This canonisation fraud

This canonisation fraud

Long back while on a field study for a dissertation I had to meet a manager in a public sector concern. In the course of our sittings I learnt about a funny thing. Whenever I went there I found him spending considerable time in one room while I waited in another. After we had opened up and our interaction turned informal he allowed me inside that room. There in a glass frame a man’s photograph was fixed and some colourful lights were beamed on it. And there were several other such frames each with a photograph. It was his laboratory from where he conducted a process of healing. Since his clients were unable to come personally to receive the therapy, the manager did so on their photographs which was taken as a true representation of the individual. People were being cured of ailments and in turn gave testimonials to him. The manager was not a fool, rather he made a fool of others. His managerial skills were earning him money.

Some years later there was this story of a tribal woman Monica Besra whose tumour was supposedly healed up by a beam of light emanating from a picture of another woman named Anjeze Gouxhe Bohaxhiu also called Mother Teresa. She prayed to MT and later on that night lying on her bed she placed a picture or a medallion of MT on the spot of her tumour. Lo and behold, the next day the tumour had vanished. Our Monica was hale and hearty courtesy miracle number one of now the saint Teresa. Many rationalists and skeptics raised doubts about varsity of facts related to the case. The Church would’ve none of this. They have an agenda which must be achieved in full. Two more such miracles were required to bestow sainthood on to the blessed one. But the Pope being an intelligent man ordered the requirement of only one more miracle. The then pope was said to be favourably inclined towards granting the title to MT. He also decreed reducing the time after death from 5 years to 2 years for starting the beatification proceedings. Haste was necessary lest someone should catch up with the fraud.

Ten years on MT again interceded with god, this time to ensure healing of Marcilio Andrino of Brazil. The man had abscess in his brain. The condition was worsening and the surgeons decided to operate upon him but on the operation table the patient went onto coma and the surgery could not be performed. Just five minutes after the surgeons had left without doing the surgery, Marcilio woke out of coma completely cured and healthy. The abscesses had vanished and the brain scans proved it. Needless to say, both Marcilio and his wife had been praying to MT tointercede with god on their behalf. And she obliged. She obliged the church as well by giving them the miracle number two so that they commit one more fraud on humanity. A fraud of dragging people back to medieval times.

Both these miracle stories are flimsy as they have not been put to independent scrutiny of science. And why should anyone from the Church care to have such frauds investigated. Religion, after all, is a matter of faith and some educated believers may cite the theory non-overlapping magisteria in support of their claim that science and religion were parallel streams that should not cross paths. The church like the manager of this story is into a lucrative business; business of exploiting credulity of masses.

Ironically over 95% of so called miracles attributed to such saints relate to a medical condition. The church has among its followers medical practitioners who are ever ready to oblige with certificate of a miracle having been performed. By the time medical science hears about such things the beatification or canonisation might have already been conferred. We hear in 2016 that one Marcilio had been cured in 2008 of a life threatening brain infection with the intervention of now Saint Teresa of Calcutta. In Monica Basra’s case Indian medical fraternity cried hoarse that there was no medical record to show that she had a tumour. Her husband has also called her a liar. The remaining 5% fall in a sundry category like the one miracle accepted by the Church is that a poor man fed thousands of people with the rice cooked in a small vessel.  This puts to shame even the mythical of all- Hinduism.

They say there are over ten thousand saints in Christianity. Now one more Anjeze Gouxhe Bohaxhiu of Albania who so much loved poverty in India has been added to the roster as the Saint Teresa of Calcutta. I wonder why these 10000+ saints of the Church don’t collectively intercede on behalf of the poor with their god in order to wipe out poverty and disease from the planet.

Does any believer have a logical argument here?