Pope Saint John Paul II restored an important saint from the 4th century to the Universal Roman Calendar, whose feast day is celebrated every November 25.
In an article of National Catholic Registerauthor Thomas Craughwell explained that in 1969 Pope Saint Paul VI published a revised liturgical calendar that drew attention for eliminating dozens of saints, such as Saint Barbara, Saint Ursula and Saint Catherine of Alexandriapatron saint of single women.
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Craughwell indicated that the reason for eliminating these saints was the “relative paucity of existing authentic biographical material.” “It was all, and still is, quite confusing,” said the author.
Tradition tells that when a new persecution of Christians broke out in Alexandria, Saint Catherine was arrested. She was sentenced to die on a wheel with nails and blades, but the moment she touched it, the wheel shattered. So the emperor had the saint beheaded.
“The angels took his body to Mount Sinai and buried him there,” Craughwell noted.
Two centuries later, Emperor Justinian, who was a Christian, erected the Monastery of Saint Catherine of Alexandria on the mountain in honor of the young martyr, which has attracted pilgrims, especially from the Orthodox Church, for 1,500 years.
Craughwell noted that Saint John Paul II, during his trip to the Middle East in 2000, had as the highlight of his itinerary a pilgrimage to the Monastery of Saint Catherine.
The Pope wanted to “celebrate a prayer service there with the clergy of various Christian denominations, a Jewish rabbi and a Muslim imam. But Patriarch Damianos, the abbot, rejected the idea,” he added.
The author indicated that the patriarch did not want to pray with the Pope because he had the impression that ecumenical prayer could show that “the search for religious truth is optional.”
“For the Pope, this must have hurt him. Of course, it probably didn’t help that one of John Paul’s predecessors had ostensibly degraded the status of the beloved Saint Catherine,” he added.
Craughwell noted that two years later, St. John Paul II returned St. Catherine to the liturgical calendar, accomplishing “something quite rare in history” by restoring “a saint previously removed from the Universal Roman Calendar.”
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