Miracles in the waiting room of modernity: The canonisation of Dun Ġorġ of Malta

• Published in: The Australian Journal of Anthropology
• Main Author: Baldacchino, Jean-Paul
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Asia 2011
• Subjects: 2203 Philosophy; 2204 Religion and Religious Traditions; School of Social Sciences and Psychology; ResPubID25002; secularising epistemology; structuring ideology; western secularism; secular age; phenomenological–experiential transformation; religious belief; religiously pluralistic environment; humanism; Catholic Church; Maltese Catholicism; cult of saints and miracles; Dun; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://vuir.vu.edu.au/10437/; https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1757-6547.2011.00109.x

This study will focus on the persistence of ‘pre-modern’ forms of religious belief in a secular age. By examining in detail the process of canonisation of St. George Preca, the first Maltese saint, this study will explore concepts of the self and relations to the body in a Catholic modernity. The focus on miracles and canonisation in a context other than that of a North Atlantic modernity also allows me to highlight the need to understand the complex relationships among: (i) the official church and believers; (ii) the local elite and the populace; and ultimately, (iii) between religion and science. Lastly, in keeping with the phenomenological and experiential imperatives shared with the contributors to this volume, I conclude this article by outlining what, through an intimate engagement with the religious beliefs of ‘others’, I have come to believe miracles are about: True body event.