Posted on 02/12/2010 2:03:10 PM PST by Graybeard58
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The book "Why He's a Saint" also includes previously unpublished speeches and documents written by John Paul, including one 1989 signed memo in which he said he would resign if he became incapacitated.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 the hospital moments after he was shot on May 13, 1981, in St. Peter's Square. And it reported that he initially thought his attacker was a member of the Italian terrorist organization the Red Brigades.
The book was written by Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the postulator, or main promoter, for John Paul's canonization cause and was released Tuesday. It was based on the testimony of the 114 witnesses and boxes of documentation Oder gathered on John Paul's life to support the case.
At a news conference Tuesday, Oder defended John Paul's practice of self-mortification, which some faithful use to remind them of the suffering of Jesus on the cross.
"It's an instrument of Christian perfection," Oder said, responding to questions about how such a practice could be condoned considering Catholic teaching holds that the human body is a gift from God.
In the book, Oder wrote that John Paul frequently denied himself food -- especially during the holy season of Lent -- and "frequently spent the night on the bare floor," messing up his bed in the morning so he wouldn't draw attention to his act of penitence.
"But it wasn't limited to this. As some members of his close entourage
(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...
What? The Pope read the FR Religion Forum?
Why not?
For those who can't see the commonsense reasons why self-flagellation is wrong, consider that it leads to believing that God wants us to suffer. Totally backwards. This belief encourages the fallacy of thinking God has hurt us in some way when bad things happen to us. "He's taking target practice on me" a discouraged friend told me yesterday. Blasphemous. But even worse, an impediment to knowing Him.
It also can lead to thinking it is good for others to suffer, as when another friend was victimized by her Opus Dei visitors in the hospital when she was dying, as they told the nurses not to give her too much morphine so that she would suffer adequately before she died.
Ideas have consequences, and never more so when they are ideas about God.
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Not at all the same thing. One is an example of someone choosing to mortify himself for religious reasons, and the other is someone choosing to inflict suffering on another, helpless person. They are not even remotely alike.
Perhaps you missed the title of the thread.
During John Paul II’s reign the number of pedophilia cases dropped by about 99%, including by more than 90% before the mainstream media ever picked up the news in the early 1990s and 98% before the issue was launched into prominence at the start of this decade. (There were serious grumblings in the MSM in the early 1990s, but these died down when the MSM realized that the lavendar mafia, specifically Cardinal Bernadin, was behind the pedophilia.)
John Paul’s strategy focused on preventing abuse rather than punishing the guilty, but this was a strategy chosen for several reasons beyond mere fecklessness:
1. The homosexuals and their allies controlled a huge portion of the American Episcopacy; if a schism occurred, Rome would be utterly powerless to prevent abuse. The threat of schism can be shown by the disobedience to “Humane Vitae,” proclaiming the Church’s opposition to birth control, and the nearly unanimous ignoring of Pope John XXIII’s prohibition against ordaining even chase homosexuals.
2. The Vatican is structurally poorly suited to investigating abuses. Futher, mere suspicion of poor management is no basis for the removal of a bishop, who has his own apostolic authority. Case in point: Cardinal Law was found to have done such an egregiously poor job dealing with abuse cases that he had to be removed from his diocese, but even he is still a bishop under canon law.
3. Once the lawyers were in a feeding frenzy, the Church’s hands were further tied by the legitimate need to avoid lawsuits. It’s really to pontificate (if you’ll pardon the expression) that the Church shouldn’t protect itself against lawsuits, but the people who would be most hurt by wholesale bankuptcies of dioceses would be the millions of financial aid recipients, Catholic school children, catechumen, orphans, hospital patients and seminarians whom the church serves. As it was, the Church was successfully able to limit financial losses to it’s own “wealth”: diocesan facilities, etc.
This is not to say that Rome might have been able to deal out stronger punishments, but there was a legitimate issue of balancing the desire for earthly justice with maintaining the ability to halt the abuses.
Keep in mind, you’re dealing with people who firmly believe that whatever punishment they fail at, God makes up for. The unpunished abusers are roasting in Hell.
Thank you for posting that.
I think I said “lead to.” One erroneous idea can lead to others. If I didn’t, I meant to. Of course they’re not the same thing. What about the rest of what I said? Is suffering OK if you inflict it on yourself in the name of pleasing God?
Just so everyone realizes, the apostle Paul practiced self-mortification. It’s generally discouraged because those most likely to practice it in today’s society are often those who are least able to spiritually discern between self-abuse and self-mortification. The arm of someone once very close to me, but sadly long apart from the church and very in need of spiritual healing, is covered with small, circular scars from his attempt to stop smoking by extinguishing lit cigaretts in his own flesh whenever he lights up. That’s NOT self-mortification, and it’s very spiritually unhealthy.
True self-mortification brings the person closer to God’s love by conquering the pains of the physical world. Self-abuse distances someone from God, by teaching himself that he deserves pain.
It must have taken a certain pride just to post that.
and here I thought the dude in the DaVinci code was just a nut job.
You make interesting points.
But I wasn’t even thinking about the abuse problem, or even Weakland’s gay affairs.
I was thinking about all the other issues that Weakland was confronted with over and over by Roman officials—as he tells in his book. Stacks of complaints. But he was not deposed.
Of course, a bishop is a bishop forever, as is a priest. But to leave Weakland and dozens of other bishops in the U.S. in their position as ordinaries was criminally negligent.
I have little, if any, doubt that JPII is in heaven. I believe that his failings were weaknesses, not sins.
But I am opposed to canonization.
BTW: The title “The Great” ENCOMPASSES sainthood. Calling JPII “John Paul the Great” is tantamount to “public veneration,” and should be stamped out. It is appalling that people have been allowed to name high schools and colleges “John Paul the Great.”
Paul was referring to Jewish law, not penance in general. Paul himself practiced penances. Read your Bible!
You need a lesson in reading, my FRiend.
Paul did not practice penances. They are nowhere to be found in the Gospel of Christ. They are part of the superstitious cult of Rome, not the salvation found in Christ, alone.
There's nothing superstitious about self-mortification.
Reread all posts. Self-mortification is a misunderstanding of the Gospel of grace. But, those who love self-made religion and need the assurance of their own merit cling to such error. In the end they will find that neither exist.
if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live. (Romans 8:13)
Read the Bible every now and then.
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