The craving for saints (as in subito santo!) and for miracles reminds me of the Grand Inquisitor’s interview with Jesus in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. The Grand Inquisitor tells Jesus, “man seeks not so much God as miracles. And as man cannot bear to be without a miracle, he will create new miracles of his own for himself...We have corrected Thy work and have founded it upon miracle, mystery, and authority.”

In Malta, during the hysteria leading up to the apotheosis of the dead Dun Gorg, the public’s craving for miracles was met with a couple of tawdry “miracles” involving the placing of shoelaces under a pillow and the application of a germ-ridden glove belonging not to Dun Gorg but to a gravedigger! 

We are now witnessing the mounting hysteria among Catholics over the beatification of the dead Pope John Paul, to whom a “miracle” has been ascribed which the Vatican itself doubted for a while. The doubts have now been put aside and the Vatican is proceeding with the ceremony anyway. The credulous populace has to have its saints and miracles − and “subito!” too!

Christopher Hitchens writes that no honest account of the growth and persistence of religion is possible without reference to people’s gullibility and their herd instinct, and their wish, or perhaps their need, to be credulous. 

Faith discredits itself by proving to be insufficient to satisfy the faithful. As Jean Meslier, a parish priest in 18th century France, wrote in his testament to his parishioners: “If religion were clear, it would have fewer attractions for the ignorant. They need obscurity, mysteries, fables, miracles, and incredible things!”

John Guillaumier

ST JULIAN’S