Religion: Desanctification of a Saint

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But for decades scholars have been skeptical. Philomena's official demotion finally came as part of a long-term program, given extra impetus by Pope John XXIII, to tidy up the liturgical calendar by eliminating those saints about whom so little is known that their existence may be doubted. The Congregation of Rites indicated last week that there were more demotions to come.

"Crying All Day." Philomena's desanctification is causing widespread consternation this week—Catholic girls found themselves greeted with "Hello, No-name." "I've been crying all day," said Sister Marie Helene of Mother Seton Sisters of Charity in Greensburg, Pa., who has devoted 45 years to St. Philomena's cause, has written a book about her (St. Philomena, Powerful with God), and raised $10,000 to build a shrine to Philomena on the campus of Greensburg's Seton Hill College.

Laymen might worry about misaddressed prayers, but churchmen know that there is no such thing as a dead-letter office in heaven. For Sister Marie Helene and all those whose prayers have risen to Philomena through the years, there is some comfort in the closing words on the "saint" in the current edition (1956) of Butler's Lives of the Saints: "We do not know certainly whether she was in fact named Philomena in her earthly life, whether she was a martyr, whether her relics now rest at Mugnano or in some place unknown. And these questions are only of relative importance: the spiritual influence of her whom we call St. Philomena is what really matters; . . . in the words of our Lord: 'Is not the life more than the meat and the body more than the raiment?' "