Saints for Protestants?

A bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church last week proposed to canonize two saints.

The Rt. Rev. Edward Randolph Welles, Bishop of West Missouri, pointed out to the 66th annual convention of his diocese in Carthage that for Christianity's first thousand years or so, the making of a saint was a purely local matter, left in the hands of the bishop. In the Roman Catholic Church, bishops lost this right in 1634, a century after the Reformation.* It would be wise and welcome, thought Bishop Welles, to revive this practice, and he suggested a commission to study the "heroic sanctity" of two Missouri candidates for canonization:

P:|Jackson Kemper (1789-1870) son of a customs receiver for New York City. He lived in Philadelphia with his first wife, and in Norwalk, Conn, with his second, but he loved the Western frontier. He became the first missionary bishop of the Episcopal Church, with jurisdiction over Missouri and Indiana. For 25 years Bishop Kemper, with his Greek New Testament, was a familiar figure preaching in Wabash River barrooms and swapping anecdotes with trappers along the Missouri. By the time he died, he had established seven dioceses, founded Kemper College, Nashotah House, Racine College, P: Daniel Sylvester Tuttle (1837-1923), the son of a Methodist blacksmith in Windham, N.Y., who was graduated from Columbia College and General Theological Seminary, became missionary bishop of Montana (with jurisdiction in Utah and Idaho). For a time he ministered to his flock from Helena, Mont., otherwise known as Last Chance Gulch. In 1886 big "Bishop Dan," bearded and baldheaded, became Bishop of Missouri. Though deaf as a doorstop from middle age, he presided ably over meetings with the aid of an "informer." When he died at 86, he had been a bishop for 56 years, had helped consecrate 89 other bishops.

Whether or not Bishops Kemper and Tuttle are worthy of sainthood, many a conscientious Episcopalian doubts the practicality of Bishop Welles's suggestion. Since the Reformation, the Anglican Communion has largely contented itself with the ancient saints of the church calendar. The most famous exception was King Charles I, charged with treason and beheaded by a provisional government under Cromwell in 1649. After the Resto ration the Church of England acclaimed him as a martyr for his unwillingness to renounce the Anglican faith, officially put his feast into the calendar of saints.--Nearest thing to a U.S. Episcopal saint is probably Samuel Seabury, first Bishop of the Episcopal Church in America, the anniversary of whose consecration in November is widely observed.

Last week the West Missouri diocese voted Bishop Welles his proposed commission, though there were some tilted eyebrows at the papish smell of the scheme. In Washington, B.C., Bishop Angus Dun of the National Cathedral was cool and cautious: "I would say that in the main prayerbook tradition, the word 'saint' is not attached to particularly selected individuals, but, as in the New Testament, to the community of those set apart by the calling of God."

* When Pope Urban VII published a bull reserving to the Holy See exclusively the right of canonization and beatification. -- But under Queen Victoria, a combination of political pressure and unwillingness to keep alive old hostilities resulted in the martyred King's feast day (Jan. 30) being left out of the new calendar.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.