St. Christopher not a Saint?

[gitfiddle]

I was watching Jeopardy tonight and when the answer to a question (or the question to the answer shall I say) in the "Saints" category was St. Christopher, Alex Trebek said that St. Christopher was actually no longer considered a Saint. What was he talking about?

[Reeder]

http://www.catholic.org/saints/saints/christopher.html

[kniz]

So now what will I put on my dash board? A hula gal, maybe?

[tomndebb]

St. Christopher has been popular for a long time, but there is no actual information that he existed. The Catholic Encyclopedia entry, St. Christopher provides the traditional legends regarding his life. One point that is interesting is his name: Christopher means one who bears or carries Christ; yet in the story, he gets the name before he actually encounters and carries Christ across the river.

In the late 1960s, when the RCC was "cleaning up" the liturgical calendar, removing people who were more likely legendary than real, Christopher was one of the saints whose feast was dropped, based on the apparently legendary nature of his story. (The process of canonization, with an examination of the person's life and the recording of actual witnesses only began hundreds of years after the stories regarding Christopher (and Veronica and some others) had already passed into popular belief.)

I do not belive that he has been officially declared a non-saint or non-existent, but the church no longer recognizes him with a feast day.

[ratty]

Just wanted to say that despite this, you can still buy St. Christopher medals, statues, etc. at your local St. Jude's Catholic Superstore. You can also purchase the unintentionally hilarious "Jesus Playing Popular Sports With Small Children" figurines. Try www.catholicshopper.com for more info, or just google them.

[yabob]

When they made the announcement that they were dropping him from the liturgical calendar because he probably never existed, a lot of jokes circulated about "Mr. Christopher" medals and statues - stores hung out signs advertising them this way, and so on. For some reason, it was one of those topics that standup comedians, both professional and amateur, couldn't resist while it was current. IIRC, Johnny Carson had a good time with it.

[Lost In Reality]

I always wanted to say this, the Master covers this as well. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/020315.html