Posted on 12/20/2004 5:45:44 PM PST by wagglebee
CANDIDATES for sainthood will be exonerated from the requirement to have performed a miracle under guidelines being considered by the Pope.
Already under fire from some Roman Catholics for running a “saint factory”, the Pope is preparing to overturn a centuries-old rule that candidates for canonisation must have performed “medically inexplicable” posthumous miracles.
The Pope, 84, has created 482 saints in his 26 years as pontiff — more than all his predecessors put together — and has beatified 1,337 people. He believes that “latter-day saints” offer a much-needed example at a time when Christianity is under threat from secularism and rival religions.
Abolishing the need for miracles would speed up the canonisation of some of the Pope’s favourite candidates, including Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who was beatified last year. It could also revive plans to beatify Robert Schuman, the French-born founder of the EU, shelved earlier this year because of lack of evidence that anyone had been cured after praying to him.
The Pope last streamlined the beatification and canonisation process in 1983, when he decreed that martyrs — those killed for their faith — could be beatified without the need for a certifiable miracle.
Yesterday Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Archbishop of Genoa, disclosed that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Pope’s ideologial “enforcer” for two decades, had presented a formula for the abolition of the “the miracle clause” to the Pope. Cardinal Bertone said that there was a growing feeling in the Vatican that the need for miracles for both beatification and canonisation was “anachronistic”.
At present, candidates for beatification, which confers the title “Blessed” and is the penultimate step before sainthood, must be shown to have performed at least one miracle after death by curing the terminally ill in response to prayers of intercession. For sainthood, evidence of at least two miracles is required. Claims of miraculous cures are examined by a panel of five medical experts at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, a Vatican body.
The panel, drawn from a pool of a hundred doctors and specialists, must conclude that the cure was “sudden, complete and permanent” and had no scientific explanation. Cardinal Bertone said what mattered was not whether saints had performed miracles but whether they had displayed “heroic virtues” and led an exemplary Christian life.
Il Secolo XIX, the Genoa newspaper, said the proposed “revolution in saintmaking” would upset traditionalists who regarded miracles as “one of the cornerstones of the Catholic faith”.
I personally have admired the Pope for many of his stands, but I may be guilty of grading on the curve based on the failings of many of the other "leaders" in Christianity today. Grading on the curve is usually a bad thing.
Please don't confuse me with someone who thinks anyone is above criticism. I just took issue with the language and approach. But, I have already said, maybe I was wrong.
BTW, loving the church isn't something I care a whit about. Loving God is what I think it's all about.
But I'm not here to debate my differences with Roman Catholicism.
Wagglebee, I've seen some outrageous and erroneous statements on FR before, but your denial of the historical existence of Joan of Arc is quite possible the most outrageous. What are you smoking?
It's ok. I admire him for his stands against the Soviet Empire, homosexuality, and abortion, but those are more humanitarian things than anything else. Before being a world leader, the Pope should be a leader of the Church.
Look. There it is again.
>>If someone argues that canonization is not infallible, there are other questions raised. For example, how could Catholics pray for intercession of someone who is not in heaven?<<
I think you've adopted the overly legalistic view of infallibility; if I could fault Vatican I, it would be that it encouraged legalism.
Just because a belief doesn't meet the Council-defined standard of infallibility does not mean that it is in question. Councils and Popes only declare something infallible once it has been questionned to an extent that there is question among the faithful whether it really is true.
For instance, the Bible went without infallible definition for 1500 years. That doesn't mean one could assert that "the Canterbury Tales" was sacred scripture before that time! But Martin Luther began to assert that books such as Revelations, Jude, Hebrews, Sirach, Eccleseasticus and Tobit were not cannonical. Then, and only then, did the Council of Trent define which books were canonical.
But such doctrines have the Tradition of the Church as their authority. There is no great tradition of the CHurch that the founding father of the EU is a Saint. I do greatly fear, however, that lowering the standards for sainthood so severly would call into question the Pope's authority on Sainthood. The miracles have stood for Heaven's affirmation of the sanctity of the deceased. Without that affirmation, how shall we know that the Pope isn't wrong?
Look, there is another undecipherable post.
I'm a saint.
Heh. You have to order the decoder.
Yes, but St. Christopher was never declared a Saint by the Pope. The traditions of various ancient areas are also preserved; St. Christopher was one such traditional Saint. IIRC, he was removed from the canon becuase there was suspicion he never existed.
I would. But like I said, I hope I'm wrong.
>>According to the bishops of South Africa, Bill Clinton was in full communion with all of the saints when he received Holy Communion a couple of years ago.<<
I asked St. Philomena, and she says you're full of nonsense and would like you to change your screen name.
I don't hate him, I disagree with him. In any event, my feelings for the Pope are irrelevant to my love of the Church.
Do you love him? If so pray for him and temper your language a tad. You can criticize without hyperbole.
Nevermind, it's none of my business how you show your love. Goodbye.
Temper my language? Hyperbole?
I used the term "koran-kissing". JPII has kissed the koran. I used the term "worships-with-animists". JPII has worshippped with animists. So, your view is that facts are "hyperbole" that needs to be "tempered"? You must get offended quite a bit on these boards!
As you stated, it's none of your business, but I pray for the Pontiff every day. I love him in the same way that I love all humans: with a full heart, and with my eyes wide open.
He also claims he doesn't have a dog in the race. If that's the case, I like to know the name of the animal that he does have in the race.
This is another typical and often used strategy. It's basically meant to get people to shut up while the Church plunges deeper and deeper. It's a yawner.
Christopher Hitchens is a Trotskyite and an athiest. He denounced her on MSNBC the other night. The main complaint against her is that she opposed aborting these little babies.
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