Sainthood

They are a tiny community, the Sisters of the Holy Family in Compton, the farthest convent from the motherhouse in New Orleans. A shy group of eight that plays dominoes and Uno after dinner. Usually, they get attention for wearing a habit: Are you a nun? strangers ask. A Catholic nun? A black Catholic nun?

In biting remarks certain to escalate tensions between the Roman Catholic Church and Jewish leaders, the head of Los Angeles' Simon Wiesenthal Center denounced moves by Catholic leaders toward making Pope Pius XII a saint. Pius XII, whose papacy overlapped World War II, "sat on the throne of St. Peter in stony silence, without ever lifting a finger, as each day thousands of Jews from all over Europe were sent to the gas chambers, with his full knowledge," Rabbi Marvin J.

The cause of sainthood for Pope John XXIII has cleared a major hurdle with certification by a panel of doctors that his intercession miraculously cured a dying nun, the Vatican has announced. The Rev. Luca de Rosa, a Franciscan priest who is postulator, or advocate, of John XXIII's cause, said the medical consultants to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints voted unanimously that the nun's recovery was "inexplicable at the scientific level."

Pope John Paul II has waived the wait of five years after death to begin the process of possible beatification and sainthood for Mother Teresa, Archbishop Henry d'Souza of Calcutta said. D'Souza can now begin gathering information and testimony about the beloved nun, who died in September 1997.

The Vatican's decision to bestow sainthood Sunday on Edith Stein, a Jewish-born Catholic nun executed by the Nazis in 1942, has disturbed some U.S. Jewish thinkers, who are concerned about the prospect of heightened veneration of Stein as a Holocaust martyr. Baltimore Cardinal William Keeler, who directs the U.S. Catholic office for Jewish relations, this week urged that the church be sensitive to the Jewish legal view that Stein abandoned her Judaic identity by adopting a new faith in 1922.

In one of the most controversial blessings of his reign, Pope John Paul II on Saturday elevated toward sainthood a Croatian nationalist who was an anti-Communist martyr to Roman Catholics but a wartime Nazi collaborator to many Serbs and Jews. "An illustrious son of this blessed land is raised to the glory of the altars," John Paul declared as he beatified Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac before 400,000 cheering Croatian worshipers.

I have been following the "Clinton in Crisis" on television and just wanted to tell you a few things about it from a French point of view. For anyone French, it seems completely surreal that a great American president, probably one of the best in decades, who broke records on both the economic and foreign affairs fronts, be under fire from the press and public opinion for what we French consider private life.

In her Oct. 26 column ("On the Verge of Sainthood"), Patt Morrison quotes Father Noel Moholy, who is pushing for Father Serra's sainthood, as stating that Native American opposition to his sainthood is "bunkum." Having taught Native American history for 20 years at a California community college, I can assure you that opposition to Father Serra's sainthood is based on documented evidence. It shows that a majority of the California Indians were forced to do slave labor for the Spaniards and converted to Catholicism with no understanding of the religion since they did not speak Spanish.

Mike Ditka held another emotional postgame news conference Sunday. This time, though, he was smiling. A week after a frustrated Ditka questioned whether he should continue coaching in the wake of a lackluster New Orleans effort against Atlanta, the Saints defeated the Carolina Panthers, 16-13. Ditka was positively giddy throughout his postgame remarks, peppering his praises with "excited" and "enthusiasm" and "fun again."

She was a radical American Catholic born 100 years ago on Pineapple Street in Brooklyn. Her name was Dorothy Day. She wasn't born into her faith--she converted, at 30, after questing for God in all the wrong places. Which is to say hedonistic and sexual places. She's been gone 17 years now, but the work she and a fellow pilgrim took up among the poor and the destitute of New York's Lower East Side endures. It's known as the Catholic Worker movement.