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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...

In a provocative article, an Italian medical professor argues that Pope John Paul II didn't just simply slip away as his weakness and illness overtook him in April 2005. Intensive care specialist Dr. Lina Pavanelli has concluded that the ailing Pope's April 2 death was caused by what the Catholic Church itself would consider euthanasia. She bases this conclusion on her medical expertise and her own observations of the ailing pontiff on television, as well as press reports and a subsequent book by John Paul's personal physician. The failure to insert a feeding tube into the patient until just a...

A new article by an Italian medical professor speculates the death of Pope John Paul the Second was caused by euthanasia. According to "TIME" magazine, an intensive care specialist says the Pope's death would be considered euthanasia by standards set by the Catholic Church. The doctor bases her conclusion on press reports and a book written by the Pope's physician. She says the decision not to insert a feeding tube until just a few days before his death accelerated the death of the ailing pontiff. Plus, the doctor believes the Pope himself made the decision not to insert the tube...

Poland's forces not enough for NATO Peter Wilson, Europe correspondent September 15, 2006 NATO remains desperately short of reinforcements for its Afghanistan campaign, despite an offer by Warsaw yesterday to send 1000 new troops to join Poland's existing 100-strong contingent. Defence Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told Polish TV that the additional 1000 troops would be in Afghanistan by next February. It was a significant increase and acceleration of Poland's previous offer to send 500 of its troops later next year. The announcement came hours after pleas for extra soldiers to reinforce the US, Australian and other Western troops fighting in southern...

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Chennai, April 1: A 22-foot-high bronze statue of Pope John Paul II will be unveiled in Chennai tomorrow. The statue, costing Rs 400,000, has been sculpted by Shihan Hussaini, eminent sculptor and karate expert. The statue would be unveiled on the premises of the Sculpture Mission at Besant Nagar, Chennai, to coincide with the first death anniversary of St John Paul II, tomorrow. Shihan said this would be an event of historical significance as this was the world's first statue of the Pope sculpted soon after his death. The statue was completed and mounted on a pedestal six days after...

ROME (Reuters) - Leaders of the former Soviet Union were behind the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II in 1981, an Italian parliamentary investigative commission said in a report. A final draft of the report, which is due to be presented to parliament later this month, was made available to Reuters on Thursday by the commission president, Senator Paolo Guzzanti. "This commission believes, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the leadership of the Soviet Union took the initiative to eliminate Pope John Paul," the report said. "They relayed this decision to the military secret services for them to take on...

The big story of the year happened last year, after every journalist in the world filed his biggest-story-of-the-year piece and went away for the holidays. That of course was the great tsunami. On this day one year ago the dimensions of the disaster had finally become clear. The tsunami is the story of 2005 not because it was shocking that natural disasters occur or that a quarter million people can die and many more be hurt in them--that information is well known to all adults. The great tsunami is the big story of 2005 because after it occurred the tired...

Sunday night sinners outshine CBS' "Pope" Mon Dec 5, 2005 3:03 PM ET By Cynthia Littleton LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The story of a man who is on a fast track to sainthood was no match for the sinners of "Desperate Housewives" and "Grey's Anatomy" on Sunday. The first half of CBS' "Pope John Paul II" miniseries fizzled on Sunday, drawing only about 8.3 million viewers from 9:30-11:30 p.m., according to preliminary estimates from Nielsen Media Research. CBS' lineup was thrown off its regular start times by a roughly half-hour football overrun at the start of primetime, but preliminary...

A betrayal of John Paul II By George Weigel Pope John Paul II had a keen intuition about the dynamics of history in his native part of the world. In mid-1981, John Paul smelled trouble coming. When a young Polish intellectual named Krzysztof Michalski (in league with the Pope’s old friend and fellow-philosopher, Father Jozef Tischner) proposed creating an institute in Vienna that would provide a meeting place for scholars from both sides of the Iron Curtain, John Paul heartily endorsed the idea, wanting Polish intellectuals to have a lifeline to the West when the storm he sensed brewing finally...

Pope blesses 'John Paul' TV movie Fri Nov 18, 2005 4:53 AM ET By Peter Kiefer ROME (Hollywood Reporter) - It was a meeting of Hollywood and the holy Thursday as the Vatican hosted the world premiere of the TV movie "Pope John Paul II" with Pope Benedict XVI in attendance. The cavernous Paul VI Hall was near capacity with about 6,000 on hand for the reduced version of the three-part series that will air December 4-6 on CBS. "I would like to extend my gratitude to the actors for honoring the memory of my illustrious and loved predecessor," the...

A ford escort that once belonged to Pope John Paul II has sold for £340,000. The 1975 saloon has no radio, hub-caps or air-conditioning reports The Sun. Millionaire John O'Quinn from Houston, Texas bought the car at a US auction. The car still contains the Pope's carved wooden rosary beads, a box of matches, a sweet tin and a dashboard medallion of a saint. Mr O'Quinn plans to put the car into a private museum. He said: "It's a piece of history. I'll be able to touch it and feel the Pope's spirit." John Paul who died in April, is...

Pope John Paul II's last words before his death were "let me go to the house of the Father", according to documents released by the Vatican.His words were spoken in his native Polish to aides hours before he died last April. They are preserved in a new 220-page volume which chronicles the last two months of the late pontiff's life. It is the first time the Vatican has published such a detailed account of any pope's final moments. Parkinson'sCorrespondents say the report is an unprecedented move, as the death of a pope has always been surrounded by secrecy. The book...

The Message Does Count World Youth Day was never just about Pope John Paul II. By Colleen Carroll Campbell The conventional wisdom of secular journalists has long held that World Youth Day is a "Catholic Woodstock" born under Pope John Paul II and sustained by his personal charisma. The millions of young Catholics who have flocked to this global faith celebration for more than two decades like to party together and loved their late pope. But his defense of orthodox theology and traditional morality was never part of the appeal. That explanation — that World Youth Day gatherings were successful...

Folks, Mr. Benito Rivacoba, a friend of my friend Jorge Franchi, visited Rome recently and went to St. Peter's Basilica, where he had the blessing of visiting the final resting place of the Servant of God, Pope John Paul the Great. He took the picture to the right which I now I am sharing with all of you. The tomb is a white slab of marble with gray streaks, tucked into an arched alcove, a leafy potted lily at the top and a small red candle burning at the bottom. A marble relief of the Madonna and Child hangs on...

The Catholic Church has launched the official process which may culminate in a sainthood for the late Pope John Paul II with a service in Rome. The mass to nominate John Paul for beatification marks the penultimate step on the path to becoming a saint. Members of a special commission - including a latter-day "Devil's Advocate" whose job is to challenge any claim - swore secrecy and probity. The commission will sift possible evidence of a miracle by the late Pope. Fast-track During the mass at the cathedral of St John Lateran, the words of Cardinal Camillo Ruini were interrupted...

Picture this: Ruth Bader Ginsberg wearing a snug, green outfit, complete with tights. Then picture four of her high-court compatriots, John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer doing the same. It's a tough visual, I admit, but given their property-rights ruling, we now know what those members of the U.S. Supreme Court must be wearing under their black robes. Think "jolly, old England" and the fellow in the green outfit who stole from the rich to give to the poor. He didn't do it alone. Robin Hood had his band of merry men to help. It wasn't...

WARSAW, Poland - Pope John Paul II's longtime private secretary said Saturday he did not burn the late pontiff's notes as his will demanded, arguing that the papers contain "great riches" and should instead be preserved. Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, who worked with the pope from 1966 until his death earlier this year, told Polish state radio there are "quite a lot of manuscripts on various issues," but he offered no details. "Nothing has been burned," Dziwisz said. "Nothing is fit for burning, everything should be preserved and kept for history, for the future generations — every single sentence." "These are...

Following years of vocal protests all the way to Rome concerning the existence of the heretical group Futurechurch's national headquarters on property owned by the Diocese of Cleveland, Bishop Anthony Pilla issued a phony statement condemning Futurechurch just days before his final ad limina visit with Pope John Paul II. Sadly, Pilla had no intent of enforcing the phony statement which was never enforced and the national headquarters of Futurechurch remains on diocese of Cleveland property From http://www.futurechurch.org/ : FutureChurch 15800 Montrose Avenue Cleveland, Ohio 44111 USA Phone: 216.228.0869 | Fax: 216.228.4872 E-mail: info@futurechurch.org _______________________________ From http://www.cleveland.catholicnet.com/parish/stmark/ St. Mark Church...

WARSAW (AFP) - Eighty- five percent of Poles would like their beloved native son, the late pope John Paul II, to be named the country's patron saint, according to an opinion poll released. Just eight percent of those asked opposed the idea of proclaiming John Paul II the patron saint of the predominantly Catholic country, according to the survey of 800 people conducted by the Pentor institute on April 13. John Paul II, born Karol Wojtyla in the southern Polish town of Wadowice in 1920, died on April 2 at age 84. Poland currently has three patron saints, Adalbert, Stanislas...

This isn't original with me; found it from another forum. All the same, the idea I find uplifting. This is (supposedly) attributed to the late Pope John Paul II: I love you, With my every breath, With all I have left, From the deepest depths, Of my heart, I love you. With all of my strength, With a thousand miles' length, Every thought I think, And each, I love you. For the length of forever, As long as I can remember, Through good and bad weather, For always, I love you. When no one is there, When you think no...

I saw this site : www.candleforpope.com, they want to compile a CD with all messages for John Paul two, and send it to every one wich want it, for the cost of the CD and delivery. They experience that for 1 year. ping your people about that.

Tax evasion charges were filed yesterday before the Department of Justice (DOJ) against the makers of the bulletproof "Popemobile" used by Pope John Paul II during World Youth Day celebrations in Manila in January 1995. The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) lodged the complaint against the two top officials of Italcar Pilipinas who are also owners of Francisco Motors Corp. (FMC), which assembled the vehicle, and the comptroller of Italcar. BIR Commissioner Guillermo Parayno Jr. said Italcar Pilipinas, a wholly owned subsidiary of FMC, is engaged in the importation and sale of motor vehicles. Charged were Fernando Francisco, managing director,...

Apr. 8, 2005 - With presidents and kings looking on, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims in St. Peter's Square sang, applauded and chanted for the church to declare John Paul II a saint as the pope was laid to rest Friday in an unprecedented gathering of the mighty and the meek. John Paul, who spread his message of peace to all corners of the planet, was buried among his predecessors back to the apostle Peter while tens of millions followed the funeral rites in their homes, in overflowing churches and on giant television screens set up in fields, sports stadiums...

Pope John Paul II, while on a visit in Mexico in 1990, has reportedly healed a boy with cancer? The boy who was diagnosed with leukemia, was declared terminally ill by doctors. He is now 19 years old and is in good health. During the Pope's visit, his parents pushed themselves through the crowd and presented their then 3 year old son to the Pontiff's arms and asked the Pope to bless him. Then John Paul whispered something to the boy. To the doctors' surprise afterwards, he was now cured from the dreaded disease. The doctors attest to the miraculous...

'New' Litany of the Saints from the Papal Funeral Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro eo Sancta Maria, Mater Ecclesiæ, ora pro eo Sancta Maria, Salus populi Romani, ora pro eo Sancti Michael, Gabriel et Raphael, orate pro eo Omnes sancti Angeli, orate pro eo Sancte Ioseph, ora pro eo Sancte Ioannes Baptista, ora pro eo Omnes Sancti Patriarchæ et Prophetæ, orate pro eo Sancti Petre et Paule, orate pro eo Sancte Andrea, ora pro eo Sancti Ioannes et Iacobe, orate pro eo Sancte Thoma, ora pro eo Sancte Matthæe, ora pro eo Sancte Matthia, ora pro eo Sancte Luca,...

VATICAN CITY — Pope John Paul II received an emotional farewell Friday from pilgrims, prelates, presidents, prime ministers and kings after millions flocked to Rome for one last look at the deceased pontiff. Applause rang out in the wind-whipped St Peter's Square as John Paul's plain cypress coffin, adorned with a cross and an "M" for the Virgin Mary, was brought out from St. Peter's Basilica and placed on a carpet in front of the altar. The book of the Gospel was placed on the coffin and the wind lifted the pages. Nearly 1 million people prayed in a Polish...

PARIS, April 7 - France may be a predominantly Roman Catholic country, but it is also officially secular, with separation of church and state one of its most sacred tenets. So while the death of Pope John Paul II has brought widespread mourning, there has also been pressure on the French Republic not to honor him officially. For the moment, the political instinct to please voters has won out: the government is marking the pope's passing in a variety of ways across France, and President Jacques Chirac and his wife, Bernadette, will attend the funeral Mass at the Vatican on...

"The most extraordinary moment in a week of extraordinary moments." Here is a long, and extraordinary e-mail from a priest in Rome, Father Peter Mitchell, forwarded to me from one of his friends. Read it all: 6 April 2005 Rome It is impossible to describe the conditions in this city. As I write, helicopters are hovering overhead, traffic is backed up down the entire Corso Vittorio Emmanuele leading through the heart of the city towards the Vatican, and it is said that up to 600,000 people are in line to view the body of John Paul II, with well over...

NBC, ANDREA MITCHELL: Carter was told no former presidents were going to pope funeral... Developing...

April 07, 2005, 10:43 a.m. The Rearguard Pope One man vs. a posthuman tsunami. I am not a Roman Catholic. In fact, I was raised in the old English tradition to think of the Roman Church as a sinister continental conspiracy — hatchet-faced Jesuits in purple robes, lurking in dark corridors, muttering subversion in Latin — to deprive honest Englishmen of their liberties. A few years’ acquaintance with the world showed me the absurdity of all that. Philip II of Spain has been dead for a very long time, and the great enemies of liberty in our own age have...

The sooner, the better...I have seen underneath the surface of the mainstream media coverage of the passing of Pope John Paul the Great, a curious counter-current aimed at diminishing the Pontiff's achievements during his reign. As far as the reporting goes, they represent but a dissenting trickle, but interesting still regarding their chosen pet peeves. The Washington Times quotes some of them: Joy Barnes, head of the Women's Ordination Conference, a Catholic group that supports the ordination of female priests, said, "The church took significant steps backward in the struggle for women's equality" under John Paul.Linda Pieczynski, a spokeswoman for...

The Pope has blood on his hands The Pope did great damage to the church, and to countless Catholics Terry Eagleton Monday April 4, 2005 Guardian John Paul II became Pope in 1978, just as the emancipatory 60s were declining into the long political night of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. As the economic downturn of the early 70s began to bite, the western world made a decisive shift to the right, and the transformation of an obscure Polish bishop from Karol Wojtyla to John Paul II was part of this wider transition. The Catholic church had lived through its...

I have just noticed that the Litany of the Saints was changed profoundly for the moving of the Body of Pope John Paul the Great from the Clementine Chapel to St. Peter's.St. Mary Magdalene (apostola apostolorum) was listed with the Apostles instead of with the female saints. St. Barnabas was moved after St. Mark etc. The inclusion of St. Boniface(!) as well as St. Stanislaus.I knew there would be differences for the Holy Father, but these changes were very striking.

The Daily Telegraph announces that the Pope's funeral will take place on Friday, 8a.m. G.M.T.

When you travel from one region to another in this world, there is little rest. ou pack your bags, your plan your travel, you travel the road, sea, or sky, here and there you go, each night of your sleep you must plan your accommodation, your meals, agendas, schedules, time tables, on it goes. When you travel in this world, there is no rest. But when one travels the other world, taking a man onward in moral progress that makes him godly, the travel that transports him from the material realm, or even just the moral realm, to the spiritual...

1. Mane nobiscum, Domine! Stay with us, Lord! (cf. Lk 24:29) With these words, the disciples on the road to Emmaus invited the mysterious Wayfarer to stay with them, as the sun was setting on that first day of the week when the incredible had occurred. According to his promise, Christ had risen; but they did not yet know this. Nevertheless, the words spoken by the Wayfarer along the road made their hearts burn within them. So they said to him: "Stay with us". Seated around the supper table, they recognized him in the "breaking of bread" - and...

I have set up a memorial for the Pope at http://rememberedbyus.com/PopeJohnPaulII/Please visit and light a candle and leave a personal message. My first memorial was for Ronald Reagan http://rememberedbyus.com/RonaldReagan/ and Freepers and others have lit almost 5000 candles for the Gipper. I hope that you will give the same level of response for Pope John Paul. I thank you in advance for your visit.

PRESIDENTIAL NEWS OF THE DAY: The President and First Lady are spending the weekend in Washington. They had no public appearances planned, but did come out together to make a statement about the passing of Pope John Paul II. THE WEEK AHEAD: On Monday, GWB welcomes Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko to the White House. President Yushchenko also will address the Congress next week. WH Press Secretary Scott McClellan said, "The President looks forward to welcoming President Yushchenko to the White House. His election was a landmark event in the history of liberty. And the Orange Revolution was inspiring to all...

How typical of the heroic Pope John Paul II that he would hold on long enough to see us through Holy Week; that he would use such strong words in his defense of a dying Terri Schiavo. How like this "Pope of the People" that even in failing strength he kept coming to the window of his Vatican apartment to bless the pilgrims. The life of Pope John Paul II has been a courageous one that made a difference for so many. Frail as he was back in 2002 when he came to Toronto for Youth Day, the Holy Father...

(AGI) - Vatican City, Apr 1 - It has been over a month that the mass media report the Vatican opinions of the influential ecclesiastical exponents to succeed Pope John Paul II. There are now 117 cardinals who would participate to a possible conclave: it was in the last couple of days that Angolan Alexandre do Nascimento and Ecuadorean Antonio Jose' Gonzalez Zumarraga turned 80. The next cardinal to come out of the electors will be the Emeritus Patriarch of Venice, Marco Ce', who will turn 80 on July 8. The Italian contingent until then will be composed of twenty...

<p>We hope to serve ... earlier initial state of consciousness AT 7:30 a.m. we celebrated of Mass with the Pope he is breathing, labored or slightly...</p> <p>Pope had in mind young people...</p> <p>This is difficult ...</p> <p>Pope seemed to refer to young people when he repeatedly seemed to say "I've been looking for you and now you've come to me... "</p>

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope John Paul's condition was "very grave" on Friday, the Vatican said in a statement, adding that the Pontiff had suffered shock and cardio-circulatory collapse. Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the Pope had been given the Holy Viaticum -- communion reserved for those close to death -- and had decided himself not to go to hospital for treatment. The statement said the Pope had received cardio-respiratory assistance on Thursday and on Friday morning was still "conscious, lucid and tranquil."

VATICAN CITY -- A cardinal who stood in for Pope John Paul II in a Holy Week ceremony at the Vatican said the ailing pontiff was "serenely abandoning" himself to God's will. Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re said the 84-year-old pontiff linked his own suffering to that of Jesus Christ. John Paul's words were being seen as poignant by the Roman Catholic faithful because this year is the first in his papacy he has missed services leading up to Easter this Sunday.

TIME is running out. A remarkable life is drawing to a close. Soon the journalists will congregate on St Peter’s Square. Vatican accreditation is being organised. Hotels and studios are being booked. Clergy deemed to be ‘in the know’ are being assiduously courted. Over the coming months you will hear a lot about Karol Wojtyla, the man and his legacy. The good stuff will come from those who, whether they are believers or not, have made it their business to understand the Catholic Church, its faith, its institutions and its personalities. They will be especially familiar with the large body...

ROME (AP) - An Iraqi girl wounded by a bomb during the war and being treated at the same hospital as Pope John Paul asked Sunday to see the pontiff to thank him for his antiwar stance, her grandfather said. The four-year-old girl, identified only as Diar, was brought to Rome's Gemelli Polyclinic hospital Saturday from her hometown of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq, said her grandfather, Hassan Shnawah, who accompanied her. She was wounded by a bomb in January 2004 and cannot walk. "We are trying to make her walk again," Shnawah told reporters. Italian officials decided to bring her...

Speaking through Silence © Third Millennium, LLC By: Deacon Keith A Fournier Like millions of Catholics, other Christians, people of faith and people of good will the world over, I am keeping a vigil of prayer for Pope John Paul II. I have signed up online for “breaking news”, I have found myself turning news on with ridiculous frequency, hoping to hear encouraging, or other news. As a member of the Clergy of my Diocese I have been sent “talking points”, by my Diocese, to explain how Popes are elected or, to speak to the Pope’s life and mission, should...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Adored by some, attacked by others, Pope John Paul is perhaps the most widely recognised person in the world. On the world stage, he has been at once a champion of the downtrodden and an often contested defender of orthodoxy within his own church. In recent years, the world has watched the decline in the health of the 84-year-old Pope, who suffers from Parkinson's disease and severe arthritis. He has been unable to complete his prepared speeches and has difficulty pronouncing his words. On Thursday, the Pope was rushed to hospital in Rome for the second...

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