Is Canonization of popes for name sake? And what about Mother Teresa?

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3335 said:
So if a Saint is found guilty in crimes, etc then his sainthood would be removed from him?
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Absolutely not since any crime can be forgiven by God.

The question isn’t if the saint was 100% holy during their entire life, but if they were holy and bound for heaven at the end of their life here on earth.

The process of canonization is a process of a discernment to see if the person being considered is worthy of canonization, to discern if the person is now indeed in heaven. Hence, why at least one miracle (and usually two miracles) due to the person’s intercession is usually required for sainthood.

God knows better than what anyone of us will ever know about what Saint Pope John Paul II knew and did not, what he did and did not do. So when God signaled to us here on Earth that Saint Pope John Paul II is indeed in heaven by the two miracles ascribed to Saint Pope John Paul II intercession, then we can be assured that Saint Pope John Paul II is indeed in heaven and able to intercede on our behalf.
 
Perhaps it would help you if you read a bit about “how” any one becomes a Saint in the Catholic Church. Since it has not always been the same.
In the beginning Saints were declared by “Acclamation” by the laity and then would be approved by the reigning Pope.
However as the Church expanded it was more difficult for the Church to have all the facts that would “prove” that someone has lead a life of “heroic virtue”.
Well we now live in the 24H news cycle where google knows what you are thinking even before you do.
So locating something really negative about someone is much easier now.
Now per JPII did he make an act of poor judgement in the case of McCarrick? Obviously he did, but the question is did he have all the facts about this matter when he pronounced his judgement.
It is always easy to quarter back opinions about an event.
I saw Bishop Barron episode on the McCarrick report and concur with him that one cannot judge JPII on this episode alone.
JPII remains one of my favorite Saints who inspired me to become a better Catholic. My only hope is to be 1/100th of how Saintly he is.

Peace!
 
Nope. There have been 266 popes. 84 are saints, of those 28 were martyred for the faith. 56 have been canonized.
 
3335 said:
And now Cardinal McCarrick. Pope John Paul II . . . could’ve called for a formal investigation into McCarrick’s life when concerns were raised by Cardinal O’Connor of New York and others. . . .
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Reuters is asking the same question today. This is what the article says about his reasons for disbelieving the allegations of sexual abuse:

The McCarrick Report said John Paul’s willingness to believe the former cardinal’s denial was likely to have been influenced by his experience in his Poland, when communists used false abuse allegations to weaken the Church.

John Paul’s defenders have offered the same explanation to counter allegations that he turned a blind eye to Father Marcial Maciel, the Mexican founder of the Legionaries of Christ religious order who was the Church’s most notorious sexual abuser.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-pope-john-paul-ii-a-hasty-halo-idUSKBN27W10P
 
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Reuters publishes news, not history or theology.

So if we go back in time to the pontificate of Pope John Paul II (which you can do by reading, btw) you start to understand his motive in these canonizations. Saints are not made to honor the dead. They are made to give hope to the Church. They provide examples of holiness by which we are to live, as well as keeping our focus on the life that is beyond this one. This make perfect sense in that theological virtue that so well defined St. John Paul - Hope.

Before anyone of this newest generation judges him to hard, I recommend you read him, and about him. George Weigel’s Witness to Hope is an inspiring and informative read. I cheated and listened to the audio book though.
 
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Others may have answered this but this is what I’m gathering about the McCarrick/Pope John Paul II situation: JPII was, as every pope is, surrounded by the curia. Unfortunately there is a lot of corruption in the curia and the Pope was given information filtered through those with ulterior motives and agendas and ties to McCarrick. Also, JPII was all too familiar with the tactic of communist governments of slandering their opponents with false allegations of sexual immorality, in particular bishops and priests. So it would have been an extremely difficult situation for JPII to obtain the full truth of the situation. But he was a true saint, nonetheless. Just look at his life! I highly recommend the documentary “Liberating a Continent” which is available online. 🙂
 
I understand. But they went off script, that is, off the topic of the report and on to the canonizations of the Church. Even the title is fishy. It is almost like someone wanted to criticize the Catholic Church’s canonizations and used the release of the McCarrick report as a touch stone to get the story publishes, at least that was my impression.

On a side note, I am glad the moderators removed the image of St. Theresa with demonic eyes.
 
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To understand what a canonization is, what is necessarily true about it, I think it’s helpful to look at the the very first “modern” canonization. Pope Alexander III decreed that St. Edward “be honored and glorified with due rites upon earth, just as the Lord has already by His grace glorified him in heaven.” And that quote tells us why infallibility is important and what it applies to. To glorify a soul God has damned would be blasphemous and contemptuous of God’s judgment. On the other hand, to glorify a soul as God has chosen to glorify a soul honors Him. For the Church’s rites not to be incentives to impiety (as the Council of Trent has defined they can’t be), we need to get this right.

Beyond that, who is canonized or not is left to the Church’s discretion. There is no bright line as to how many sins or failings a saint might be permitted. There is no promise that the reasoning or the process for canonizing someone is without human weakness or error of or that there are aren’t mixed motivations. I mean, Boniface VIII canonized his nemesis Philip the Fair’s grandfather, St. Louis IX, in exchange for Philip negotiating a political marriage between his son and the daughter of a particular count–and then, rather than recounting the usual kinds of hagiographic details, instead focused on his manner of governing, using it as standard by which to criticize Philip.

Papal canonizations in particular by their very nature are especially susceptible to this. Here’s an older post I made discussing this. But none of this ultimately undoes the fact that a Saint “be honored and glorified with due rites upon earth, just as the Lord has already by His grace glorified him in heaven.”
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Why is the Vatican rushing to canonize the conciliar popes? Social Justice
The canonization of Popes has always been tricky and has had political (both civil and ecclesiastical) implications and therefore at least partial political motivations. Look at the canonization of St. Celestine V as an example. St. Celestine had treated the French monarch Philip the Fair very well, but when Boniface VIII ascended to the chair (along with allegations he pressured Celestine to resign), he annulled many of Celestine’s acts that were favorable to Phillip and ended up being a bitt…
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Is there something wrong with the other saints Pope JPII canonized? Answer: NO. The vast majority of them were not all that recent, either. It’s disgusting that Reuters seems to be trying to smear them as well as Pope JPII.


Also, I don’t know who Fr Tom Reese or Dawn whosername in the article is, and their opinion means less to me than a stray dog’s.

The Devil always tries to attack the greatest saints. I see no reason to pay attention to this. Reuters has lost credibility with me by running a biased IMHO story. Add them to the garbage pile with so many other media outlets.

People are going to continue to love Pope JPII and that’s just how it is.

St Pope JPII, please continue to pray for us!
 
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Well I can certainly understand this,especially in regards to what the communists were doing in Poland, having relatives in Hungary on my mom’s side. nazis in Germany weren’t much better either this on my dad’s side. However i think a lot of people feel that JPII shouldn’t have really trusted the curia to tell him the truth, that he was naive in this respect. Besides we are all called to be saints.There are thousands, nay millions of people who lived life, helping the poor, feeding.,clothing,etc. Who helped their neighbors or total strangers if they were in need. However, no one, not even their immediate families are putting their cause for sainthood before Rome. It’s a lengthy process, and I seem to recall it was either JPII or Benedict one of them who did away with the office of Devil’s Advocate. The Advocate puts it all out there for the tribunal who decides these things, all the person’s faults,etc. And it does seem a lot of these modern saints are being rushed for whatever reason.
 
HollyDolly said:
And it does seem a lot of these modern saints are being rushed for whatever reason.
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Aside from the three recent Popes and Mother Teresa, please provide examples of “rushed” canonizations.


Here is the list of saints canonized by Pope Francis. 111 in all (some are groups which accounts for the 898). About 25 of them including the 3 Popes, Mother Teresa and the martyred Abp Romero lived during the 20th century - many of those lived half or more of their life in the 19th century and died 100 or more years before they were canonized - and all the rest, the vast majority, are from the 19th century or earlier.

Not really seeing a big push for rushed canonizations.
 
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Here’s the list of saints canonized by Pope JPII. 111 in all (some are large groups).


Only about 40-50 of the canonizations, less than half, involve people who lived any part of their life in the 20th century (including those who died in the aughts or teens), and many of those were martyrs from the Cristero War, and a couple more were martyred in WWII.

There were only about 10 canonizations of people who died after WWII, including St Gianna Biretta Molla, St Padre Pio, and St Katherine Drexel who gave up a huge fortune to spend her life working with poor minority children and died in the 1950s. The latest one was St Josemaria Escriva who died in 1975 and was arguably rushed by Opus Dei, which he founded, but even so, the vast majority of these were not rush jobs.

Conclusion: the media rarely pay attention to canonized saints unless it’s somebody who’s been in the public eye, and fail to take into account the full picture of who gets canonized and when.

It makes a better story to bash Popes on the basis of a tiny fraction of fast track canonizations.
 
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sealabeag said:
Also, JPII was all too familiar with the tactic of communist governments of slandering their opponents with false allegations of sexual immorality, in particular bishops and priests.
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This is standard fare of Communists (and Marxists, and Nazis, at their respective times) and has been for a long time. Of course Pope St. JPII would be highly skeptical of those sorts of charges, allegations, and innuendo to reach him.

In a similar way, the leftist governments of Central and South America take a page from the Communist playbook and accuse any cleric they want to smear of being a Liberation Theologian. This tactic was used against St. Oscar Romero. Thankfully, the Supreme Pontiff Francis, had been exposed to this nonsense in Argentina and did not [further] delay Romero’s canonization.

Both types of smear campaigns have gone on a long time, and will continue to do so in the future as well. Don’t fall for these tricks from the enemies of Holy Mother Church.

The fact that McCarrick appealed to Pope St. JPII with this particular tug at his heart-strings just adds to the overflowing heap of his sins.

Recall when McCarthy said, “Well, I don’t have any proof that he’s NOT a Communist?” Think critically and not emotionally, and take secular media with a “Lot’s Wife” of salt.

Deacon Christopher
 
porthos11 said:
For all his faults due to human frailty, not only is John Paul II’s sainthood right and just, but I also believe he should be declared Doctor of the Church and I hope i live to see it happen.
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As much as I love St. JPII and agree with his sainthood, and hope that he is one day declared a Doctor of the Church, I pray that does NOT happen anytime soon.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux was the quickest Saint to become a Doctor of the Church, 100 years after her death.

In my humble opinion, waiting 100 years after the death of a Saint is a good time limit before making someone a Doctor of the Church.

Afterall, we are all too close to JPII to know if he truly cured the Church post World War II, post Vatican II and post Cold War. We all think he did, but in my humble opinion, it will take at least another 85 years before we know if he’s truly worthy of being called a Doctor of the Church.

God Bless
 
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