alt text: a manipulated image portraying the alleged killer/controversial folk hero re-envisioned as a saintly figure, wearing Christian religious garb with a sun-like halo shining behind his head
Source: someone said this image hit the front page on reddit before being “censored”.
Apparent credit: @gedogfx (IG). Title source: “Inkl”. 💩posting for meme archival and commentary purposes.
Why not? Sainthood is an inherently political process. No person becomes a saint without intense lobbying and political pressure. You think Joan of Arc got her sainthood without politics involved?
And while the Catholic Church likes to claim a monopoly on sainthood, it really has no right to that claim. Most early saints were simply individuals that people in a community loved, respected, and later revered. A lot of these early saints were simply canonized officially by the church after they had already been venerated as saints by their communities for generations. There’s one saint that is likely just a misremembering of the Buddha. So people could absolutely start venerating him as a saint unofficially whenever they want.
And in the long term, Luigi could even end up an official saint of the Church if the circumstances are right. After conviction and sentencing, he could meet with a priest and confess his crimes in full and formally ask for absolution. And in the doctrine of the Church, that would result in him being fully forgiven for his crime. It’s the same way the Church recognizes the sanctity of warrior-saints who spent their whole lives killing. As long as they confessed their sins and asked for forgiveness from God, all is forgiven.
So let’s imagine Luigi did that. Suddenly his sins are washed away. Now we just have a man who is effectively a martyr for the thousands of victims of Brian Thompson. If that doesn’t a saint make, what does? Sainthood is meant for people who give their lives in the service of others, and that’s exactly what Luigi ultimately did. If it weren’t for the whole murder part, everyone would consider him a hero. And in the eyes of the church, confession washes away the sin of killing. Now he’s an absolved martyr dying for the service others.
Now, for official recognition from the Church, there would need to be some miracles attributed to him after his (likely) execution. But that doesn’t seem that hard to get. Tens of thousands of cancer patients praying for the ascended Luigi’s intercession? Some of them are going to make a statistically unlikely complete recovery. Won’t be hard to get the requisite number of miracles.
I don’t imagine the Church would officially recognize Luigi’s canonization within our lifetimes. But the Church thinks in centuries. If he decided to make a religious turn and really lean into Catholicism, he absolutely could end up saint, maybe in the 2100s sometime.
If he dies and confesses as you put it, and the situation gets bad enough he could be canonized a lot sooner. Saint Maximillian was beatified barely 30 years after his death and canonized 41 years after his death.
Saint Maximillian Kolbe was a Saint who died in the holocaust during ww2. His story is fucking incredible. The Nazis were gathering people and had a set number of people to take to the death camps… one guy was terrified and begged for mercy, and then Saint Max came in to step in his place. Since the SS officer involved was only concerned with the number of people and not who, he accepted and left the guy alone and took Maximillian in his place.
You basically have someone who willingly sacrificed his life for an absolute stranger he never met before… and you know what is even better? The guy who Maximillian saved not only survived ww2, but also lived to be over 90 years old AND he pointed out at the war’s end who was the officer who took all those people to their deaths. The officer was hanged for his crimes in 1946.
We need people who can make that kind of sacrifice. Luigi threw away a promising life to have a shot at the system. He isn’t much of a leftist, but that is just a small detail.
What an absolute badass - thanks for sharing
It’s important to keep in mind that much like how politics can slow sanctification (Joan of Arc probably would’ve been canonized before the 20th century if she hadn’t been executed by the catholic church in part for her faith) it can also speed it up. St. Kolbe is a great example, he was unambiguously heroic and noble, and he was rushed to sainthood because he was obviously headed there and the catholic church had not behaved heroically during the holocaust. Sanctifying Maximilian Kolbe was, alongside the change in doctrine to no longer blame the Jewish people for the death of Jesus, an attempt to reduce the odds that catholics would try that shit again as well as to clean their image up.
It’s not that sainthood can’t proceed rapidly. The issue is that Luigi’s case is fundamentally different than someone like Kobe. Luigi is a much more complex figure, more akin to a John Brown than Kobe. What Luigi did was heroic, but he still shot a man in the back. Absolution or not, his act was not the unambiguous act of noble sacrifice of Kobe. Kobe gave up his life, Luigi took one.
Under very particular circumstances, Luigi could get actual sainthood. But it would be so controversial that it would likely only happen after the lifetime of anyone currently alive. In the grand view of history, maybe history will find him worthy of actual official sainthood. But there’s zero chance the Catholic Church would endorse a murder like that while anyone alive now still lives.
I love everything you are saying, but fuck the official sainthood shit.
Let’s start putting this pic on candles and selling them now.
They already is happening. You don’t need to be an officially recognized saint for someone to sell a candle of you.