attitudes towards men who have sex with men combine to create a cultural crisis faced by other communities—for example, women, injecting drug users, and sex workers. If we are to succeed in this fourth decade of the HIV/AIDS response, we must show our commitment to this welcome human diversity as well as to gender equity.

Source: Lancet