Santo? Not So Subito!

Does anybody in the hierarchy still believe that not all dogs and people go to Heaven…at least immediately?

Following the announcement of John Paul II’s death, apparently all Holy Fathers now go directly by courtesy line to “the home of the Father.” And there have already been murmurings of “santo subito” about Francis. In his funeral homily, Cardinal Re asked Francis to “bless the whole world from Heaven” (emphasis added), while Cardinal Parolin assured congregants April 27 that “Pope Francis extends his embrace from Heaven.”

Would it not be more truthful to say “X has died,” “X has gone to God,” or that “X has gone to the Judgment Seat of God?” without necessarily presaging the outcome? Hebrews 9:27 says, “it is appointed for men once to die, and after death the judgment.” It does not say, “it is appointed for men once to die and then Heaven!”  

Many popes have warned about a “loss of the sense of sin.” Our current ways of speaking eschatologically arguably prove that. Yes, Scripture assures us of a loving God. It also assures us, “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31)—and not just if you are Hitler or Stalin.

When he saw God, Isaiah’s first reaction was to think himself “doomed” because of his sins, until his lips and heart are cleansed by the ember-bearing angel (Isaiah 6:1-7). Genuine sanctity does not stoke presumption. The greatest saints had the most refined sense of sin—not because they were scrupulous but because the nearer they approached being “perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48), the more they recognized how imperfect they were. That is the true humility of which saints are made.

I mention Isaiah because the episode of his prophetic vocation has been bowdlerized by Dan Schutte and sung with gusto Sundays at lots of Catholic parishes. Apart from the arrogance of singing in God’s name (the verses are all God speaking), the refrain selectively leaves Isaiah 6:1-7 on the cutting room floor, picking up at verse 8b: “Here I am, Lord!” In other words, “I’m ready and waiting!” omitting the sense of unworthiness before divine holiness.

Catholic eschatology recognizes that one must be “spotless and blameless” (2 Peter 3:14) to appear before the living God. We should be honest enough at least to give lip service to the confession we are all sinners (Romans 3:23). How one squares that admission with instant Beatific Vision remains unexplained.

Again, we hope all men are saved. But as we cannot be sure of that, our expressions ought not to suggest that.  

We used to enumerate the “four last things always to be remembered” as death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell. It seems judgment now receives passing reflection from short-term memory, while Hell clearly succumbed to amnesia.

And there’s no doubt these issues work together. The rise in practical universalism—“we ‘hope’ (wink, wink) all men will be saved”—is not the result of enormous popularity of the thought of Hans Urs von Balthasar or Wacław Hryniewicz. It is very much the new ecclesial “party line,” one advanced not so much by promotion as by omission, what’s not said when speaking of the “Global Entry” line to the “home of the Father.”

Such approaches betray evangelization, ostensibly the mission and task of the Church in contemporary times. Jesus’ Gospel does not promise a celestial rose garden. It repeatedly warns of judgment, of separation of grain from chaff, wheat from tares, fruitful fig trees from barren ones. The Last Day is not presented as a universal victory celebration but as a time of definitive division, when some “will go to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life” (Matthew 25:46). And Jesus warns against presuming we’re on the “right” side, because it is those on the left who are surprised their self-assessed goodness does not tally with the Lord’s assize. Jesus’ Gospel does not promise a celestial rose garden. It repeatedly warns of judgment, of separation of grain from chaff, wheat from tares, fruitful fig trees from barren ones. Tweet This

The one-sided emphasis on the practical surety of salvation also plays into another modern-day conceit: the refusal to reckon with death. In the interim between the “already” of Easter and the “not yet” of the Last Day, death may have been defanged but has still not totally lost its sting. We do our brothers and sisters no service by pretending that—short of divine grace—we can simply embrace “sister death” and pass “to the Father.” St. Paul is clear: “the last enemy to be defeated is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26). For the Apostle to the Gentiles, death is a foe not a relative. Perhaps the successors of the apostles should start talking the same way?

As John Paul II observed, the paradox of the culture of death is that while it is ready to make its peace with death, it continues to hide death from public view. We call abortion a “right” but generally don’t want to use the “a” word, describe the “procedure” in any graphic detail, or ask where the bodies go. We coin euphemisms to make doctors killing patients sound clinical. We debate whether little Chad or Tiffany should be “traumatized” by being taken to an actual funeral.  

And we beat around the bush to say “the pope is dead.”

Death and judgment are prerequisites to Heaven or Hell. They are not states or phases to receive short shrift. They force us to reckon with the truth—good, bad, and ugly—of whom we are. Grappling with those phases tends to put the brake on shortcuts to sainthood and focus, instead, on “fixing our eyes on the Lord, pleading for His mercy” (Psalm 123:2).  

For this reason, I also suggest the wisdom in the Church’s traditional approach that required fifty years before moving on canonizations. Half a century is time to test whether focus on a particular person represents a genuine cult of piety or a momentary burst of popularity. What is true endures. It also affirms a fuller faith in the “communion of saints,” for a genuine yet uncanonized saint should still, by God’s will and mercy, be active in this world.  

Finally, let me draw a parallel from civil life. Politicians and clerics are both prone to celebrate their “achievements” by having their names put on public facilities, like highways and buildings. There used to be a sense against doing this until somebody was at least out of office, if not dead. (The old rule was nobody’s face could grace a U.S. stamp fewer than five years after his death). 

As hubris replaced humility, I’ve seen incumbents in both church and state “celebrating” their “work” by getting things named after them. I’ve also later seen stonemasons imitating those of Pharoah, ensuring the name of the figure discovered to have clay feet be “stricken from every book and tablet, from every pylon and obelisk of Egypt.” 

Maybe not make him “santo” so “subito”? 

I understand and have sympathy for why, in recent years, the Church has accelerated canonizations. It is important for people to realize holiness is not something exotic, rarefied, and removed. At the same time, comprehensive holiness—the holiness “without wrinkle or blemish” admitted to the Beatific Vision—is rare (“narrow is the road that leads to life,” Matthew 7:14) and perhaps for many of us also requires divinely supported remediation through the purification of Purgatory. (Our rush to Beatitude has also sidelined Purgatory: there’s no need for Protestant denials of its “unbiblical novelty” when we avoid talking about it.)

Yes, sin abounds, but grace abounds the more (Romans 5:20)—though perhaps not by the beeline our “all dogs and people go to Heaven” way of talking suggests.