Last Sunday Pope Francis canonised six saints in Vatican Square. Present in the crowd were also more than 4,000 elated and inspired Indians, mostly from Kerala, to participate in the ceremony as two out of the six declared saints — Kuriakose Elias Chavara and Mother Euphrasia — were from that part of India.
It is widely believed and accepted — although there is a lack of incontr-overtible evidence — that Christianity was brought to India by two of Jesus’ first apostles, Thomas and Bartholomew. Thus, Christianity can be said to have existed in India from almost the time the religion was born and Christians from Kerala often call themselves “St. Thomas Christians”. Despite this, the names of Indian Christians — particularly their holy credentials — have some-how not found a prom-inent place in Church annals.
However, with the canonisation of Blessed Kuriakose Elias Chavara and Sister Euphrasia on Sunday, Sister Alphonsa a few years ago, and with up to 25 more Indians up for possible sainthood in future, that situation seems to be changing fast. The question that naturally springs to mind is, why have saints begun to appear from our region now? Is it because the rules for canonisation have been changed, or relaxed? Is it because Catholics in India have become more holy in recent times? Is it because people here are being noticed because of their new social and economic status? Or has the Vatican become more sympathetic towards the faithful in this region?
In his 1974 book The Coming of the Third Church, Swiss Capuchin priest Walbert Buhlmann predicted the rise of Christianity outside of Western Europe, which he coined the “Second Church”. The “First Church” being Christianity in its formative years in West Asia, the area surrounding the place where Jesus was born and where he first preached about the Kingdom of God.
Buhlmann, observing demographic and sociolo-gical changes in the world, especially after the historic Second Vatican Council (1963-65), said: “The Church at home in the Western world for almost 2,000 years will, in a short time, have shifted its centre of gravity into the Third World, where its adherents will be much more numerous.” Similarly, Adrian Hastings, speaking about this shift in 1991 in his book Modern Catholicism: Vatican II and After, wrote: “The geography of the Catholic Church in 1990 has become remarkably different from that of 1960. Where for instance, there was then a mere handful of African bishops, there are now many hundred.”
The recent spurt of canonisations in Asia and moves to put other Asians on the road to sainthood provide sufficient evidence of the accuracy of Buhlmann’s predictions, made exactly 40 years ago, as well as the observations of Hastings. With the exception of St. Gonsalo Garcia — a Franciscan friar from Maharashtra who was martyred in Japan along with 25 other missionaries and canonised in 1862 — the naming of new Indian saints and the prospect of more from the predominantly Hindu nation are certainly a matter of pride for the Third Church. The line-up of several Venerables (on the way to sainthood), Blessed and Saints from India, and hopefully in future from other Asian and African countries, is a sign of the shifting sands of time and tide.
The 20th century saw more canonisations in Asia than any other time, and the trend is continuing. In 1984, Pope John Paul II canonised 103 Korean Catholic martyrs. In February this year, Pope Francis declared Paul Yun Jichung and 123 companions Venerable, and in August he beatified Paul during his visit to Korea, elevating them closer to sainthood. Plans are also afoot to beatify other 20th-century Korean Catholics who were killed by communists during the Korean War.
The Philippines’ second saint, Pedro Calungsod, was canonised in 2012, some 25 year after the country’s first saint, Lorenzo Ruiz, was canonised in 1987. Sri Lanka will get its first saint when Blessed Joseph Vaz, an Indian missionary, is canonised during Pope Francis’ visit there next January.
Looking at this phenomenon from the perspective of faith, Archbishop Anil Couto of Delhi holds the view that beatification and cano-nisation of saints has to take its own time accor-ding to God’s plan and not human reckoning. “The declaration of some-one as a ‘saint’ by the Church cannot be forced. It is the result of a long-drawn process that follows strict procedures that cannot be bypassed or compromised,” he said.In a country like India, where people have deep spiritual roots regardless of which religion they may belong to, many more people have certainly led a godly life and are worthy to be considered as saints but have gone unnoticed. Our task would be not to carry on passively but intensify that legacy by living holier lives.
Father Dominic Emmanuel, a founder-member of Parliament of Religion, can be contacted at frdominic@gmail.com
