Pope Names Jewish-Born Saint
At a ceremony in St Peter's Square, a Pope known for stubborness and controversy demonstrated both qualities Sunday in canonizing a Jewish-born nun who died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. CBS News Correspondent Mark Phillips reports.
She had been born Edith Stein to an orthodox Jewish family in what is now Wroclaw Poland, but had converted to Catholicism. She became a nun -- Sister Teresia Benedicta -- when in her thirties. After fleeing to Holland, she was rounded up by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz for extermination.
Pope John Paul, who had admired Edith Stein's writings on philosophy, became a champion of her sainthood. In creating Saint Benedicta of the Cross this Sunday, he said her life illuminated one of the darkest periods in history.
 Edith Stein |
"Edith Stein stands out as a beacon of light amid the terrible darkness which as marred this century," the pope said.
It's no longer necessary to have performed a miracle to become a saint, but Edith Stein is credited with one. A Catholic girl in Massachussetts named Benedicta McCarthy is said to have survived a massive drug overdose because her family prayed to her namesake, the martyred nun.
But a Pope who has otherwise sought to improve relations between Catholics and Jews has seemed insensitive to Jewish concerns this time. Jewish groups have condemned the canonization, saying Stein died not because she was a Catholic, but because she had been a Jew.
"To beatify her is a terrible mistake on the one hand, and an insult to the Jewish community and perhaps this is some expression of guilt on the part of the church that she was turned over to the Nazis," said Ephraim Suroff of the Simon Weisenthal Center of Jewish Studies.
Despite the controversy, and with some irony, the Catholic church Sunday created what may well be the first Jewish-born Catholic saint since the time of the Apostles.
Reported by Mark Phillips