Posted on 01/18/2011 3:41:03 PM PST by markomalley
The beatification of John Paul II, which Pope Benedict XVI will preside over on May 1, will mark the first time in 1,000 years a Pontiff has beatified his immediate predecessor.
The director of the L’Osservatore Romano, Giovanni Maria Vian, said a Jan. 16 article, “One has to return to the heart of the Middle Ages to find a similar situation.” However, he continued, “even in that context it doesn’t compare with the decision of Benedict XVI: in the last 10 centuries no Pope has raised his immediate predecessor to the altars.”
“Pietro del Morrone (Celestine V) was canonized in 1313—less than 20 years after his death—by his third successor, and more than two centuries earlier the sanctity of Leo IX and Gregory VI, who died in 1054 and 1085 respectively, was recognized,” Vian explained.
After noting that the last Pope to be canonized was St. Pius X, Vian recalled that the essential question in every beatification and canonization cause is the exemplary life of the candidate.
As Paul VI said upon announcing the opening of the causes of his immediate predecessors, John XXIII and Pius XII, this ensures that “the patrimony of their spiritual heritage” is kept separate from “any reason other than their devotion to true sanctity, that is, to the glory of God and the edification of the Church.”
“And Karol Wojtyla was an authentic servant of God, a fervent witness of Christ for young people until his last breath. Many people, Catholic and non-Christian alike, realized this during his exemplary life,” the Vatican newspaper’s editor said.
For this reason and for many more, Vian concluded, Benedict XVI has decided to preside over the beatification of the pilgrim Pope “in order to present to the world the personal model of sanctity of John Paul II.”
See what happens when you start a trend? Everyone just copies and copies and copies.
Seriously, JP II was the right Pope in the right place at the right time. He stands along Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in bringing down the Iron Curtain.
He also was a warm and approachable man who never lost the common touch nor his sense of humor. This is him mocking the Communist observers across the Berlin Wall:
An amazing stat... And well deserved.
I was never aware of how much a ‘popularity contest’ it was to become a saint
I loved him as a pope... but I thought sainthood was something miraculous
And a nun getting cured of parkinsons after his visit just doesnt cut it for me
All believers are already saints, we just don’t get anything ‘official’ about it.
And I can live without it, frankly.
You’d never get it if you wanted it. just saying. You have to be dead first and 2 rigorously investigated miracles attributed to your intercession with God.
It’s just declaring someone a title based on man-made criteria. Bible already defines us as saints.
Currently we are both sinner and saint at the same time. The new adam fighting against the old adam every day. With Christ and the Holy Spirit living inside us.
Which is amazing BTW. Not even in the OT did the Holy Spirit live inside anyone. The Spirit of God would ‘rest upon’ or ‘remain over’ someone but never indwell that person. I think this is something most of us in the Church don’t really see as the big deal that it is. How remarkable it is we can have such access and an intimate relationship, something I am sure the OT saints wish they could have had. I know I have taken it for granted.
So when Paul was addressing his epistles to the Saints in Rome and Ephesus, he was writing to dead people?
Only if you want the RCC’s official designation/title, yes. If you’re a believer as far as the biblical description of ‘saint’ is, you are a saint right now.
Sorry about that.
Remember -- Pope John Paul II is NOT being canonized -- he has already been pronounced 'Venerable' (Holy); this will be the second step in the canonization process -- a beatification ('Blessed').
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** man-made criteria**
LOL! So you think the miracles are of man? LOL!
You’re an idiot. And don’t go crying about me calling you that when your post was total mockery because you were too stupid to understand it.
I obviously meant that men decided the criteria that you only get to have the title “saint” if 1) you are dead, and 2) that you have to have performed an arbitrary number of “miracles”.
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