Slate magazine’s investigative journalists deserve credit for breaking the big news of Mark Kleiman’s canonization. The light blue nimbus was the clue that Kleiman, widely tipped to be the next Pope, had nailed down a Sainthood, which was conferred today in an understated Vatican ceremony.
Far from feeling snubbed, the original St. Mark was upbeat “Given the vagaries of Google Scholar, this should help both of our citation indexes”
Kleiman’s rabbi could not be reached for comment.
I hope this stunning religious conversion doesn’t mean that Mark is having serious health problems. My anxiety comes from a story I heard about a terminally ill Jewish man who summoned his son to his side:
Son: What is it, Poppa?
Father: Call a priest. I want to convert to Roman Catholicism.
Son: But you’ve been a faithful Jew all your life! For 80 years you’ve kept the traditions, said the prayers and gone to synagogue. Why would you convert on your death bed to a religion you’ve always despised?
Father: Better one of them should die!
JamesWimberley says
There's a definite resemblance to Titian's Pope Paul III. But these days the flowing beard suggests an Orthodox Patriarch, such as Bartholomew of Constantinople.
Stephen1839 says
Looks more like St. Paul (and I say that with the deepest affection as one who is well on his way to looking like St. Paul too one day…).
NCGatSmFcts says
(Comment misposted on the wrong thread, moved to previous one by JW)
RhodesKen says
Why convert to achieve sainthood? My recollection is that several of the earliest Saints were our guys. The Last Supper, after all, was not a Catholic celebration of Good Friday.
JamesWimberley says
The Catholic Church has a bureaucratic - and inevitably politicised - mechanism for recognizing saints, introduced to limit dubious or hateful popular devotions like that of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln, an expression of the blood libel. However the rest of us should not concede the Catholic monopoly. The saint is a recognizable human type, and they occur in many, perhaps all, religions. Confucius, the Baal Shem Tov, and Cicely Saunders were clearly saints.
Another problem with Catholic practice is the confusion of saints and martyrs. Martyrdom is a one-off thing, and depends entirely on why and how you die, faced with a choice between apostasy and death. Sainthood is your whole life. Thomas More died a martyr, but he did not live a saint, witness the six Lutheran martyrs (Thomas Hitton, Thomas Bilney, Richard Bayfield, John Tewkesbery, Thomas Dusgate, and James Bainham) he had burnt alive as Lord Chancellor. The confusion may have arisen very early on in Christianity, as the death rate among the early leaders of the new sect was staggeringly high.