And This Fits in Where?

The AP has a nice little story about Blessed Theodore Guerin, the founder of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary of the Woods. She will be canonized tomorrow morning by Pope Benedict.

However in the midst of this seemingly positive article, there is a paragraph that doesn't fit. It appears to be just stuck in.

"Guerin will become the eighth U.S. saint and the first one canonized since Sister Katherine Drexel in October 2000.

A little more than a year after Drexel's canonization, the scandal over the sex abuse by Catholic priests erupted in the Archdiocese of Boston and spread across the country. Since then, hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements have been paid out, and bishops' popularity has waned, despite reform measures.

Sister Marie Kevin Tighe, who promoted Guerin's cause for sainthood for the order, said she hopes the canonization will refocus the attention of Catholics and non-Catholics alike on holiness."

Yes, we are trying to focus on holiness, but the media cannot.

It also appears the media is attempting to use Blessed Theodore Guerin as a model for those who revolt against the Church.

"Guerin led a group of six French nuns who arrived in Indiana on Oct. 22, 1840, to establish a community in the woods outside Terre Haute. She and Vincennes Bishop Celestin de la Hailandiere struggled over control of the fledgling order, and he dismissed Guerin from her vows, threatened her with excommunication and banished her for a time from St. Mary-of-the-Woods. She did not return until after his resignation in 1847.

In that way, she is like many saints who found themselves bucking church authorities while alive, only to be acclaimed as saints after their deaths, said the Rev. Richard McBrien, a theologian at the University of Notre Dame and the author of the 2001 book 'Lives of the Saints.'"

Read the complete article here.