RECENTLY, as all the world has been informed, two additions were made to the Roman Catholic calendar of “saints,” with due ceremonials and announcement in St. Peter’s church, at Rome. The canonization ceremonies are said to have eclipsed in point of display anything that has been seen on like occasions since the pope lost his temporal power. Says a London journal, “There were the glittering uniforms of soldiers guards, robes of the clergy, jeweled mitres, waving banners, and swinging censers, all fitting accompaniments of the ceremony which blasphemously professes to exalt the dead to be objects of devotion.”
The same journal adds that “Before declaring the two new papal saints, to whom petitions may be addressed, the pope, according to the formula, twice deferred granting the request for canonization in order to consult with the Lord.” In what way he undertook this consultation it is not said; but evidently it was not by going to the Word of God, for that Word declares that dead men do not know anything, but are in their graves, oblivious to all that transpires in earth or heaven. See Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6; Psalm 146:3, 4, etc. According to that Word, there can be no occasion whatever for saint-making or saint worship. It is very certain, therefore, that the pope did not consult with the Author of that Word.