It's a miracle!
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”.
No. The Church is playing by new rules--which it is making up as it goes along. The past is no longer prologue to the present. The present is simply being invented on the fly, so to speak.
A) No, and B) not if the Pope goes out of his way to muck up the process, as this Pope has. JP II has been a DISASTER for the institutional church.
No, that would be the catechism, an exercise of the ordinary Magisterium. But while there is no demand we honor St. Bernadette, for example, any Catholic worth the name does. And the tests were provided by The Church. And yes, just in that way, once a Saint, always a Saint.
But see - you want to have it both ways. Because when your regime came in, they said, oops, here's a couple we found that don't belong, namely St. Christopher and St. Philomena. It's said that Sophia Loren, in one of her better years, rode around the collonade at St. Peter's with a statue of St. Chris, just to make a point.
So, either it's one way, or it's the other. I'm saying, that in future, all of your new 'saints' are going to have to be thrown out, en masse, and each individually reconsidered according to the established, holy and traditional norms - period. There is no other way. And by that holy standard, many may indeed turn out to have been Saints, as proclaimed by The Roman Catholic Church. We, as Catholics, DO want to believe that when The Church says a Saint is Saintly, that they really are. You can't categorically say that about the sum of those promoted under the J-Pauline regime.
I'm afraid it's not. And don't abuse the writings of the fathers and Saints. That's more you have to answer for, not to me, but to God.
We, as Catholics, want to believe that when Holy Mother Church proclaims a Saint, that they were Saintly, in fact. We look to the example of the Saints. They're our guides in the one question we have to decide in this life - for God, or against, and if for, what are His rules for us? what then, in other words.
If the Pope wakes up one morning and says, Kofi Annan is now a Catholic Saint, even you might hesitate to call that an exercise of the Extraordinary Magisterium. I, and all Catholic, and those you quoted, have a much lower, and much more reasonable and holy threshold. There are procedures. There are miracles to consider, and so on.
You toss all that, and the Pope wakes up one morning with Kofi on his mind, and you just keep digging yourself deeper, instead of obeying The Church in her time of historic distress.
It's a miracle!
Prediction for this topic's New York Post headline:
"Miracles On Ice?"
I would argue, to the contrary, to the sede, that JP II may simply be the worst Pope in the Church's history. They say he stepped over the line. They say he is a FORMAL HERETIC, or essentially is. I say he's stepped awfully close in his ecumenism and in his recent attack on the Holy Rosary with his self-contradictory and awful RVM document. And if HE understands that the Jews need not convert, if HE understands that the Greek are not in schism but that traditionalist Catholics somehow are, if HE understands that there are no longer any Eastern Catholic, if HE does not really even confess transubstantiation, in fact, in reality, at this point - if all that and more, then the sedes are right, and I give JP II WAAAY too much credit.
I'm not convinced he's doctrinally so completely unsound. I think he is a rebel, yes. I think he believes he has a better way than the Saints and Doctors of the past. I think that's clear. And I also suspect that all of this predates the present. Because I think he's mentally incapacitated at this point. Whatever he wrought, he did so in years past. I think he should have resigned the papacy years ago. I think he's too far gone, now, to know his own mind, and to independently come to that decision. When he could have made this decision to step down, he clearly was not putting the best interest of the institutional church before his own. There's NO QUESTION there. The institution needs a vital Pope, one to either formally cross that ecumenical line and clearly prove the sedes right, or step back a bit into Catholicism. But I doubt the next would attempt to crawl the razor's edge in hopes of keeping people guessing - is the Pope Catholic?
I must have missed that too.
Talk about a strawman. Of course the Pope saying something to no one while sitting in bed isn't an exercise of the Extraordinary Magisterium.
we teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman Pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals. Therefore, such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the Church, irreformable.
There is nothing in here about the procedures the Pope has to follow. All definitions in virtue of the supreme apostolic authority concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church are infallible - including all solemn definitions of sainthood:
For the honour of the Blessed Trinity, the exaltation of the Catholic faith and the fostering of the Christian life [concerning faith], by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and our own, [in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority] after due deliberation and frequent prayers for the divine assistance, and having sought the counsel of our Brother Bishops, we declare and define [defines] that Bl. Pio of Pietrelcina, is a saint and we enroll him among the saints, decreeing that he is to be venerated in the whole Church [to be held by the whole Church] as one of the saints. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
All the conditions exist. It is IMPOSSIBLE that Padre Pio is not a Saint.
That's the problem with defending the two PC-Popes. There's always some embarrassing thing about such a regime that you only later discover.
Yes, but I'm trying to get you to admit that there IS a limit, a threshold. And what I'm saying is that what those fathers were talking about is a threshold, a process, that doesn't now exist. How the Church declares a Saint meant something different to them, in other words, than it does to the pretenders, today. The same fathers, for example, would speak of the Greek as controlling in translations. But they meant a particular version, one reliable, and later lost. You have to understand their specific reference, or you can easily abuse their words - perhaps even unintentionally (I don't know).
As for Padre Pio - I don't know. Some who swear by him, don't seem particularly saintly themselves, and sometimes even the opposite. But there are procedures to follow, there is prayer, and there is not that today. I would be surprised, as would you be, if after all the PC-'saints' are stricken and the process of reconsideration begins that Padre Pio is not called a, Saint. But perhaps there's something both of us did not know. That's the point.
bump for later
The threshold is what was defined at Vatican I. There are no other requirements. As was explained by the Relator at the Council, if the Pontiff is negligent in his duties and does not investigate thoroughly enough, the Holy Spirit will either prevent him from proceeding to a definition or cause the definition to nevertheless be correct. If a definition is binding on the universal Church, made in virtue of the papal authority, and concerns faith and morals, it is infallible. Period. Furthermore, it's not up to the faithful to decide what "concerns faith and morals":
It is also up to the Church to decide how far her infallibility extends: otherwise there could never be any certainty as to whether, in defining something, she had transgressed the limits of her magisterium. In that case infallibility would be placed in grave peril, and the whole of religion would turn out to be placed in doubt. From this it follows that, if the Church declares that something pertains to her magisterium, or proposes it as requiring the assent of faith (credendum), such a decree is to be held as infallible. (J.M. Hervé, Manuale Theologiae Dogmaticae, Paris, Berche & Pagis, 1935, vol. I, p. 507)
You're confusing the issue. I explained it for you. I wish you would take the time to read this:
Yes, but I'm trying to get you to admit that there IS a limit, a threshold. And what I'm saying is that what those fathers were talking about is a threshold, a process, that doesn't now exist. How the Church declares a Saint meant something different to them, in other words, than it does to the pretenders, today. The same fathers, for example, would speak of the Greek as controlling in translations. But they meant a particular version, one reliable, and later lost. You have to understand their specific reference, or you can easily abuse their words.
The Church. But that means - The Church, not those fighting The Church from within the institutional church. Even if not declared heretics, the history of the institution is one of disobedience and conflict from those wearing the collars - from those who took the formal oaths. They are not the standard. They are not the basis. No Catholic ever confused the collar for The Church, the 'reformist' with the Saint. The standard isn't them. It's The Church. It's a corporate body, and not merely that. That is, if they consider The Church 'outmoded', 'outdated', 'evil and dark age', worse then than now, and so on, they obey The Church, and don't obey them. The Truth cannot be 'reformed'. It simply is. And professional negligence or dereliction of duty are not confined merely to the professions and the military - it just goes by other names, perhaps.
Take a look at the citation provided by Journet, or St. Thomas. What they say has nothing to do with the process. As Journet says, if the Church proposed a damned man as a Saint to the Church, she would be teaching the Church that these actions which damned a man are salutary. Thomas says that honor of the saints is a profession of faith, and therefore the Pontiff is infallible. Neither of them mention anything about a certain procedure required to make canonization infallible - because it isn't. No matter what procedure is followed by the Roman Pontiff, the Church would err regarding faith if it were to venerate as a Saint someone who is not. The Church would err regarding morals if it were to follow an unholy man as an example. Both of these are impossible.
How the Church declares a Saint meant something different to them, in other words, than it does to the pretenders, today.
If you have a document of JP II saying that his declarations of sainthood aren't meant to be declarations of sainthood, produce it. There's no reason to believe that he intends other than what he says: "we declare and define that Bl. Pio of Pietrelcina, is a saint".
Canonizations are exercises of papal infallibility.
I would invite you to peruse both the standard language of canonizations, and the unanimous opinion of theologians on this topic.
You nailed it Pio. This is what it is all about.
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