Dead man needs to do more if he’s to be promoted

Ultra conservative Catholic, Mary Kenny, is writing in today’s Irish Independent about the forthcoming visit of Pope Benedict to the UK.

Apparently, Cardinal John Newman is to be beatified by the Pope during the visit but Kenny is worried that this might prove controversial.

Cardinal Newman — who undoubtedly added to the acceptability and prestige of British Catholicism when he converted to Rome in 1845, and was a brilliant writer and intellectual — has only performed one miracle since his death in 1890, and that seems to some people to be less than decisive.

Jack Sullivan, a 70-year-old deacon in Boston, has been cured of back and leg pain after praying to Newman and doctors have testified that there is no medical explanation for his cure.

But is one such miracle enough? And doesn’t back pain sometimes heal itself spontaneously?

It’s incredible, and somewhat disturbing, to witness somebody, who most people consider to be perfectly sane, seriously suggesting that a dead man needs to do more if he’s to achieve sainthood