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A rose named for the late Pope St. John Paul II has been included in a renovation of the White House Rose Garden. The Pope John Paul II rose, a white tea rose cultivar, is included in a redesign of the Rose Garden overseen by First Lady Melania Trump, which was unveiled Aug. 22. Other roses included in the garden redesign are the JFK rose cultivar and the Peace rose. The Rose Garden, a space of about 1,700 square feet, sits outside the Oval Office. It was first designed and planted in 1913 under the direction of First Lady Ellen...

President Donald Trump commemorated the 40th Anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s first trip to Poland, calling him Sunday “a champion for human dignity and religious liberty.”In a Presidential Message released on June 2 “in Commemoration of the 40th Anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s First Pilgrimage to Poland,” Mr. Trump said that St. Pope John Paul II’s nine-day visit to Poland in 1979 “changed the course of history.” "As we remember the long struggle of the Polish people against communism, we also acknowledge that millions of people now live in freedom because of St. Pope John Paul II and...

Imagine that President Trump gave a speech praising a strong Europe. Imagine that he called forthrightly on Russia to stop its aggression in Ukraine and join the community of responsible nations. Imagine that he embraced the mutual-defense commitment, so-called Article 5, of NATO. Imagine that he extolled the role of women in our society. Imagine that he said we share the hope of every soul to live in freedom. Imagine that he celebrated the free press and ceaseless innovation and a spirit of inquiry and self-criticism. That’s the speech that Trump gave in Warsaw during his European trip for the...

THE “D’ESCOTO CASE” AND THOSE WHO WANT TO WIPE OUT THE WORK DONE BY JOHN PAUL II AND BENEDICT XVI Antonio Socci Libero September 7, 2014 In the era of Bergoglio, the Vatican has practically rehabilitated Liberation Theology, which came into existence in the 1960s and has caused untold disasters, mainly in Latin America, by fostering the Church’s subordination to Marxist thought. Over the past months there have been startling occurrences, such as the “landing” of Gustavo Gutierrez (“the father” of Liberation Theology) in the Vatican itself. A year ago, “L'Osservatore Romano” published large extracts from one of his books...

35 years after his assassination attempt, the catechesis and two important announcements JPII never made that fateful dayVATICAN CITY — Thirty-five years ago, on May 13, 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot as he made his way through St. Peter’s Square in the pope-mobile, responding to the warm greetings of the faithful and pilgrims before the general audience. At 5:19pm, the pope was the victim of an assassination attempt perpetrated by a young Turkish man named Mehmet Ali Agca. During the general audience, the Holy Father had intended to speak to the faithful about a theme very dear to...

Photos and more than 350 "intense" letters from Pope John Paul II to a married woman he corresponded with for more than three decades have been found at the National Library of Poland, Deutsche Welle reports, via a BBC documentary. The notes and images—often showing the pontiff, who was made a saint in 2014, in casual wear—reveal a friendship between himself and American philosopher Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka that included holidays spent together and an intimate relationship that historians are trying to figure out. "Here is one of the handful of transcendentally great figures in public life in the 20th century, the...

Today at Mass, the priest for some reason brought up the prophet Amos. I was fairly sure I knew where this was going, but stayed for the end. When he passed through slavery and war to get to our Pontiff's call for worldwide totalitarian government to redistribute income (isn't slavery the ultimate income redistribution?)I had heard enough and left. I haven't left Mass in the middle since the Sunday after 9/11/2001 when Father Jack at Our Lady of Guadalupe railed about "the corrupt men who control Alan Greenspan". Pope John Paul fought against totalitarianism and for the freedom of all...

A fine young man, a father of children and a professional, approached me at church: "What do you think of that Pope John-Paul? He's no good." Others also didn't like him. I put a magnetic sign on my car, it was met with sneers: 5 pictures of the Pope immediately after being shot, in 1/6th of the space, "In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood." – Hebrews 12:4 Yet I also didn't like Pope John Paul II, not in himself, but because of the cult of personality around him. I love...

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...

(RNS) For more than three decades, the Vatican of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI operated on a version of the conservative maxim, “No enemies to the right.” While left-wing theologians were silenced and liberal-to-moderate bishops were shunted aside in favor of hard-liners, liturgical traditionalists and cultural conservatives were diligently courted and given direct access to the apostolic palace. But in a few short months, Pope Francis has upended that dynamic, alienating many on the Catholic right by refusing to play favorites and ignoring their preferred agenda items even as he stressed the kind of social justice issues that...

The UN Convention On The Rights Of The Child have backed a Mexican sexual abuse victims group that formed in response to the impending canonization of late Pope John Paul II. This is the first time a group has formed to challenge the Vatican when it comes to a person's sainthood. The current Pope Francis will now see a case that gives him a chance to reveal pressing questions about the Catholic Church's history with child sexual abuse. He has until Nov. 1 to come forward with any and all evidence pertinent to the case.

Rome (CNN) -- The Roman Catholic Church will declare the late Pope John Paul II a saint, the Vatican announced Friday. Pope Francis signed the decree Friday morning, the Vatican said. John Paul was pope from 1978 until his death in 2005, and was in a way the first rock star pontiff, drawing vast crowds as he crisscrossed the globe. At his funeral, thousands of pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square and chanted "Santo subito" -- Sainthood now! The Polish-born pope was fast-tracked to beatification and became "the blessed" John Paul II barely six years after his death, the fastest...

"A saint now!" The canonisation of Wojtyla is getting closer quickly and it could be celebrated next October. In fact, in the past few days, the medical council of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints has recognized as inexplicable one healing attributed to the blessed John Paul II. A supposed "miracle" that, if it is also approved by theologians and the cardinals (as it is very likely), will bring the Polish Pope, who died in 2005, the halo of sainthood in record time, just eight years after his death. It all happened in great secrecy, with maximum confidentiality. In...

Religion: The change that swept Eastern Europe in the 1980s and fueled the collapse of the Soviet Union may find itself repeated by a new pope with similar disdain for the authoritarian governments of his region. When Cardinal Karol Wojtyla stepped out on the balcony of St. Peter's in 1978 as Pope John Paul II, Soviet communism still stood astride Eastern Europe and his native Poland. He would be the moral force helping to lead half a continent out of the human bondage of totalitarianism. Argentina's 76-year-old Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis I, is no stranger to —...

GDANSK, Poland (AP) — 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. The statue was unveiled in Gdansk, the birthplace of Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement, in the presence of about 120 former Solidarity activists, many of whom were imprisoned in the 1980s for their roles in organizing or taking part in strikes against the communist regime...

Pope John Paul II -- one of history's very most memorable -- took a great leap toward sainthood today when he was beatified by close associate and successor Benedict XVI in a huge, powerful, emotional ceremony attended by hundreds of thousands -- not as many as the three million who attended his funeral, but one of the largest beatifications in history. With the faithful cheering wildly, Benedict declared the Polish pope "blessed" -- the fastest beatification on record, beating out even the rapid pace of Mother Teresa of Calcutta (by several days).

AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France – A French nun says she felt new inner strength and vitality as her Parkinson's disease suddenly disappeared in 2005 — a recovery the Vatican attributes to the miraculous intercession of Pope John Paul II. Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, who works at a Paris maternity clinic, told reporters in a rare appearance Monday that she felt "reborn" on waking June 3, 2005 after she had prayed for healing to John Paul. "There was a new strength inside me, and my body was rediscovering its vitality and fluidity," Simon-Pierre, appearing in good health, told reporters in the southern French city...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- When it was unveiled in late January, the insider book about the "real" Pope John Paul II looked at first glance like the Vatican's own effort at a pre-beatification biography. But as the fallout over the next two weeks made clear, the Vatican was not directly involved. Nor was everyone happy that the book was co-authored by the official postulator, or promoter, of Pope John Paul's sainthood cause, using information that is generally considered confidential. In addition, several officials thought the book's simple presentation of the late pope's reported penitential practices, with little explanation or context,...

VATICAN CITY -- Pope John Paul II whipped himself with a belt, even on vacation, and slept on the floor as acts of penitence and to bring him closer to Christian perfection, according to a new book by the Polish prelate spearheading his sainthood case. The book "Why He's a Saint" also includes previously unpublished speeches and documents written by John Paul, including one 1989 signed memo in which he said he would resign if he became incapacitated. The book also reported for the first time that John Paul forgave his would-be assassin in the ambulance on the way to...

Krakow, May. 21, 2008 (CWNews.com) - A Polish newspaper has predicted that the beatification of Pope John Paul II will take place next year. Zycie Warszawy speculates that the late Pontiff could be beatified on April 2, the anniversary of his death, or on October 16, 2009, the anniversary of his election to the papacy. Earlier this month another Polish newspaer, Dziennik, had said that the beatification could take place on October 16 of this year, the 30th anniversary of John Paul's election. That prediction appeared unrealistic, since the cause for beatification of the late Pontiff still has several hurdles...