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From: features@ihuxf.UUCP (M.A. Zeszutko)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.misc
Subject: Re: RE: St. Christopher
Message-ID: <1984@ihuxf.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 31-Jan-84 18:38:19 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxf.1984
Posted: Tue Jan 31 18:38:19 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 7-Feb-84 07:01:31 EST
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Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
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(St. Christopher)..."didn't he get court-martialled and convicted
in absentia by some recent pope for having been ilegitimate?" 

Not really.  At least not if you consider "illegitimate" as being
born out of wedlock.  The Vatican officials had some reason to
believe that belief in St. Christopher (and in a raft of other,
lesser-known saints) was merely a pious myth.  (Somewhat akin to
belief in Superman, on the secular side.)  Thus, they weren't
sure whether or not these folks ever existed, or whether they
were merely made up.

Incidentally, the canonization process (the route one has to travel
to be declared a saint) has gotten MUCH more stringent in the 
past 200 or so years.  In the early Church (<600), saints were
named by popular acclaim.  (If things were done now the way
they were then, Mother Theresa of Calcutta would already be
sainted.)

M. A. Zeszutko  AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL