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Pope John Paul II is *NOT* Dead (FOX Now reporting Heart/Brain still functioning)
April 1, 2005

Posted on 04/01/2005 10:22:54 AM PST by Dont Mention the War

Confirmed.


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: notdeadyet; pope; popejohnpaulii
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To: Steven W.
Personally, as a born again Christian, I detest all this pope idolatry that people are now embarking on

Take this elsewhere, like the Religion forum...

841 posted on 04/01/2005 12:59:03 PM PST by Fury
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To: Steven W.

PISS OFF


842 posted on 04/01/2005 12:59:11 PM PST by Rutles4Ever
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To: shhrubbery!

For anyone trying to get a flight to Rome, they just said on Fox News that all flights in the near future are totally booked.

The cardinals have to make their way there, however. I have heard that a Vatican order is capable of displacing seats on aircraft into and out of Rome. Just hearsay, though.

Anyone who has been there can testify that a taxi ride going into Vatican City is an experience of a lifetime. Even on a not-so-crowded day, Italians drive like they are superhuman. Forget about following too closely. WAY too close is the norm, unless you want to stand still all day. Very aggressive, to say the least. If you are not a fighter pilot (or from New York) you are advised to leave the driving to someone else.

I no longer wonder why Ferrari's are often small, barely big enough to contain the power train!

The cardinals of course, have connections and special routes to take coming and going, but still they have to get through some of the city traffic. It's surprising to me that they can make their appointments intact.


843 posted on 04/01/2005 12:59:12 PM PST by donbosco74 ("Men and devils make war on me in this great city." (Paris) --St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort.)
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To: Steven W.
I find all of this truly, truly disturbing.

I find this offensive

844 posted on 04/01/2005 12:59:37 PM PST by JustPiper (NoE your Enemy !!!)
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To: Steven W.

Bully for you.

Keep it to yourself, and find another thread to post on, then.

THIS thread is for people who grieve the Holy Father, and want to pray.


845 posted on 04/01/2005 12:59:54 PM PST by Malacoda (*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* ! *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*)
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To: Steven W.

Thanks for trolling by.


846 posted on 04/01/2005 12:59:58 PM PST by AppyPappy (If You're Not A Part Of The Solution, There's Good Money To Be Made In Prolonging The Problem.)
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To: Steven W.

As a lifelong Catholic-Christian, I find you disturbing.


847 posted on 04/01/2005 1:00:02 PM PST by Rutles4Ever
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To: Godzilla

ping


848 posted on 04/01/2005 1:00:11 PM PST by JustPiper (NoE your Enemy !!!)
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To: JustPiper
I know a few things about him. I knew he was polish and survived WW2. My not being Catholic, I didn't follow his decrees and things like that.

I'm sure when his time comes, God will welcome him home. Bless his soul.

When he dies I know Catholics and people of other religions will feel your loss.

849 posted on 04/01/2005 1:00:16 PM PST by processing please hold (Islam and Christianity do not mix ----9-11 taught us that)
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To: sbrogden

After that comment to the Lead Moderator.....Lemme guess....You took an IQ test and the results were negative.


850 posted on 04/01/2005 1:00:21 PM PST by b4its2late (When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.)
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To: Steven W.

Personally, as an atheist, I think you should put that stuff on some other thread. This is a news thread, not a discussion of religious doctrine.

The Pope, the leader of the largest denomination of Christianity is either dead or on death's door. Your comments about the Roman Catholic Church are not pertinent to this thread, nor are they welcomed by the millions of Catholics in this country.

You're welcome to your beliefs, but please don't pollute a thread dealing with the death of a man who has enormous influence in the world and, specifically, to his followers in the Roman Catholic Church.

If you must bash Roman Catholicism, start your own thread in the Chat area or the Religion area.

Just butt the heck out of this thread, if you don't mind.


851 posted on 04/01/2005 1:00:50 PM PST by MineralMan (godless atheist)
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To: murphE

I find hypocrisy in every religion and so much good in every religion


852 posted on 04/01/2005 1:00:55 PM PST by JustPiper (NoE your Enemy !!!)
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To: shhrubbery!

Nothing on tv yet....

If he is dead, oh joy of joys, the Lord will welcome home his faithful servant.

If not, he will come to paradise soon enough.


853 posted on 04/01/2005 1:01:04 PM PST by rwfromkansas (http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=rwfromkansas)
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To: Pyro7480
Lord Jesus Christ, restore for a time your servant John Paul II, if it be your will..


854 posted on 04/01/2005 1:01:22 PM PST by Fitzcarraldo
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To: Abigail Adams

re: "praying to Mary"..... if I asked you to pray for me, I know you would... so Catholics ask Mary to pray for us. Something to do with the "communion of saints." God is not bound by time. We also use her life as an inspiration for us. Anyone wanted to know more about that should read Purgatorio. At each level of the mountain of Purgatory, the sinners are inspired by a story from the life of Mary and whipped by some symbolic element of their sin. The saints are the same. Meditating on their lives is a way to achieve a greater understanding of God and faith and love.


855 posted on 04/01/2005 1:01:39 PM PST by Mercat (judicial terrorism in sharp relief)
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To: pbrown

This Pope stood like a rock against Communism. He was one of the reasons for the fall of the Evil Empire.


856 posted on 04/01/2005 1:01:40 PM PST by AppyPappy (If You're Not A Part Of The Solution, There's Good Money To Be Made In Prolonging The Problem.)
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To: pbrown

I don't want to even GO there.


857 posted on 04/01/2005 1:01:44 PM PST by donbosco74 ("Men and devils make war on me in this great city." (Paris) --St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort.)
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To: Rutles4Ever

I'm sure the L-rd is extremely pleased with this conversation at this point. Did not Christ pray and admonish us all about exactly this kind of bickering.


858 posted on 04/01/2005 1:01:54 PM PST by epluribus_2
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To: Steven W.
I find all of this truly, truly disturbing.

I find your ignorance truly disturbing, but I'm offering up the suffering in union with Our Lord's on the Cross so you may be given the grace to know the truth.

859 posted on 04/01/2005 1:02:15 PM PST by murphE (Never miss an opportunity to kiss the hand of a holy priest.)
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To: GeorgiaDawg

Let me explain intercessory prayer in the simplest way possible, using just logic, without notes or references to anything.

Start with this question: does it do any good, at all, for ME to pray for someone else, or for someone else to pray for me? Protestants pray for others, and ask others to pray for them, right? So, theologically, do you think the prayer for another does any good at all, or is it just a little formalistic show that really doesn't DO anything?
(I apologize if that question sounds aggressive. It is not meant to be aggressive. It is meant to focus the mind and force a real, considered answer to the question: does prayer for another DO anything at all, or is it completely meaningless?)

Catholics, the Orthodox, and all the Protestant denominations of which I am aware all answer uniformly that praying for someone else does good, and being prayed for does good. So, step one is admitting without argument that prayer for another is a good thing, beneficial in some way to his or her spiritual health.

The second thing to do is to remember that the dead have not ceased to exist. Terri Schiavo still IS. Her body is dead, but her spirit is alive. The same is true of all of the dead, including Mary, the mother of God, etc. The dead are still people. Not living people, but people. The blessed among them are in the presence of God. We said above that a person can pray for another person, and that this is a good thing. One does not cease being a person at death. The dead are only physically dead. Spiritually, they are very much alive, and the good are in the presence of God. They can pray just the same as any living person can pray.
The difference, of course, is that the dead who are saved and in the presence of God are, well, in the presence of God much more directly than any living person. So, if you ask your neighbor to pray for you, his prayers can be a good thing. But suppose your neighbor is Ted Bundy the axe murderer. We suspect that the prayers of a demon-possessed murderer are probably not the most helpful sort of prayer around. If a man is violently opposed to God, we cannot expect that his prayers - if he will pray at all - are going to be as beneficial to us as, say, the prayers of the Pope if we are in his presence.

Now let's think about the dead. We don't know the true state of most people's souls, do we? But we DO know the state of SOME souls. We know that God was particularly close to some people, that they had his favor. Mary, Peter and Paul and the apostles and prophets all leap to mind. Catholics call those who clearly had the blessing of God upon them manifest in their lives "saints".

We cannot say whether Tom, Dick or Harry from down the street is in Heaven when he dies. We don't know. But we can say with great comfort and certitude that Mary is, and Peter and Paul and other great saintly men. Does anyone suspect for even an instant that John Paul II is not heaven-bound when he dies?

Alright, now put this together. It is good to ask people to pray for us, and their prayers somehow benefit us. The dead are still people, and the dead in the presence of God are more directly in communion with God than any of us are.
We don't know all the dead in Heaven, but we do know that certain saintly figures are in Heaven. Most certain of all is that Mary, the mother of God, whom the angels called "Full of Grace", is in the presence of God.

So, if you're going to ask ANYBODY to pray for you at all, because you think the prayers of others are good, who is it best to ask? Ted Bundy the axe murderer? The guy up the street you barely know? Some dead person whose state of blessing of which you cannot be sure? Or a person who you are sure still lives in Heaven, and is sure was and is blessed? Mary is the most certain of all people other than Jesus himself.

Now, we pray to Jesus as God.
Mary isn't God. She is a person who lives in heaven.
We ask our friends to pray for us on earth, and believe that is good for us, whether we be Catholics or Protestants.
How much more wonderful, then, to ask the mother of God, who is already in heaven and directly in the presence of God, to pray for us?

THAT is what "intercessory prayer" really is: asking the holiest of the holy dead, those people from the past in whose salvation we have great certitude (Mary, above all, but also Peter, John, Paul, etc.) to be our friends and pray for us just as we ask our earthly friends to pray for us.

And that's all it is: asking people we know to be the holiest to remember us in their prayers. We ask our friends and family, poor sinners all, to pray for us because that is good. Catholics also ask the dead to pray for them, and have great confidence in the prayers of the sainted dead. Again a simple question: if you could kneel in prayer with one other person right now, and ask him or her to pray for you, and believed that the prayers of others for you were somehow good, and you had the choice between three people: your nextdoor neighbor, your best friend, or Mary, the Mother of God, who would you prefer to ask to kneel and pray for you? In whose prayers would you have the greatest confidence that, whatever benefic effect prayer has at all, the prayers of that other would most likely be found favorable to God?

Of all of the people in history other than Jesus, no-one was closer to God than Mary. She was God's mom. She actually bossed God around as a kid, washed him, and changed his diapers. She gave God a swat on the behind when he got out of line as an infant, if he ever did. At Cana, she twisted God's arm and caused him to perform a miracle in spite of his protestations. God never once let any other human being get THAT close to him, and never let himself be dependent on any other person for his literal existence. He loved and trusted Mary enough to choose HER, that specific soul, to be his mother and guardian.

And that is why Catholics think that the prayers of Mary to God are the most powerful of all. When I pray to God, I know I am a sinner and don't deserve anything, really. I know that my friends and family are sinners too. I appreciate their prayers, but it is the blind groping for the blind.

But we all know Mary is in Heaven. We all know that Mary was God's favorite, with a unique bond God has never shared with any other human being ever. We all ask many people to pray for us. The dead are still people. They can still pray for us too. And there is no person whose prayers could possibly be more wonderful than the Mother of God.

That is what intercessory prayer is, and that is why it is.
It isn't any different than asking your friend to pray for you, except that the people you ask to pray for you are in heaven, freed of their sins, and in the presence of God, and we know them by name because they were so beloved of God.

The most beloved person of God in all of history was his Mother. And that is why Catholics especially ask HER to pray for them. Sure, the prayers of an axe murderer might actually have some beneficial affect...who knows? But if the prayers of others have ANY effect at all, it follows simply from logic that the prayers of the most holy would be of the greatest favor to God.

That's what intercessory prayer is, that's why, and that's as complete and non-dogmatic an explanation as I am capable of giving.

Read that way, I think that even a Protestant will acknowledge that there is a strong logic to it. The only real quibble one can have with it is the doubt that the dead HEAR our requests for prayer that we send them. In other words, of course Mary's prayers would be powerful, but perhaps Mary doesn't hear us at all, and neither does any other saint.

Catholics believe that they do. And given that belief, it makes sense to ask them, especially, to pray for us.

Hope that makes it all clear. Intercessory prayer is NOT worship of the sainted dead. It acknowledges the obvious grace of God that was within them when they lived, and asks them to be our friends in heaven, and to pray for us sinners just as we'd ask our living friends to pray for us.

Looked at this way, at worst one can say it's hokey.
But when properly understood through the perspective of Catholic eyes, it's really not blasphemous at all, even to a Protestant. It might be completely inefficacious and a waste of time, if the dead cannot hear or know that we are asking them to pray for us. But that simply renders it stupid, not evil.


860 posted on 04/01/2005 1:02:15 PM PST by Vicomte13 (Et alors?)
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