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What's the best way to revoke someone's sainthood after they've been officially canonized? Is it even possible, or is it more like, "Once a saint, always a saint"? Asking for a friend. —P. Francis
Let me preface my remarks by saying that before receiving your question, my understanding of Catholic theology was limited to occasionally wondering whether all the people sentenced to hell for eating meat on Friday got paroled after Vatican II.
That said, Francis, I suspect I know why you're asking. Some readers might have missed it in news-heavy 2020, but late last year it came to light that Pope John Paul II (probably) knew about Archbishop Theodore McCarrick's sexual abuse history when he promoted him to cardinal in 2001. John Paul himself was canonized in 2014.
This revelation has left a lot of folks wishing for celestial backsies, but (as it says in the Bible) tough titty: There's no reopening the case once someone's been declared a saint.
It's true that a number of saints' days were dropped from the liturgical calendar in 1969, including perennial fan favorites St. Christopher, St. Valentine and (gasp!) St. Nicholas, but the Church says they're still saints (even while acknowledging that some of them probably never existed).
There used to be a rule that the canonization process couldn't begin for at least 50 years after the allegedly holy person's death. This gave the skeletons a few decades to make their way out of the closet (and, I daresay, might have prevented this current ecclesiastical contretemps).
It was John Paul II himself who, in 1983, shortened this waiting period to five years, saying he wanted to canonize people "relevant to today's generation." (St. Rick of Astley, anybody?) John Paul's successor Benedict waived even that requirement, starting John Paul's beatification countdown a scant five weeks after his death.
Since only the Church can decide who is or isn't a saint, it looks like we're stuck with St. John Paul for…well, eternity, actually.
However, as nearly as I can tell, what a given saint is the patron saint of can be chosen by popular acclaim. So how about St. John Paul of the Blind Eye, patron of unapprehended sex offenders? If only he'd been around when Neil Goldschmidt* needed him.
*And you thought this story had no local angle!
Questions? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.