Posted on 12/20/2004 5:45:44 PM PST by wagglebee
We can still have these examples of people who lead exemplary spiritual lives, but we should not "cheapen" sainthood in the process.
War on the cheap. Saints on the cheap. Ahhh why not!?
Next, this koran-kissing, worships-with-animists "Pope" will eliminate the "anachronistic" need for Saints to be Catholic, or even Christian. Make way for Saint Luther and Saint Ghandi!
That's the problem. JP II has pretty much made a joke of the entire process. All of these, when the church is free of his sort, and set itself right, by God, will have to be scrapped and individually reconsidered. Just think of every 'Saint' or blessed under JP II as essentially 'probationary', and temporary. That's how they'll be treated, in future, even if MANY will then, again, be called Saints, but by proper vetting and a sincere and holy consideration.
Is the Pope considered infallible when determining who is and who isn't a Saint?
What I found most appalling is the Pope's desire to make the "father" of the European Union a saint. Even the most ignorant observer can realize that the EU is at odds with everything Christian.
Let's bring back simony too!
Only as definitively stated by The Vatican Council - and I don't mean Vat II. He must speak to the whole world, on matters of dogma, concerning faith and morals, saying that this is imminent in Revelation and irreformable. Some suggest a lesser but still serious standard applies to the pronouncements on a possible female priesthood. But that isn't technically an exercise of the Solemn Magisterium.
The irony is that in the defense of this Pope's foolishness in many things, generally stemming from ecumenism, his defenders tend to say that everything he does is infallible, but that rarely were any Popes prior to Paul VI infallible in the same way. Those who criticize His Holiness do so on the basis of all those other Popes, Tradition, and that once the Truth is served, those interested in Truth wish it applied and spread to the whole world, not 'reformed' and remade.
"OUTCOME-BASED" sainthood????!!!!
So when does Mo-ham-head get to become a saint?
No, no, no! I strongly object to this. If they won't bring back the advocatus diaboli, they should at least keep the miracle requirement.
The Pope is infallible only when speaking "Ex-Cathedra" which literally means "from the chair." The doctrine of papal infallibility comes from the first Vatican Council (1870) and the pope has only used it once ... when proclaiming that the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived without stain of Original Sin (the Doctrine of Immaculate Conception, not to be confused with the Virgin Birth).
IMHO only, this process, the annulment process, and the response the church had to the major assault from the Left after the molestation scandals are the main reasons why so many of us former catholics don't attend services anymore.
I for one think it's embarrassing and ridiculous. This "Saints 'R Us" corporate mentality just illustrates how bloatedly bureaucratic the church has become.
So I'll always be "spiritual but not religious" to quote an oft-used cliche.
While the Vatican Council defined Papal Infallibility, it was merely a clarification of the authority bestowed by Christ. However, I don't believe that canonization in a papal prounouncement of dogma concerning matters of faith and morals. Canonization, in the early Church, was an honor bestowed on Christ's chosen Apostles and the fathers of the Church. Later it became a more formalized process. This process required proof that beatified ("saintly") persons be shown to have performed miracles through intercession or that after their deaths that prayers for their intercession resulted in miracles for which there is no scientific explanation. However, these determinations of miracles are made by men, there is no claim that these determinations (and subsequent canonizations) are themselves Divine.
Actually, the Church teaches that anyone in Heaven is a saint.
I may be incorrect in this and please correct me if I'm wrong. The first Vatican Council simply defined papal infallibility. However, it defined than when speaking "ex cathedra" the pope in inerrant in matters of dogma concerning faith and morals. Infallibility was bestowed by Christ to Peter (and his successors), and thus has existed since the Resurrection; it was not simply "invented" in 1870. Therefore, while the Immaculate Conception has been the only pronouncement "specified" as being infallible, many other articles of faith (the Virgin Birth, Christ's divinity, the Resurrection, the Trinity) are equally infallible.
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