Secular saint
A secular saint is someone venerated and respected for their virtue and morality, but are not recognized as canonical saints by a religion. The ranks of secular saints, like those of religious ones, are often filled by martyrs; for instance Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr.. Christopher Manion calls the "beloved" John F. Kennedy the epitome of the modern secular saint becoming an object of national veneration, and a "federal martyr" complete with a modern secular shrine, the "eternal flame" honoring secular America’s "mortal god."
In the media
Individuals such as Czech leader Václav Havel have appeared in the international media for their commitment to what their followers consider a righteous cause; this also occurs with celebrities known for their charitable doings, such as U2's Bono and the rocker-humanitarian Bob Geldof. Peter Hitchens told BBC radio that Nelson Mandela's status had been elevated to a superhero and a sort of political secular saint. Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, and George Orwell (1903–1950) are among those who frequently receive this designation in print and often disputed with quotes like "Orwell's status as the secular saint of socialism is built on a myth" (New Statesman).
From one secular saint to another, George Orwell began his Reflections on Gandhi: "Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent…" Orwell concluded his essay with attack on the idea of sainthood but praise for Gandhi: "One may feel, as I do, a sort of aesthetic distaste for Gandhi, one may reject the claims of sainthood made on his behalf (he never made any such claim himself, by the way), one may also reject sainthood as an ideal and therefore feel that Gandhi's basic aims were anti-human and reactionary: but regarded simply as a politician, and compared with the other leading political figures of our time, how clean a smell he has managed to leave behind!" (Partisan Review, 1949)
Others acclaimed as saints
- Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965), Nobel Peace Prize winner and secular saint of the colonial era
- Ben Chifley (1885-1951) and John Curtin (1885–1945), secular saints of the labour movement
- Anne Frank (1929–1945) has been posthumously treated as a martyred secular saint after her diary (recorded during the Holocaust in Nazi Germany) was published
- Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993) has posthumously achieved the status of secular saint as an innocent beauty
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) has often been called a "Protestant saint" for his fight against Nazism
- Herbert "Betinho" de Souza (1935-1997), loved and admired for confronting economic injustice and government corruption in Brazil
- Samantha Smith (1972–1985) has been posthumously treated as a secular saint by the peace movement
- Admiral Arthur Phillip (1738–1814), the first Governor of New South WalesA secular saint, for some The Economist (July 13, 2006)
References and further reading
- Death of a secular saint: Herbert Betinho de Souza mourned by Brazil by Dada Maheshananda, People's News Agency (October 8, 1997)
- Lincoln's Locks: The Relics of a Secular Saint by Lesley Lathrop-Vitu, Detours (February 12, 1999)
- Ambroise-Auguste Liebeault: The Hypnological Legacy Of A Secular Saint translated by Laurent Carrer (September 2002)
- St. John F. Kennedy by Christopher Manion (May 28, 2003)
- The Path of Brighteousness by Cullen Murphy for the Atlantic (November 2003)