Mirror of Justice

I like the saints.  I really do.  But sometimes, the accounts of the saints embolden the voice in the back of my head that tells me religion is a bunch of -- to use the technical term -- hooey.  Consider John Allen's report on this month's canonization of Frei Galvao:

Benedict XVI will canonize the first Brazilian-born saint in church history during his five-day trip, on May 11: an 18th century Franciscan named Antonio de Sant’Anna Galvao, or “Frei Galvao,” whose claim to fame is that he developed a paper “pill” inscribed with a prayer to the Virgin Mary, which devotees ingest in hopes of a miracle. The pills are reputed to have cured everything from depression to hepatitis.

The pills are made by religious sisters at the Convent of Light in São Paolo, where Galvao died in 1832 at the age of 83. They contain the following prayer: “After the birth, the Virgin remained intact / Mother of God, intercede on our behalf.” Devotees swallow three pills over nine days while reciting the prayer.

In 2006, devotees consumed an average of 90,000 pills a month, according to Brazilian press reports. Since Galvao’s canonization was announced, that number jumped to 140,000.

The miracle which cleared the way for the canonization was reported by a Brazilian woman, who had a deformity in her uterus which doctors said would make it impossible for her to carry a baby to term. After ingesting Galvao’s pills, however, she said she was able to carry her child for seven and a half months until he was delivered by Caesarean section.

The pills are not the only sign of supernatural accomplishment attributed to Galvao. He is also said to have levitated while praying, and to have had the ability to read minds and to witness events even when he wasn’t physically present. Pregnant women sometimes borrow a frayed piece of rope believed to have been Galvao’s belt, and wear it around their mid-section in hopes of a smooth birth. Devotees even hammer off tiny chunks of the wall from Galvao’s monastery and brew them in a tea, which they drink as a sort of elixir thought to promote good health.

Auxiliary Bishop Edgar Moreira da Cunha of Newark, New Jersey, the only Brazilian-born bishop in the United States, said in an April 30 interview that until the canonization was announced, Galvao was not a well-known figure.

“Frankly, I didn’t know about this thing with the pill until recently,” he said. “It wasn’t known in Brazil. It’s a very localized thing in São Paolo.”

Devotion to Galvao has not always played to positive reviews. Some see it as superstitious and tinged with elements of folk magic. Cardinal Aloísio Leo Arlindo Lorscheider, now retired from the Aparecida diocese, said in 1998 that he considered the devotion “ridiculous,” and prohibited local nuns from making the pills. (They kept doing it anyway.)

Da Cunha said he doubted the canonization would stir much controversy. For most people, he said, the only thing that matters is that a Brazilian is being honored.

Let me get this straight.  The Church accepts as proof of a miracle the fact that one woman was told that she could not carry a baby to term, and after taking this paper pill was able to carry the baby for 7 1/2 months?  This is the best we can do when 90,000 pills are being taken every month?

On to my uncynical less cynical questions: Once the canonization occurs, are faithful Catholics supposed to believe that this man actually levitated, could read people's minds, and made miraculous pills out of paper?  Or do saints fall under the "big tent" approach to the Church, so that it's enough to acknowledge that God manifests Himself in mysterious ways, not all of which we can vouch for with certainty?  (But isn't the Church vouching with certainty by canonizing him?)  In any event, just as some of today's Islamicists tempt me to embrace Voltaire, the story of Frei Galvao makes me acknowledge the appeal of David Hume.