Posted on 03/24/2011 8:41:19 AM PDT by verdugo
The impending beatification of Pope John Paul II on May 1, 2011 has aroused serious concern among not a few Catholics around the world, who are concerned about the condition of the Church...
The question is not personal piety or integrity as such, but rather whether there is a basis for the claim that John Paul exhibited such heroic virtue in the exercise of his exalted office as Pope that he should be placed immediately on the road to sainthood as a Pope to be emulated by all his successors.
The Church has always recognized that the matter of heroic virtue involved in a beatification is inextricably bound up with whether the candidate performed heroically the duties of his station in life.
Suppose the father of a large family were a candidate for beatification. One would hardly expect his cause to advance if it were the case that, while pious, he consistently failed to discipline and properly form his children, who habitually disobeyed him and fomented disorder in the home, even openly opposing the Faith while living under his roof.
When the candidate for beatification is a Pope—the Holy Father of the universal Church—the question is not simply his personal piety and holiness, but also his care of the vast household of the Faith that God has entrusted to him, for which purpose God grants the Pope extraordinary graces of state. This is the real question: Did John Paul II perform heroically his duties as Supreme Pontiff in the manner of the sainted predecessors we will mention here: opposing error, swiftly and courageously defending the flock from the ravening wolves who spread it, and protecting the integrity of the Church’s doctrine and sacred worship?
(Excerpt) Read more at remnantnewspaper.com ...
From Article:
In all candor we are constrained to observe by way of comparison that, given the condition of the Church as he left it, the pontificate of John Paul II objectively does not warrant any role for popular acclaim in his beatification, much less the immediate sainthood for which the large crowds have clamored. An honest assessment of the facts compels the conclusion that John Paul’s pontificate was marked, not by the renewal and restoration we see during the pontificates of his most eminent predecessors, but rather, as the former Cardinal Ratzinger so famously remarked [Cf. L’Osservatore Romano, November 9, 1984], an acceleration of the “continuing process of decay,” above all in the traditionally Christian Western nations of Europe, the Americas, and the Pacific.
Are the writers of the Remnant sedevacantists?
Agreed. But he was a real popular dude!
I’m a new Catholic, as of last Easter, so perhaps I have no right to comment. Yet surely the criterion for sainthood is not that the saint be perfect, only that he or she have effected three documented miracles. Is that correct? And has this taken place, or is the Church waiting for investigation of a third miracle?
I do believe it is now 2 miracles to make one a Blessed, then one final one to in effect make one a saint.
Is the last word use to mean traditonists in the Catholic sense?
This has nothing to do with your question, but if sainthood means surety that one is in heaven, was the typical saint vetting process shelved for the good guy crucified next to Jesus? I mean, saying that he'd be in Heaven with Him had to carry some serious weight, no?
If you read the linked article through to the end you will see some discussion of one of the purported miracles. There has been a lot of pressure to “make it happen” with respect to the validating of reported miracles. I happen to think JPII was a very holy man — and a severely deficient leader of the church at a time when a stern disciplinarian and traditionalist was needed.
The period during which an episcopal see or diocese is vacant, that is, without a bishop. Generally applied to the See of Rome. Procedures during this time follow the norms set down by Pope Paul VI in the apostolic constitution Romano Pontifici Eligendo (1975), superseding the directives of Pope Pius XII (1945), and Pope John XXIII (1962).
I would like to ask forgiveness—in my own name and in the name of all of you, venerable and dear brothers in the episcopate—for everything which, for whatever reason, through whatever human weakness, impatience or negligence, and also through the at times partial, one-sided and erroneous application of the directives of the Second Vatican Council, may have caused scandal and disturbance concerning the interpretation of the doctrine and the veneration due to this great sacrament. And I pray the Lord Jesus that in the future we may avoid in our manner of dealing with this sacred mystery anything which could weaken or disorient in any way the sense of reverence and love that exists in our faithful people. [Dominicae Cenae (1980), n.12]
God’s timing — not ours. We cannot judge.
Of course, not a word was said even in the Remnant about what is most troubling to someone formed by Fundamentalist Protestantism: his Biblical modernism and evolutionism. This just proves to me that the Bible is simply not a major issue for even the most conservative, traditionalist Catholic on earth. And the current Pope's evolutionism and Biblical liberalism is merely another example.
John-Paul was great and all that, but is this really all that it takes to become a ‘saint’?
It seems more like a popularity contest
Yes he was rightly loved by many- but so was Liz Taylor...do we make her a saint too?
No, they are not. They are anti-Semites, though.
We can't judge internals, the hidden thoughts of a person, only God knows those. HOWEVER, we can judge people from what they reveal and their actions, what they do. That is what this article is doing, judging the objective actions and revealed by speech thoughts of JPII.
For example : If a male married friend tells me that he's having an affair with another woman, I can judge him, and call him an adulterer. Why? Because I'm judging him based on what he REVEALED to me.
By the way, Beatifications are not infallible. Charlemagne is a Blessed in France, and there are many more like him in all countries of the World, beatified’s who went nowhere from there.
Prove it.
They've been telling anyone who would listen that JPII was a modernist who inflicted untold damage on the Church. They certainly don't regard him as a man of great sanctity. Ditto for all the Popes since Pius XII. Pius X was a saint.......absoutely.........but not JPII. He can't be mentioned in the same breath. How can the post-Vatican II church produce good fruit? It's completely rotten, surely? Therefore, his beatification and likely subsequent canonization poses a problem.
Either admit that you're wrong in your assessment of him or cast doubt on the process of his beatification.
A no brainer.
Admission of error is a vanishingly rare thing in the trad world, where haranguing the Pope and criticizing his every move is a lifestyle and spiritual pride is endemic.
No..........we're right......the process must be flawed.
I read another Remnant article by Robert Sungenis in last months issue, on the same subject, “reservations about the Beatification of JPII”, and I wanted to post that one, but I found this one instead, on The Remnant website,and thought it covered the same material. Apparently this article is not identical as it left out Sungenis’s the long section about “Pope's evolutionism and Biblical liberalism”.
When I get the time I'll try to scan the Remnant newspaper for that section of Sungenis’s article, if I can. It's a hassle since the paper is too big for my scanner.
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