c. 2008 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) Are all saints crazy? Or, do you have to be crazy to be a saint?
Joy Behar, a panelist on ABC’s “The View,” said potential saints are medicated out of a job. “I have a theory,” she said, “that you can’t find any saints any more because of psychotropic medication.
“I think that in the old days the saints were hearing voices, and they didn’t have any Thorazine to calm them down.” Behar continued. “Now that we have all this medication available to us, you can’t find a saint anymore.”
Bill Donohue’s New York-based Catholic League responded in a flash. Behar needs “a shrink,” the Catholic League blog said. “Her musings about all things Catholic suggests a pathological condition so severe as to make those who hear voices positively sane by comparison.”
Wait a minute. Who’s on what team? Donohue agrees that people who hear voices are deranged? So, saints are nuts, but Behar is nuttier?
Donohue has gone after “The View” before. Last June, he took out an ad in the New York Times that counted 15 slams against Catholicism by “The View” in the prior nine months.
Donohue said on CNN the ad worked, and “The View” panelists behaved themselves until the latest fracas. If you watch the YouTube clip closely, you’ll notice Behar began: “I’m going to get in trouble for this, but, you know what … ”
Seems they’ve been warned.
Behar even goes after Mother Teresa: “Teresa had `issues’ let’s not forget; she didn’t really believe 100 percent like these saints who were hearing voices. She didn’t hear voices, so the church said, `OK, she does good deeds, let’s make her a saint.’ In the old days, you used to hear voices. They can’t do that anymore.”
Not good, Joy. Mother Teresa said she lived for years without feeling the presence of God. She may not have heard “voices,” but Mother Teresa knew what needed to be done. And she believed God’s voice sent her from a comfortable convent as a young nun to minister to the dying poor of Calcutta. You see, the second step in saint-making is the doing part.
Despite her tacky wording, Behar might have a point. Popular “saints,” with or without voices, are not that common. Of course, “voices” alone don’t determine sanctity; it’s what the saint-in-training hears and then chooses to do.
Aside from sad folks who genuinely need help with the “voices” that tell them to engage in objectively strange behaviors, there are lots of people today who hear God’s voice in prayer and then act for the good.
Most folks still think real saints are strange. Mother Teresa suffers a modern-day burning at the stake from Behar and others, like Christopher Hitchens. On “The View,” co-host Whoopie Goldberg said, “Don’t forget what they did to Joan of Arc. They set her on fire. That’s why people stopped saying anything.”
Could be true. But the church eventually canonized Joan of Arc. Hitchens, Behar and Goldberg notwithstanding, there are lots of other holy people, known and unknown, who suffer real or metaphorical martyrdom because they hear the voice of God.
The Nazis executed Franz Jagerstatter, an Austrian citizen who refused to join in Hitler’s war. The married church sexton is now beatified, just one step short of Catholic sainthood.
Two years ago, rich ranchers paid killers to silence Sister Dorothy Stang, an American missionary in Brazil who defended the land rights of the poor.
Today, Son Jong Yam is tortured and awaits execution in Pyongyang, North Korea, for spreading the Gospel.
Yes, maybe “medication” would have kept these future saints from opening their mouths. Maybe they would have stayed at home and lived comfortable lives. But they heard the voice of God in some way, and acted as they did.
Whether they suffer at the hands official or unofficial executioners, or even mocking TV personalities, they witnessed to the word of God, and the world is better for it.
(Phyllis Zagano is senior research associate-in-residence at Hofstra University and author of several books in Catholic Studies.)
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