What do think of the previos Pope's beatification?

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maurin said:
Like I said, Melchior, I have no doubts at all about his personal virtue, holiness and sincerity. And in the particular issues you cite, I agree. But to describe public virtue as heroic, does not the adjective itself mean to encompass all facets of responsibility, again, Doctrinal issues aside.
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Doctrinally speaking John Paul II was very sound. Why else did he have so many enemies from the culture of death?

Regarding abuse, you were abused by your spiritual father, and if you travel up the judicial hierarchy of the Church you see the Pope at the very top. In this sense, I see where you’re coming from, as for your perspective you may either feel not enough was done or justice was not served. But you are not alone with the perspective of abuse.

For me, I was physically and emotionally abused by my biological father. We took him to court and he was found innocent in the eyes of the law. In the eyes of the law it never happened, so he avoided any punishment. He freely admitted it later on, but what done is done; the court had spoken. Canada had deemed that my father was 100% innocent in all charges, despite the bruises I had to show for it.

My question is; who can I blame? The judge? The judge did what he could based on what he was given. My father and his then-wife (not my mother, of course) committed perjury, how was the judge to know he was lying on the stand? He had an effective lawyer running interference and doing what defense lawyers do. How was the judge to know the lawyer was protecting a guilty client?

I harbored feelings of anger and resentment for years. But writing this post had made me think about it…I never once, over my twenty nine years of living, blamed the judge for what happened. There was no way for him to know my father and his spouse (at the time) were lying, there was no way for him to know my father’s lawyer was covering things up. All he had to go with was the testimony of a small child and his sister, who gave a small conflicting detail in their testimonies (I said a specific incident happened on a Saturday, she said Friday). The judge did the best he could with the information at hand.

But foes the buck stop with the judge? I suppose i could be angry at the laws of our country, which allowed such an act to happen and someone to get away with it. I could be angry with the office of the Prime Minister. I could be angry at several people. I could blame anyone/everyone.

But no…I won’t. Not anymore. The judge did the best he could, my father’s lawyer was merely doing his job, the doctor who took pictures of my bruises made an honest mistake, my mother (true to what she told me after she found out about what happened) proceeded to break the law and made certain I would never see my father again (he was innocent after all, he retained his custodial rights).

My father eventually made another mistake, and in an ironic twist his “innocent” verdict came back to haunt him and cost him some freedom. In the case of the priest who betrayed you, at one point or another he too will have his past come back to haunt him. But, much like the judge and anyone else in my case, John Paul II acted in good faith on the issue (as described by Brother JR). In fact, you look at his whole life you can see he has always acted in good faith.

'Has". Not “had” but “has”. Because, as recent miracles have confirmed, he’s still acting in good faith.

EDIT; Notice the parallels, by the way. In your case you have a Priest (like my father) who probably denied any and all wrong doing. You had a a Bishop who may have been protecting him (like my father’s lawyer), which meant the Cardinal (the judge) would not have been able to find anything out. And if the Cardinal can’t pass any information, how is the Pope (the final earthly judge) to know?
 
laszlo said:
The Magisterium and only the Magisterium is qualified who can be / should be beatified/canonized and who should not.

This power is based on the words of our Lord:

Matt 16:19 And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.

Catholics accept this power.
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Amen. When I began to read some of the responses on here I thought…:confused:
Who are WE to sit and talk as if we are the authority in God’s Church. Disagree with the Magisterium, you disagree with the very Church you profess to believe in.

God doesn’t make wrong decisions. Period.

:doh2:

Why are we forgetting the very thing that makes us the one true Faith?
 
lil_flower_luv said:
Amen. When I began to read some of the responses on here I thought…:confused:

God doesn’t make wrong decisions. Period.
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Leaving aside for one moment the conversation at hand, one cannot deny that men can and do make mistakes. Our only guarantee of no error is in the infallible pronouncement.

Back to the conversation at hand, when and if he is Canonized, Rome will have spoken, the cause will have finished, and loyal sons of the Church will assent.

We are the faithful, attempting to exercise the reason with which our Creator Lord and God endowed us. That’s who we are discussing this.

There is no malice or ill-intent.
 
The announcement brought a smile to my face on a rather dismal day.
About 10 years ago I was out raking leaves in the yard and concentrating very hard on the other things on my “to do” list when the thought " Pray for the Holy Father" popped into my head. This would be very unusual for me. At the time, my prayer life did not reach far beyond grace at meal time. So I prayed for the Pope, and did not think much more of it.
The Sunday after John Paul II died, I believe it was Mercy Sunday, I remember feeling a bit sad when the Eucharistic Prayer was being said and the Pope’s name was omitted. But the sad feeling didn’t last long. During the Agnus Dei I felt a wonderful sense of light and joy and suddenly just knew ( not thought, knew) that John Paul II was in Heaven. It was a great feeling.
So to hear that he is being beatified, and on Mercy Sunday even, was fantastic news. I can’t wait.
 
Dear Melchior,

Hopefully not sounding trite, I am sorry for your travails.

On certain points, as you have mentioned, Catholics have much to be grateful for in his actions as Pope. Personally, his teachings on the Blessed Mother of God, and especially his Encyclical on the Eucharist are shining examples of Traditional Catholic Faith. But on some others, I believe, yours and my perception diverge.

A Priest did not play a role in what I was subjected to as a child, for the sake of clarification, but was within the family.

By way of analogy, I am a retailer. If I know that one of my managers is stealing one dollar a day from the cash box, and has been for years, but all I do is remove him from that location to another location, and then again to another, what remedy have I effected? Or if I were the VP of the company, and I knew of a regional mgr who kept on moving a manager who was stealing from one store to another each time he was caught, and I didn’t take steps to council the one, and remove the other, what kind of VP fpr the company would I be?

Certainly no heroic measures were taken to secure the assets of the company. Maybe action was taken to secure the assets of one particular location by moving the manager to another location, but the theft wasn’t ended. Only moved.

Apples and oranges, I know. But I believe that parallels exist. And my point is the use of the adjective heroic.

Sincerely, maurin.

**
Melchior said:
Doctrinally speaking John Paul II was very sound. Why else did he have so many enemies from the culture of death?

Regarding abuse, you were abused by your spiritual father, and if you travel up the judicial hierarchy of the Church you see the Pope at the very top. In this sense, I see where you’re coming from, as for your perspective you may either feel not enough was done or justice was not served. But you are not alone with the perspective of abuse.

For me, I was physically and emotionally abused by my biological father. We took him to court and he was found innocent in the eyes of the law. In the eyes of the law it never happened, so he avoided any punishment. He freely admitted it later on, but what done is done; the court had spoken. Canada had deemed that my father was 100% innocent in all charges, despite the bruises I had to show for it.

My question is; who can I blame? The judge? The judge did what he could based on what he was given. My father and his then-wife (not my mother, of course) committed perjury, how was the judge to know he was lying on the stand? He had an effective lawyer running interference and doing what defense lawyers do. How was the judge to know the lawyer was protecting a guilty client?

I harbored feelings of anger and resentment for years. But writing this post had made me think about it…I never once, over my twenty nine years of living, blamed the judge for what happened. There was no way for him to know my father and his spouse (at the time) were lying, there was no way for him to know my father’s lawyer was covering things up. All he had to go with was the testimony of a small child and his sister, who gave a small conflicting detail in their testimonies (I said a specific incident happened on a Saturday, she said Friday). The judge did the best he could with the information at hand.

But foes the buck stop with the judge? I suppose i could be angry at the laws of our country, which allowed such an act to happen and someone to get away with it. I could be angry with the office of the Prime Minister. I could be angry at several people. I could blame anyone/everyone.

But no…I won’t. Not anymore. The judge did the best he could, my father’s lawyer was merely doing his job, the doctor who took pictures of my bruises made an honest mistake, my mother (true to what she told me after she found out about what happened) proceeded to break the law and made certain I would never see my father again (he was innocent after all, he retained his custodial rights).

My father eventually made another mistake, and in an ironic twist his “innocent” verdict came back to haunt him and cost him some freedom. In the case of the priest who betrayed you, at one point or another he too will have his past come back to haunt him. But, much like the judge and anyone else in my case, John Paul II acted in good faith on the issue (as described by Brother JR). In fact, you look at his whole life you can see he has always acted in good faith.

'Has". Not “had” but “has”. Because, as recent miracles have confirmed, he’s still acting in good faith.

EDIT; Notice the parallels, by the way. In your case you have a Priest (like my father) who probably denied any and all wrong doing. You had a a Bishop who may have been protecting him (like my father’s lawyer), which meant the Cardinal (the judge) would not have been able to find anything out. And if the Cardinal can’t pass any information, how is the Pope (the final earthly judge) to know?
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**
 
maurin said:
Dear Melchior,

Hopefully not sounding trite, I am sorry for your travails.

On certain points, as you have mentioned, Catholics have much to be grateful for in his actions as Pope. Personally, his teachings on the Blessed Mother of God, and especially his Encyclical on the Eucharist are shining examples of Traditional Catholic Faith. But on some others, I believe, yours and my perception diverge.

A Priest did not play a role in what I was subjected to as a child, for the sake of clarification, but was within the family.

By way of analogy, I am a retailer. If I know that one of my managers is stealing one dollar a day from the cash box, and has been for years, but all I do is remove him from that location to another location, and then again to another, what remedy have I effected? Or if I were the VP of the company, and I knew of a regional mgr who kept on moving a manager who was stealing from one store to another each time he was caught, and I didn’t take steps to council the one, and remove the other, what kind of VP fpr the company would I be?

Certainly no heroic measures were taken to secure the assets of the company. Maybe action was taken to secure the assets of one particular location by moving the manager to another location, but the theft wasn’t ended. Only moved.

Apples and oranges, I know. But I believe that parallels exist. And my point is the use of the adjective heroic.

Sincerely, maurin.**

**
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Not trite at all maurin, and I’m sorry for yours. The topic of abuse is a weighty one, and I’m glad we can have a civil conversation related to the topic. And thank you for the clarification on where the abuse came from, with the Church abuse scandal being one of the focal points in your posts I wrongly assumed that it was where your trials happened.

I disagree that the parallels exist in your analogy though, as there’s one crucial element missing; the Pope was not aware until the end of the extent of the acts being committed, and when he was aware he took action. It was the Bishops who sadly did the moving and shuffling, and as has been mentioned before there are few CEO’s who could micromanage to the point where they knew 100% of what every employee had done within their company. Does Bill Gates know when someone from tech support is stealing Windows 7 product keys? Does the president of Nike know when someone from the shoe stores walks away with a free set of Air Jordan’s?

The Pope did what he could based on the information he had. Using your retail analogy, if the local manager failed to report to the area manager…how is the CEO to know what happened?
 
I’ve thought long and hard about H.H. JPII and I’m convinced he was a man of deep faith. He did not resemble, say, H.H. Pius IX, but the world was a very different place during the reign of each.

If he is deemed Blessed, I will call him such.
 
I have learned from all of you, my dear brothers and sisters. Thanks for the honest discussion of this subject.
 
Melchior said:
Not trite at all maurin, and I’m sorry for yours. The topic of abuse is a weighty one, and I’m glad we can have a civil conversation related to the topic. And thank you for the clarification on where the abuse came from, with the Church abuse scandal being one of the focal points in your posts I wrongly assumed that it was where your trials happened.

I disagree that the parallels exist in your analogy though, as there’s one crucial element missing; the Pope was not aware until the end of the extent of the acts being committed, and when he was aware he took action. It was the Bishops who sadly did the moving and shuffling, and as has been mentioned before there are few CEO’s who could micromanage to the point where they knew 100% of what every employee had done within their company. Does Bill Gates know when someone from tech support is stealing Windows 7 product keys? Does the president of Nike know when someone from the shoe stores walks away with a free set of Air Jordan’s?

The Pope did what he could based on the information he had. Using your retail analogy, if the local manager failed to report to the area manager…how is the CEO to know what happened?
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With all due and proper respect, along with my apologies, there is nothing that can be said which could ever get me to believe that given the sheer volume of allegations along withe the amount of publicity that His Holiness did not have any idea of the possible or even probable extent of the crimes against against the innocent. Volume and time were pointedly a part of my analogy. His Holiness was Pope when when the Bishop of a Diocese in Florida resigned after admitting his own guilt in the early years of the last decade. And publicity about other alleged crimes had already been prominent in the previous decade in this country.

I agree that it is important and also appreciated that we can have calm discussion about such a toxic subject. I state that I do not blame or lay responsibility at the feet of His Holiness for the crimes committed. All I am saying is that I strongly disagree that the adjective hroic can be used especially in regards to this subject.
 
ByzCath said:
Actually there is an “if”. Not all Blesseds go on to be canonized.
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lil_flower_luv said:
You don’t know JPII the way the Church does. :dts:

Neither do most posters on here, I’ve found…
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I can see what both of you are saying. It’s not a matter of knowing John Paul II. It’s a matter of knowing the Church.

There are two ways for John Paul to be canonized.
  1. There has to be an approved miracle. Only God knows when that will happen.
or
  1. The pope can dispense with the miracle and proceed to canonize.
Most popes do not dispense with the miracle requirement. Therefore, either the miracle never happens or is never reported. In that case, the Blessed is never canonized.

We have such a case in our Franciscan family. Who has not heard of Blessed John Duns Scotus?

Scotus has never been canonized, because his cause was dropped. There may have been miracles through his intercession, but they were never reported. The order has no interest in pursuing the canonization, not because there is anything wrong with Scotus. I believe that it’s hard to find anyone who is praying to Scotus for a miracle. The other option would be for a pope to canonize him, which may happen. John Paul was interested in his cause, but he became ill and it never progressed.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
I have mixed feelings about the Beatification. One one hand, as one poster already mentioned here, I believe that JPII was a man of deep faith and I would never say that he had ill intentions towards the Church, on the contrary, I am sure that all the actions he took were out of the utmost of love and concern.

On the other hand, I also believe that JPII was a modern Pope and, as a modern Pope he followed and approved of many of the VII changes that caused confusion and turmoil for many Catholics. Especially in the area of ecumenism, his actions caused much confusion and many Catholics were led to believe that the Church’s teaching on ecumenism had changed because now the Pope was willing to pray with non-Christians both in Catholic Churches and heathen temples, offer Holy Communion to Protestants, etc. It is these things about his Pontificate that sadden me because I think that he had very good intentions but sometimes the faithful need the Pope to be very clear about what is acceptable and what is not in the Church and that didn’t happen in many areas.

JPII was very outspoken in defense of human life and for that I am very happy - the Pope needs to stand strong against the culture that puts convenience before life and pleasure before family and I think he did an admirable job at that. Also, I applaud his efforts with the youth, only I wish that certain elements of World Youth Day and similar events would have retained more reverence.

So, ultimately, it is a mixed bag. I can understand why people get very emotional when it comes to JPII’s Pontificate, he was an extremely personable Pope and reached out to the youth in ways that very few Popes prior had done and I think the young people who are now my age today have a very special bond with him because of that. However, at the same time, I am wary of many of the changes in the Church that happened under his watch and wish that Catholics would have been given clearer teaching so that I wouldn’t be hearing the incorrect statements I do today about things like religious liberty, ecumenism, etc.
 
Onegin said:
I have mixed feelings about the Beatification. One one hand, as one poster already mentioned here, I believe that JPII was a man of deep faith and I would never say that he had ill intentions towards the Church, on the contrary, I am sure that all the actions he took were out of the utmost of love and concern.

On the other hand, I also believe that JPII was a modern Pope and, as a modern Pope he followed and approved of many of the VII changes that caused confusion and turmoil for many Catholics. Especially in the area of ecumenism, his actions caused much confusion and many Catholics were led to believe that the Church’s teaching on ecumenism had changed because now the Pope was willing to pray with non-Christians both in Catholic Churches and heathen temples, offer Holy Communion to Protestants, etc. It is these things about his Pontificate that sadden me because I think that he had very good intentions but sometimes the faithful need the Pope to be very clear about what is acceptable and what is not in the Church and that didn’t happen in many areas.

JPII was very outspoken in defense of human life and for that I am very happy - the Pope needs to stand strong against the culture that puts convenience before life and pleasure before family and I think he did an admirable job at that. Also, I applaud his efforts with the youth, only I wish that certain elements of World Youth Day and similar events would have retained more reverence.

So, ultimately, it is a mixed bag. I can understand why people get very emotional when it comes to JPII’s Pontificate, he was an extremely personable Pope and reached out to the youth in ways that very few Popes prior had done and I think the young people who are now my age today have a very special bond with him because of that. However, at the same time, I am wary of many of the changes in the Church that happened under his watch and wish that Catholics would have been given clearer teaching so that I wouldn’t be hearing the incorrect statements I do today about things like religious liberty, ecumenism, etc.
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While we may agree on some points and disagree on others. As far as the Church is concerned, none of these are relevant to his sanctity. His sanctity has nothing to do with how he did his job. It is only about what happened in his soul. That’s all that the Church cares about when she studies a person’s life for canonization.

She looks at his work, writings, relationships, actions and other details only to answer one single question, “Is this a saint?” She does not ask, “Did he do the right thing? Was it prudent? Did other people understand or get confused? Could he have done more?” None of those question are relevant, because those questions are not about his soul. They are about his actions, their effects and the feelings and opnions of others.

The question is, “Is this a saint?” The way to answer that question is to prove that his life of virtue was heroic. By heroic, the Church means over and above what is required. Once the Church is satisfied that his life was heroic, the pope declares him Venerable. Venerable means that he can be venerated It’s like when we say that something is salvagable. I can be saved.

Then the pope has a choice to demand a miracle or not. Canon law cannot bind the pope to wait for a miracle. Canon law can only describe what a pope normally does, so that the rest of us poor mortals will understand what happens next. Now that it is proven that his life of virtue was that of a saint, we ask heaven to give us a sign.

The first sign has been given. There is a miracle that the pope has said happened because of the intercession of Pope John Paul. This means that all those things that you mentioned above are not important to God as far as John Paul is concerned. They are important to God as they related to your salvation, but not to John Paul’s. Because despite all of the above, John Paul never lost sight of his goal, to achieve the perfection of charity. That’s the goal of a saint. As far as God is concerned, he achieved it. The miracle is the first sign.

Since were are stubborn, we ask God to give us two signs or two miracles. We will now wait for the second. As I understand it, there is one being investigated. If it proves to be a true miracle, then he will be canonized. The Church does not create saints. People become saints through heroic efforts to live the Christian life. The Church just identifies those people, just as John the Baptist identified Jesus.

Whatever the issues are that affect the rest of us, they did not affect his soul and his relationship with God. Therefore, God granted us the grace to see a miracle worked through John Paul’s intercession.

The other way that God gives us a sign is through the Pontiff himself. The Pontiff can simply state, Ex Cathedra, that John Paul is a saint and that we have to venerate him as such. The Holy Spirit will have spoken. In the end, the Holy Spirit will speak through the pope when he canonizes.

But never confuse our issues with the issues of the soul of another person. The question is not what or how this or that was done, but “Is this a saint?” If you can prove that he achieve the perfection of love, then he is a saint. The universal call to holiness is a call to the perfection of charity, not competency or popularity. One saint that has hated by his own spiritual sons was Alphonsus Ligouri. They wanted him gone. Another saint who made more enemies than friends was Jerome. He was rude, short-tempered, and had no use for anyone who was not as intelligent as he was. However, both Alphonse and Jerome achieved the perfection of charity. They had to work at it, but they did it. Then you had Benedict and Francis, both were incompetent leaders. Yet, their sons and daughters, to this day, love them for their charity.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
JReducation said:
She looks at his work, writings, relationships, actions and other details only to answer one single question, “Is this a saint?” She does not ask, “Did he do the right thing? Was it prudent? Did other people understand or get confused? Could he have done more?” None of those question are relevant, because those questions are not about his soul. They are about his actions, their effects and the feelings and opnions of others.
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Right. Sometimes what we do cannot be judged by the moment but by history. The Pope’s actions to some may be questionable, but in perspective against a number of years into the future this may prove to be the crucial correct decisions that would keep the Church steady in the right direction in the ages to come. We cannot know that but God does.
 
ConstantineTG said:
Right. Sometimes what we do cannot be judged by the moment but by history. The Pope’s actions to some may be questionable, but in perspective against a number of years into the future this may prove to be the crucial correct decisions that would keep the Church steady in the right direction in the ages to come. We cannot know that but God does.
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If you’re looking at the soul of a pope, you look at it like you would anyone else. Just as you would ask if Thomas More was a faithful husband and faithful Franciscan, we ask was John Paul a faithful priest and a faithful pope? The answer is, Yes.

Did Thomas More make good choices as the Lord Chancellor? Sometimes he did and sometimes he did not. But he made the choices that he thought were best at the time.

Did John Paul make good choices as the Pontiff? Sometimes he did and sometimes he did not. But he made the choices that he thought were the best a the time.

So . . . what does this tell us about their souls? It tells us that these were men who went above and beyond the call of duty to be faithful. Sometimes they took paths that were mistaken, but not through any fault of their own or if they were at fault and they knew it, they showed more than the necessary remorse. Again, it tells us that these were penitent souls. We get back to the soul.

Sanctity is always about the state of the soul, not the state of the world around the soul. There are many things that the human person cannot control or even begin to understand.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
Let me be a little frank here and say that what bothers me it seems is that some people cannot accept the Pope’s beatification because of what they believe in and the Pope seems to be contrary to what they believe in. I mean, if the successor of Peter is being beatified and he seems to be doing something to the opposite of what one is doing, saying or thinking, then perhaps its not the Pope that’s on the wrong side of history.

Food for thought.
 
ConstantineTG said:
Let me be a little frank here and say that what bothers me it seems is that some people cannot accept the Pope’s beatification because of what they believe in and the Pope seems to be contrary to what they believe in. I mean, if the successor of Peter is being beatified and he seems to be doing something to the opposite of what one is doing, saying or thinking, then perhaps its not the Pope that’s on the wrong side of history.

Food for thought.
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:confused:

I apologize in advance. I mean no disrespect. You have two run-on setnences with extremely long predicate nominatives and even longer extended predicates that make them difficult to comprehend. Can you rewrite them with proper punctuation and shorter sentences? It’s hard to tell how many ideas you have here. Thanks.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
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