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<p>Just two days before the canonization of Pope John Paul II, a giant crucifix erected in his honor collapsed in Italy, crushing a young man and killing him, according to ANSA.</p> <p>A piece of the 30-meter (98-foot) high wooden crucifix fell down during an event near the village of Cevo, in northern Italy, instantly killing the 21-year-old man. The Jesus Christ figure attached to the cross is six meters high and weighs 600 kg, according to AFP.</p>

Solzhenitsyn. Havel. Bonhoeffer. Kolakowski. These names are forever lionized in the pantheon of noble dissidents. And rightfully so. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn catalogued the heinous abuses of the Soviet labor camp experience in his greatest work, The Gulag Archipelago. Vaclav Havel endured isolation and harassment as an outspoken playwright who penned the razor-sharp analysis of life under oppressive Czech Communist stooges in his essay The Power of the Powerless. Dietrich Bonhoeffer helped found a Protestant Confessing Church objecting to the Nazification of his former denomination. He then went on to write his seminal work, The Cost of Discipleship, which objected to “cheap...

Link only included due to copyright restrictions: http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/04/21/pope-saint-johnpaulii-easter-sex-abuse-column/7980347/

LETTER OF POPE JOHN PAUL II TO WOMEN I greet you all most cordially, women throughout the world! I am writing this letter to each one of you as a sign of solidarity and gratitude on the eve of the Fourth World Conference on Women, to be held in Beijing this coming September. Before all else, I wish to express my deep appreciation to the United Nations Organization for having sponsored this very significant event. The Church desires for her part to contribute to upholding the dignity, role and rights of women, not only by the specific work of the...

TRES RIOS, Costa Rica (AP) — On a warm spring day, Floribeth Mora was in her bed waiting to die from a seemingly inoperable brain aneurysm when her gaze fell upon a photograph of Pope John Paul II in a newspaper. "Stand up," Mora recalls the image of the pope saying to her. "Don't be afraid." Mora, her doctors and the Catholic Church say her aneurysm disappeared that day in a miracle that cleared the way for the late pope to be declared a saint on April 27 in a ceremony at the Vatican where Mora will be a guest...

A new report out today suggests Pope John Paul II’s mother rejected an abortion when pregnant with him. The report suggests that the future Pope John Paul II was in danger of not being born because of the precarious state of health of his mother Emilia Kaczorowska. The book, “The Mother of the Pope,” indicates Emilia Kaczorowska, married in 1905 with Karol Wojtyla, the army of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, rejected an abortion. According to the gynecologist Kindziuk of Wadowice, Jan Moskala, he mother had lost her daughter Olga, who died shortly after giving birth. The report says the doctor advised...

Two of the great figures of the Second Vatican Council will be canonized on the same day next year. The Vatican announced that they will add Popes John Paul II and John XXIII to the list of saints on April 27th next year. That falls on Divine Mercy Sunday, a feast day instituted by John Paul II: Two of the most-loved leaders of the Catholic Church, Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II, will be raised to sainthood together in a joint canonization ceremony — the first such ceremony in the church’s history.At a consistory in the Vatican, Pope...

Which Pope Said What? Take The New York Times Challenge August 2, 2013 By Frank Weathers The Gray Lady wants to test your knowledge of the Pope’s unique voice. So they put together a little multiple choice quiz asking readers to differentiate between the sayings of Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis.Give it a try below.How Recent Popes Differ on Key Issues. Choose the Pope who said each quote on seven critical issues. 

"On flight from Rio de Janeiro to Rome" Journalists fired improvised questions at the Pope for one hour and twenty minutes. The Pope agreed to hold the press conference straight after take-off, despite how tired he was after an eventful World Youth Day week in Brazil. Francis surprised journalists with his willingness to answer all questions put to him, even those which touched on really thorny issues like the reform of the Vatican Bank (IOR), the Ricca case, the gay lobby, Vatileaks and even the content of the black leather bad he carried on to the plane which flew him...

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Pope Francis on Friday cleared Pope John Paul II for sainthood, approving a miracle attributed to his intercession and setting up a remarkable dual canonization along with another beloved pope, John XXIII. In a major demonstration of his papal authority, Francis decided to make John XXIII a saint even though the Vatican hasn’t confirmed a second miracle attributed to his intercession. The Vatican said Francis had the power to “dispense” with the normal saint-making procedures to canonize him on his own merit, without a miracle.The ceremonies are expected before the end of the year. The date of Dec. 8 has...

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope John Paul II has cleared the final obstacle before being made a saint, awaiting just the final approval from Pope Francis and a date for the ceremony that could come as soon as Dec. 8, a Vatican official and news reports said Tuesday.

Bad enough that James Earl Carter, Jr. is the worst president this country has had not named James Buchanan or Barack Obama, but he is also an anti-Catholic bigot as his latest mind droppings amply demonstrate: Former US President Jimmy Carter has disclosed that he had angry exchanges with Pope John Paul II about liberation theology and about the ordination of women. The former president said that he complained to the Pontiff about the Church’s “perpetuation of the subservience of women” while Blessed John Paul II was visiting the US in 1978, and “there was more harshness when we turned...

Mother's Day is Sunday. Traditionally, it is a day to honor and respect all that mothers do and sacrifice for the sake of their children. And while this day is important, special, and necessary, we can't help but wonder what our country would be like if we celebrated mothers every day. If mothers and babies were held in the highest regard, as they should be, each and every day of the year, think about the lives that could be spared. Think about the heartache that would not come about because a mother chose to abort her child. That would truly...

May 10, 2013 (HLIWorldWatch.org) - Polls show that most young people today, even those who identify themselves as Christians, have no problem with “same-sex marriage.” If young people today are at all aware of what the Catholic Church teaches about marriage and human sexuality, what they think they know is often only a caricature of the truth. They see it as simply a set of prohibitions established by men. But what the Church actually presents is a vision of the beauty of marriage as a sacred union between one man and one woman who are committed for life and open...

WASHINGTON — Jews worldwide welcomed newly elected Pope Francis as a friend on Wednesday (March 13), and pointed in particular to his sympathetic and strong reaction to the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in his native Argentina — the deadliest bombing in the country’s history. snip Benedict does not have a bad record with the Jews, Novak said, but he didn’t give it as much attention as Pope John Paul II, who called Jews the “elder brethren” of faith. “I would like to see a kind of renewal of Jewish-Catholic relations which I think reached a high point during...

Michael Moore Blasts Reagan and John Paul II Supporters as Bigots, Responsible for 'Deaths of Thousands' By Matthew Balan Created 01/09/2013 - 4:12pm On Monday, far-left director Michael Moore went on an anti-Catholic bender at an awards presentation, and also targeted "those who would deify Reagan and Pope John Paul II" as somehow to blame for "the deaths of thousands of people...because of their bigotry." The New York Post's Page Six on Wednesday spotlighted how the Occupy Wall Street-supporting filmmaker served as a presenter at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards. Moore gave the Best First Film award to...

Michael Moore got a bad review from at least one upset critic at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards...on Monday. Moore was there to present Best First Film to David France for his doc "How To Survive a Plague," a salute to a protest group that stormed St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1989 over the AIDS crisis. But Armond White, gadfly critic and former organization chair, began heckling him for "anti-Catholic" rhetoric. Moore raised hackles when he recalled how activists at the height of the epidemic...interrupted Mass at St. Patrick's. Moore stated, "I personally like that one. I say that...

Reagan and John Paul shared a conviction that communism was a moral evil, not just a bad economic system. And Lech Walesa, founder of the Solidarity movement that led the anti-communist struggle in Poland, has often paid homage to both men and told the AP in a recent interview that he deeply respected Reagan. "Reagan should have a monument in every city," Walesa said.

GDANSK, Poland — Polish officials unveiled a statue of former President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II on Saturday, honoring two men widely credited in this Eastern European country with helping to topple communism 23 years ago.