CHRISTCNECTION1 - RE PADRE PIO
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Sorry, but I don't have all the evidence at hand. I do recall checking into Padre Pio at some length and becoming convinced that he had a major mental aberration. I can't go back and regurgitate the evidence I researched back then - and I've since forgotten much of it. It was more than the stigmata matter. Quotations of his, for example, convinced me that he was either a mental case or a fraud. And I prefer to think the former.
As I recall, the Church regarded him very suspiciously before John Paul II, but JPII was much into saints - canonized hundreds -and was especially vulnerable to medieval-like miracles.
I realize that you probably believe that 'good Catholics' are supposed to accept anything the Church officially says or does, but God gave me a brain and I'm not going insult my Creator by turning it over to any other person or organization, including the Church. I believe in the 'big tent' where the faithful can remain devoted to Christ and his message without swallowing everything some Pope or Council proclaims. This attempt to force blind conformity within the Church helps explain why 30,000,000 Americans are ex-Catholics. If it hadn't been for the massive Latino immigration, much of it illegal, we'd have lost half of our US flock.
Firstly - this evidence was so convincing and so disturbing that you don’t remember what it actually was? Seems to me that someone who expects to be taken seriously doesn’t speak without having to hand the facts/quotes/evidence to back up what they’re saying.
As for JP2’s canonisations - you DO realise that the ‘large numbers’ are solely due to his canonising huge groups of people who were martyrs for the Catholic faith. And even with his allegedly huge number of canonisations there’s still about 10,000 saints - which is an average of a whopping FIVE people canonised every year. Shows how eager the Church is to proclaim new saints - not.
And what’s wrong with JP2 recognising those who went to China, Africa, Korea, and other places and gave their lives for the Catholic faith? Do you doubt for an instant that these people who died for their faith in Christ have been received into heaven?
Secondly - medieval like miracles? Which ones would they be? What is it about them that makes them ‘medieval’ as opposed to modern-day miracles?
You do know that it’s not even the Pope who is the one who examines the miracles that are put forward in regard to candidates for canonisation or reaches conclusions about whether they actually happened or not? And that EVERY candidate for sainthood has an official called a ‘Promoter of the Faith’ appointed to their case - whose sole task is to poke holes in every single alleged miracle and every bit of information put forward about single alleged candidate for Sainthood. Their job is to try to prove that the person should NOT be a Saint or that the miracle was NOT really a miracle.
All alleged miracles are in fact thoroughly scientifically examined - usually by non-Catholics and even non-Christians who have the SCIENTIFIC expertise necessary to do so, since of course the Pope and clergy don’t - and of course these scientists aren’t Church officials with a vested interest in the matter.
Thirdly - God did indeed give us brains. I’ve used mine very well - I certainly don’t switch it off when I walk through the Church door. And so have all of the former non-Catholics on this board. On their behalf I’m utterly offended by any implication that they haven’t.
We, after thorougly examining scriptures, the writings of early Christians and the history of the Catholic and other Christian Churches, have logically determined that Christ speaks today with ONE authentic, truthful and consistent voice, as He did while on earth in the flesh. Since His Ascension that voice has been that of the Catholic Church.
And that He cannot possibly be speaking through the multiple, confused voices of your ‘big tent’, who cannot even agree on the basics such as whether Christ really existed, was both really human and really God, or really rose from the dead, let alone hold unified or consistent positions on any other topic. Our Creator is not the author of this sort of confusion. That much is logically deducible, surely.
Furthermore, my awakening to Christ was THROUGH Padre Pio. This man was even able to read minds. He was attacked every day by the devil. Read the book if you further want to comment on this man chosen by God for his miracle. Did you know he also endured an operation without anesthesia? All documented by doctors and the like.
