Saint Faustina, a Doctor of the Church?

Many believe St. Faustina will eventually join the ranks of the great post-apostolic teachers

Can you guess the following saint?

The author, Fr. Steven Payne, OCD, wrote about this obscure and humble nun in 2002. He describes her "limited education," saying she "never wrote a treatise or published an article," and what she did write displayed an "imperfect literary style." Yet, he writes, no one would have guessed that she "would soon take the world by storm and go on to become the most popular saint of modern times â€¦ ranked alongside Augustine and Thomas Aquinas."

If you guessed St. Faustina, you're incorrect. Payne is writing about the 19th century French cloistered Carmelite, St. Therese of Lisieux, in his book St. Therese of Lisieux: Doctor of the Universal Church.

But it's amazing to consider the similarities between the two saints — not just in terms of their backgrounds, but also the impact they each have made upon the Church and the world. Now many theologians and scholars are calling for St. Faustina — this lowly Polish nun who barely had three years of schooling — to join the ranks of St. Therese and only 32 other saints who have been declared Doctors of the Universal Church.

Sister Mary Ann Follmar, an author and expert on the Doctors of the Church, has read the Diary of St. Faustina many times and believes St. Faustina is a "shoe-in" for this distinguished ecclesiastical title.

"A Doctor of the Church is one who is recognized as a great teacher in the Church, and I think St. Faustina is a great teacher of the mystery of God's mercy," says Sr. Follmar, who teaches theology at Providence College.

Father Jan Machniak, chair of the Theology of Spirituality at the Papal Theological Academy in Krakow, Poland, agrees that St. Faustina is deserving of the title. He gave a talk on the topic in Krakow last August during the festivities marking the centennial of St. Faustina's birth.

"People started talking about it right after her canonization in 2000 because of the influence that the Diary has exerted all over the world," says Fr. Seraphim Michalenko, MIC, who served as vice-postulator of St. Faustina's canonization cause.

Only the Pope has the authority to declare someone a Doctor of the Church. It's not clear if Pope Benedict XVI has any plans to bestow St. Faustina with the title. Saint Therese was the last to be given the title, and that was in 1997, under Pope John Paul II.

What does it mean to be a Doctor of the Universal Church?

Pope John Paul II described a Church Doctor as one whose writings not only conform with revealed truth, but that also shed "new light on the mysteries of the faith."
For instance, St. Therese sheds light upon the "little way" — of seeking holiness in the ordinary and the everyday.

Many say that St. Faustina, whose Diary includes a series of personal revelations she received from Jesus Christ in the 1930s, sheds light on the progress of the mystical life of the soul and gives an unparalleled understanding into the mystery of Divine Mercy.

"Her Diary, written in simple language, helps us to comprehend how God proceeds with souls," says Fr. Seraphim. "And it gives us a richer understanding of the relationship between mercy and love and the notion of merciful love as the source and ultimate reason for the whole of salvation."

Sister Follmar says the only other place where the powerful message of mercy is so explicitly expressed is in Pope John Paul II's encyclical, Rich in Mercy.

She and other theologians say there's no question that the Diary is having the sort of profound influence on the life and teaching of the Church as the doctrines of St. Therese and other Church Doctors had in earlier times.

In her theology classes, Sr. Follmar teaches the Diary. Among the many passages she likes to quote for students is the one in which the Lord, covered with wounds, asks the young Helen Kowalska (later to become Sr. Faustina), "How long will you keep putting Me off?" (9).

"My young students, some of whom get mixed up with drugs, alcohol, sex, and materialism, are touched by those words," Sr. Follmar says. "The message of Divine Mercy is one that really resonates with them. They see that God is longing for them far more powerfully than they are for Him."

What purpose would it serve if St. Faustina were declared a Doctor?

"It would only help to amplify the life St. Faustina lived — a life of responding to God's mercy and handing it on to others," says Sr. Follmar. "It would highlight what it means for someone to really live mercy."

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Rolly Lirio — Jul 14, 2010 - 11:30 EDT

I pray that St. Faustina be declared a Doctor of the Universal Church as I pray for the canonization of Pope John Paul the Great!