
Reclaiming Becket: London’s great saint needs a reboot - silt
https://thecritic.co.uk/reclaiming-becket/
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hprotagonist
For a modern Becket, look to Archbishop Oscar Romero, saint and martyr, who
was assassinated by the state in his own cathedral in 1980.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93scar_Romero](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93scar_Romero)

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rajekas
To be honest, I don't know what it would mean to rehabilitate a twelfth
century Archbishop.

What kind of saint could he become?

Surely not a religious saint when religiosity is declining and sainthood is
suspect. Not a secular saint either, for he doesn't have the marks of 21st
century secular sainthood: lack of ego, public spirit, concern for justice
etc.

The only option I can see: his resistance to state power and unwillingness to
escape his fate brings him close to Socrates, so perhaps there's that route.
If only he had a great prose stylist as a student.

Of the various Catholic halomakers I know (and I don't many, being neither a
Catholic nor a saint), only St. Francis comes across as a straightforward
candidate for contemporary sainthood.

Even the very highest levels of human achievement are historically conditioned
and might appear to later generations as idolatry.

~~~
rayiner
> Surely not a religious saint when religiosity is declining and sainthood is
> suspect.

Are you talking about the UK specifically? The world as a whole is more
religious than ever: [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/27/religion-
why-is...](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/27/religion-why-is-faith-
growing-and-what-happens-next)

> And while the religiously unaffiliated currently make up 16% of the global
> population, only about 10% of the world’s newborns were born to religiously
> unaffiliated mothers between 2010 and 2015.

> China has seen a huge religious revival in recent years and some predict it
> will have the world’s largest Christian population by 2030. The number of
> Chinese Protestants has grown by an average of 10 % annually since 1979, to
> between 93 million and 115 million, according to one estimate. There are
> reckoned to be another 10-12 million Catholics.

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danielam
St. Stanisław of Kraków[0] is a similar figure.

[0]
[https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14246a.htm](https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14246a.htm)

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christopher8827
I was suprised for this to pop up - Becket was such a great film.

