Will John Paul II be canonized?

[elshiva]

I saw the signs canonize him now! LOL! But will they?

[regnaD kciN]

1. Eventually, probably...

...but, as I pointed out earlier, hopefully not before John XXIII. If the Church decided that John had to go through the regular, intensive (and drawn out) procedure that has only led, forty years later, to his beatification, but gives in to the calls to canonize JPII in the heat of the moment, I could only conclude that this is because it is JPII's traditionalist "agenda" that the Vatican wishes to be normative for Roman Catholicism rather than John's reformist approach.

[elshiva]

2. John XXIII should be canonized soon!

Great guy!

[Matilda]

3. I so agree with both of you!

I feel some resentment that JPII deliberately slowed the canonisation
process for John XXIII, while rushing through the process for many
obscure people nobody ever heard of outside their own home towns.

It is interesting that while for many younger people, John Paul was
the only pope they ever knew and they admired him, I haven't yet
met an older person who remembers John XXIII who doesn't rate him
as the greatest pope of the last century.

For me, the lasting image I have of the man is of his simple goodness
and warmth - a great man, but also a great Christian.

[elshiva]

4. John XXIII was very saintly, dear man.

Isn't he already beatified? Certainly one of the greatest popes ever. Not sure about JP II being one of the greatest, but he was very good. Also I liked how JP II beatified the first Sudanese and Madagscaran (sp?) holy women. Very obscure but very holy women Josephine Bakhita and Victoria Rosoanainiviro (sp?)

[Princess Turandot]

5. I think that JP II made an effort to canonize people who were not..

white europeans. Perhaps that was a view to the future of the Church, perhaps it was correcting inequities, but whatever his main motivation I think that it was a positive thing.

The first 2 American saints were women: Mother Cabrini, who was a naturalized citizen, and Elizabeth Seton, who was American born.

Mother Cabrini got sent to NYC with her small order of nuns, to an archbishop who wanted nothing to do with her. He suggested they go back to Italy. Not speaking a word of english, she & her fellow sisters decided instead to start a health mission for Italian immigrants. By the time she was done, they had built schools, hospitals & health clinics for the poor all over North & South America.One of her more famous stories is abt a hospital which she built in Chicago: realizing that they were being cheated by their builder on the cost of labor & supplies, she fired him, and the Sisters finished the building themselves. When she died, the Vatican asked that her heart be removed and sent to the Vatican, since her eventual sainthood seemed assured. As admirable as Mother Teresa was, Mother Cabrini ran rings around her IMO. Her body is in an altar in NYC; it's now encased in wax but she is considered an 'incorruptible.'

[DemBones DemBones]

9. He worked to canonize more laity, including married people, as well as

more nonEuropeans, more people of color, more women.

ALSO he named St. Therese of Lisieux a Doctor of the Church, along with other women Doctors of the Church, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. Catherine of Siena.

AND he canonized Edith Stein (sorry, I don't know her religious name), the philiosphy professor born and raised Jewish, who converted to Catholicism, became a nun and died in a Nazi death camp.

BESIDES THAT, he placed Europe under the patronage of several femal saints (in addition to male protectors named many years ago, maybe centuries ago.) The new femal protectors include Saints Therese of Liseiux, Edith Stein, Faustina, Catherine of Siena, and probably Teresa of Avila, too. (I just heard this in a documentary the other day, not sure if Teresa was one that was named -- though I'd argue she should be on any list of great saints!)

[Matilda]

6. Yes, John was beatified in 2000 - 35 years after the process

was begun by Paul VI.

I don't object to relative unknowns being made saints if their lives
warranted it, but it annoys the hell out of me that JP dragged his
feet over John XXIII. We know that JP was not in agreement with
much of what John was trying to do through Vatican II - principally,
to reform and decentralise the Church, and his views are reflected
in his unwillingness to canonise John. His personal feelings
shouldn't have come into it, but they did - obvious again in the
haste with which he canonised Jose Maria Escrivar, the vile fascist
founder of Opus Dei, and the beatification of Mother Teresa, for
whom JP had a special affection.

[elshiva]

7. Now that is tragic:

Jose Maria Escrivar before John.

[regnaD kciN]

10. Not to mention...

...that Oscar Romero was basically blacklisted during JPII's tenure. The process for considering Romero, martyred by right-wing death squads in 1980, was only begun less than two weeks ago, and will likely take years, if ever, to complete.

Meanwhile, we have Saint Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei, who proclaimed "Hitler against the Jews, Hitler against the Slavs, this means Hitler against Communism."

:puke:

[DemBones DemBones]

8. I remember John XXIII, and Pius XII, for that matter,

but I don't think John Paul II should have hurried either of their canonizations.

I agree that John XXIII was a great Christian but being a great Christian doesn't necessarily mean a person is a saint according to Church law. I think also that the lives of popes and other clergy have to be examined especially carefully to avoid charges of the Vatican favoring their own.

As I said, I remember John XXIII, and I would not say that he was the greatest pope of the last century. He was quite likable but I'm not at all sure he was greater than the other twentieth century popes. I think he gets a lot of admiration not only because he started Vatican II but because he had a relatively short papacy; the shorter the papacy, the less time a pope has to step on people's toes.

Two quotes: "Every man has the right to life, to bodily integrity" and "The family is the first essential cell of human society."

Sounds like John Paul II, right? Both quotes are from John XXIII.

It's important to remember that John XXIII died in 1963, before the womens rights movement and thus before any calls for women to be ordained to the priesthood; before the gay rights movement and thus before any calls for same sex marriage; before The Pill was in widespread use; before the Sexual Revolution; before anyone turned on, tuned in, and dropped out; before anyone even thought of abortion being legalized; before an entire generation of women found itself torn between having a career or making a home and raising children; long before helf of all marriages ended in divorce; before people commonly lived together without benefit of marriage. There wasn't a lot going on for a pope to speak out against.

It was an entirely different world that John Paul II had to deal with in his papacy that began fifteen years after the end of John XXIII's. Karol Wojtyla was elected pontiff in October, 1978, three months after the birth of the world's first "test-tube baby." In vitro fertilization was one of many things John XXIII never had to think about.

[Matilda]

11. It is true that we don't know how John would have responded

to those issues which arose after his papacy - valid comments. But
would he ever have closed off discussion completely? He wanted
to decentralise the way the Church operated, and I believe we need
to get back to that. Not necessarily a pontiff who will go along
with popular demand, but one who will keep doors open, and allow
free discussion.

The Vatican plays politics with the best of them, and what John
reminded us of was that even Popes should be what they not always
are - first and foremost a living symbol of the love and teachings
of Jesus Christ. It was the simple humanity of the man that earned
him the affection and respect of so many - never did he appear to
be above the rest of us in any way, but rather one of us, and that's
so seldom the case with most of the popes.

What disturbs me most about the Vatican is that I don't think Jesus
would have been at home there. With John, the feeling was different.