Question Corner: Are there any saints who had a difficult relationship with the church?

Q: Are there any saints who had a difficult relationship with the Church? (New York)

A: The answer to this question would depend on exactly what you mean by “a difficult relationship” or even the term “the church.” But the short answer is that yes, there have been many canonized saints who were treated very badly by church leaders of their day, through no fault of their own.

To give just a few examples: St. Joan of Arc was condemned as a heretic in a clearly biased and politically motivated ecclesiastical trial and was subsequently burned at the stake; St. John of the Cross was imprisoned and regularly beaten by the members of his own religious community due to his work for the reform of the Carmelite Order; St. Mary MacKillop of Australia was unjustly excommunicated in retaliation for her reporting child abuse; and St. Padre Pio was for a time forbidden from exercising public priestly ministry due to concerns about his extraordinary mystical gifts, notably his stigmata (i.e., his bearing of the five wounds of Christ on his own body).

And to put things into perspective, we only know about these and other saints’ stories of “friendly fire” persecution because they have been formally canonized. It’s likely that there are other holy but less famous Catholics throughout history — who would be “saints” in the strict technical sense of any person who is actually in heaven — who endured similar sufferings.

This can be one of the most difficult scenarios for a faithful Catholic to wrap their mind around. Unlike other organizations, the church as a visible institution was founded by Jesus himself and exists to continue his saving mission in the world until the end of time. We believe that the church is holy. Naturally, the darker chapters in the lives of these saints can prompt the question of how the church could apparently hurt her own members.

This is where it becomes important to make some distinctions. “The church” as the people of God and the spotless bride of Christ does not hurt people. Rather, sinful human beings within the church do. While this can still be a difficult truth, in some ways it should not be surprising. After all, during his Passion and death Jesus himself was denied and abandoned by his own apostles, who would go on to become the church’s very first bishops.

Of course, this in no way excuses bad behavior on the part of bishops, religious superiors or anyone else who represents the church in the course of their ministry. We should keep in mind that the canonized saints who were persecuted by the church did not become saints because they were naïve to this reality of fallen human nature or because they cheerfully kept up a “party line” they knew to be false.

Instead, these men and women were saints because of their clarity of spiritual insight, which allowed them to know and love the church for what it truly is, and because of their courageous fidelity and patience under trials from those in the church who ought to have behaved in a way befitting their vocation but failed to do so.

Pope Benedict XVI discussed this dynamic in his General Audience of Jan. 26, 2011, wherein he reflects on the life and witness of St. Joan of Arc: “In Jesus Joan contemplated the whole reality of the Church, the ‘Church triumphant’ of Heaven, as well as the ‘Church militant’ on earth. According to her words, ‘About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they’re just one thing,’ this affirmation, cited in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 795), has a truly heroic character in the context of [her] Trial of Condemnation, before her judges, men of the Church who were persecuting and condemning her. In the Love of Jesus Joan found the strength to love the Church to the very end, even at the moment she was sentenced.”

Send your questions to CatholicQA@osv.com.

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