Swiss Saint

Bearded, 15th Century Nicolas de Flue is worshiped by all Switzerland as a national hero, and was regarded by Luther and Zwingli as a precursor of the Reformation. Last week, with trumpets, processions, floodlights and a pontifical High Mass, he became a Roman Catholic saint.

God & St. Nicolas. Nicolas de Flue made no compromises with unrighteousness. He started out as a soldier, but quit when Swiss troops burned a convent in which the enemy had taken refuge. He became a judge, but quit again when he saw an innocent poor man, accused by a rich man, convicted. He became a peasant, working his farm to support his wife and ten children. But again, the call of God was too strong. He left his family and retired to a ravine, where for 20 years, it is said, he ate only the Sacrament and drank nothing at all.

God favored him with other miracles (in 1468 his prayers saved the town of Sarnen from a conflagration), with the gift of prophecy and with visions. High dignitaries of church & state sought him out in his ravine, where a cell and chapel were finally built to replace his hut of branches and leaves. In 1480 he is credited with saving Switzerland from civil war and possible partition.

After his death, the mountaineers of De Flue's native Sachseln began saying prayers to him. According to canon law, this would have permanently disqualified him for sainthood: there is a rule that no public prayers may be said to the departed until Rome has approved the beatification. But in 1669 Pope Clement IX delighted even Switzerland's Protestants by cutting ecclesiastical red tape and authorizing Nicolas de Flue's beatification.

Postcards & Turtledoves. As the 278-year-old process* ended in the Holy City last week, Roman citizens had a field day with the first batch of pilgrims they had seen in years. One old Swiss woman with a strange silver headdress covering her huge bun of white hair got a 100-lira note from a moneychanger in exchange for her 100-Swiss-franc note (worth more than 20,000 lire). Postcard peddlers got rich.

Next morning, under the myriad of lights within the huge dome of St. Peter's, the Swiss enjoyed every minute of what they had really come for. Bright green, gold-embroidered bonnets and halo-like veils stood out among the black headdresses of nuns. Hundreds of Swiss eyes watched anxiously to see how the Pope would receive the profusion of gifts they had brought--huge candles with Alpine scenes painted on the sides, turtledoves, canaries, singing birds.

Even the Protestants of Switzerland had something to paste in their books. The day before the canonization, fashionable Rome turned out to hear the municipally supported Academia de Santa Cecilia sing the oratorio, Nicolas de Flue--words by Swiss Protestant Denis de Rougemont, music by Swiss Protestant Arthur Honegger.

-Swiss Protestants think it might not have taken so long if De Flue had not had so many leanings away from Catholicism.

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