Notes

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 13, 29 March 1906, Page 18

Notes

' Decanonjsing ' a Saint Here is a story that appeared in last Saturday's issue of an Otago contemporary :— ' St. Expedito, a popular Neapolitan saint, whose speciality has been the quick granting of prayers, has been decanonised by the Pope, and the officials of the church in Naples have been ordered to wind up the saint's affairs and remove his images from the places of worship. It appears that the worship of St. Expedito rested on a misunderstanding. 'An Armenian martyr by that name is known to have existed, but he was not canonised. In the latter half of the nineteenth century some nuns begged that certain relics discovered in

the catacombs might be sent to their convent, and the Pope gave his permission to its being done. Tl>e, case containing the bones was labelled " Bxpedit," and the good Sisters mistook the directions for the name of the saint to whom the relics belonged.' Here is a capital instance of the manner in which a journalistic pyramid may ue built upon a pin-poini. The pin-point ot tact on which the superstructure of fable has been reared in just this : the Congregation of Rites has taken action frgainist an eccentric and exaggerated devotion towards St. Expeditus, which had broken out among s.ome people. The eccentricity which called forth the interlerence of the Roman authorities was the idea that prayers addressed to the Saint would be answered immediately and as a matter of course. This notion probably originated in the minds of some ignorant persons through a misunderstanding of the Italian form of the name, Spedito (not Expedito), which means ' quick.' Such a belief or devotion savors of superstition, and is contrary to Catholic faith and practice. Hence its condemnation by the Congregation of Rites, which took place, not quite recently, but as far back as last October. The rest of the story quoted above is— well, ' leather and prunello.' (1) JSo doubt or dimculty has arisen over the question of the existence of St. Expeditus. " All we know with certainty, ot St. Expeditus,' says the London ' Tablet,' of November 4, 1905, l is summed up in two facts : that he existed in an early period of Christianity, and that he was martyred ; these are quite sufficient to entitle him to the veneration of Catholics.' (2) He has not been ' decanonised. 1 (3) Devotion to him has not been forbidden. On the contrary, it has been confirmed by the Holy See, the Mass ' Laetabitur,' for instance, having been recently granted for use on his festival. (4) The story that the ' worship 'of St. Expeditus ' lested on a misunderstanding ' of some unnamed ' good Sisters ' in ' the latter halt of the nineteenth century ' may be at once relegated to the Hoax Museum. Tbis fable ' rests ' on nothing better than the imaginations of some gay journalistic romancer. Not to go further, the devotion to the noiy martyr was widely spread in Austria 'in the latter iTalf of the ' eighteenth century. And thus the inverted pyiamid of fable about St. ' Expedito ' comes tumbling to the ground. And there we may let itlie.