Vatican’s secret, and deadly, project to preserve its saints

New York Post ^ | 03/22/2014 | Theresa Potenza

[Alex Murphy]

The Catholic belief of “incorruptibility” holds that if a body does not decay after death, the person is holy. It takes two miracles to become a saint; the Church once allowed a perfect corpse to count as one.

Incorruptibility is no longer a miracle, however, perhaps because so many tried to help God along. Oil and herbs were inserted into the muscle cavities of some older popes, for instance.

When Pope Pius XII died in 1958, the Vatican used a wrapping technique similar to what was believed to have been applied to Jesus. It failed miserably. Only days after his death, his nose fell off, and a Swiss Guard fainted due to the stench while he was guarding the body.

[SNIP]

In 2000, Pope John Paul II had [Pope John XXIII] exhumed to be declared “blessed,” part of the progression to sainthood. The airtight coffin had left him virtually undisturbed, and the embalming team wanted to keep it that way.

After the pope’s internal organs were removed and analyzed, the body was placed in a stainless-steel tub for several weeks in a solution of formalin and alcohol, then neutralized for several weeks.

His body then undertook a series of baths in assorted solutions for months at a time, including various mixtures of ethanol, methanol, phenol, camphor, nitrobenzene, turpentine and benzoic acid.

Finally the body was bandaged in linen cloths saturated with a solution of mercury bichloride and ethanol. Then a second team ensconced him with wax on his face and hands. The entire process took about a year.

The Church decided not to rebury Pope John XXIII, instead putting him on display for pilgrims. More than 25,000 people visit St. Peter’s Basilica every day, and many faithful still believe the incorrupt state of his body is a miracle.

[daniel1212]

So these Catholic clergy then were faithless, superstitious barbarians...

Superstitious perhaps. When accommodation is made for paganism, so is regular use of relics of the dead, which was not ordained in either testament.

But while Judaism did not really use human relics, that does not mean it was not given to superstition, as often seen in the Talmud:

If you do happen to drink an even number of cups of wine and so leave yourself a target for demons, there is a way to protect yourself: “He should take his right thumb in his left hand, and his left thumb in his right hand, and say as follows: ‘You, my thumbs, and I are three, which is not a pair.’ ” If a demon should overhear this and try to turn the tables by adding, “You and I are four”—which is an even number—then you can do him one better by saying, “You and I are five.” If the demon says six, you say seven, and so on indefinitely: On one occasion, the Gemara relates, “there was an incident in which someone kept counting after the demon until he r eached a hundred and one, and the demon burst in anger.”

And there are other ways to defeat a demon. One man was tricked by his vengeful ex-wife into drinking an even number of cups of wine—after he drank 16 cups, he lost count, understandably enough—and so he was bewitched. He solved the problem by hugging a palm tree, whereupon the demon was transferred to the tree, which dried up and burst. (According to an alternative interpretation, however, it was the man himself who burst.) -http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/148936/daf-yomi-54

[WXRGina]

Yep!

[redleghunter]

Is that Lenin?

[metmom]

Man preserving the body chemically is not a miracle.

They're frauds for making something up and then manufacturing the *miracle*. The only intent could be to deceive the masses into believing that it's real when they know full well it's not.

Whatever happened to not bearing false witness?

The church is creating and engaging and perpetuating deceit.

It is just staggering that people can continue to defend it.

[Elsie]

They could have learned from the Egyptians on how to do it...

[Elsie]

Or maybe the Russians...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin’s_Mausoleum

[Elsie]

I shudda read ahead!

[Elsie]

...“Saints” are simply believers in Christ...

Heretic!!

 

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,

' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'  

[Elsie]

The Church does not claim that ALL those who lived saintly lives will be incorruptible. It only happens to a few, apparently at God's discretion.

HMMMmmm...

---

1 John 3:2
Dear friends, we are already God's children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him...

[Elsie]

Really? Other than the prophecies of Jesus' body not seeing corruption and him not being left in death, where is that written in the Bible? I would like to know.

It must be a 'tradition'; because...

Acts 10:34
Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:

(I think that Peter guy is supposed to be a POPE...)

[Elsie]

We are told in John's Gospel that Lazarus was in the grave for 4 days, at which time there would have been "a stench". However, Jesus managed to restore not only his life, but reversed the decaying process that had already taken place.

John 5:21
For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.

[Elsie]

Necromancy is when someone tries to contact the dead to gain information from them. That is what Saul did.

It is EXACTLY what Catholicism teachs!

Except it claims these people prayed to contacted are NOT dead!

[Elsie]

Deliberate attempts to corrupt clear thought are EVERYWHERE

You may have hit on something...

[Elsie]

I'm honestly surprised that Tupperware didn't rate a mention. It works on almost anything!

 

 

 

[Elsie]

There is not one scintilla of evidence or documentation in that article.

It's similar to Mary's sinlessness and her assumption: no evidence at all...

[Elsie]

You think every miracle God has ever done, or ever will do, is recorded in Scripture? Seriously?

You think every miracle that Rome has ever authenticated, was done by GOD?

---

 

De 13:1-8 (NIV) If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken TAKES PLACE, and he says, "Let us follow other gods" (gods you have not known) "and let us worship them," you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer.

 

Mat 16:4b (NIV) "A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign."

 

Mt 24:24 (NIV) "For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect--if that were possible."

 

[Elsie]

Up until just over 100 years ago just about every Protestant knew the identity of antichrist and the great whore of Revelation.

Now just MORMONs do...

---

  "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent"

 

 (The Seer, p. 255  Orson Pratt )

---

But, in all fairness, TCOJSOLDS may have changed it's stance.

If so; I'm sure some of our FR Mormons could steer us to an official statement that now denies the teaching shown above.

[Elsie]

???

[Elsie]

Too many burnt offerings?

;^)

[Elsie]

You have just re-invented the wheel.. again...