Which of these Popes would you like to see canonized?

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The canonizations of St. John XXIII and St. John Paul II have got me thinking… 🙂

The late 19th and 20th centuries were a time of tremendous change and upheaval for the Church. However, they were also a time when we had exceptionally good Popes, who not only taught clearly and authoritatively, but also led us wisely through numerous temporal (World War I and II) and spiritual (Modernism, the rise of Communism as an ideology) crises.

St. Pius X is already a Saint (yay! :)), but in my opinion, all of the following also deserve to be canonized:

Bl. Pius IX (the Immaculate Conception! The Syllabus of Errors!)
Leo XIII (Rerum Novarum!)
Benedict XV (a man of peace during tumultuous times…)
Pius XI (Mit Brennender Sorge!)
Pius XII (his work during WWII, and his encyclicals are classics. Also, the Assumption!)

What do you think? Vote in the poll! You can vote for as many options as you like individually, or (as I did) for “all of them” 🙂
 
I choose all. 🙂

Yes, it is striking. For the first 500 years, almost every pope was canonized. For the last 1000 years, very few popes have been canonized. But all the recent ones seem to be strong candidates.

Tough times require holy popes!
 
Benedict XV is a great choice. I would vote “Pope with the best personality” to be Pope Benedict XIV. He was very popular and a bit of a character!
 
Joe_5859 said:
I choose all. 🙂

Yes, it is striking. For the first 500 years, almost every pope was canonized. For the last 1000 years, very few popes have been canonized. But all the recent ones seem to be strong candidates.

Tough times require holy popes!
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So many of the early century Popes were also Martyrs!!, God Bless, Memaw
 
Joe_5859 said:
Yes, it is striking. For the first 500 years, almost every pope was canonized. For the last 1000 years, very few popes have been canonized. But all the recent ones seem to be strong candidates.
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To be fair, 29 of the first 50 popes were martyred (all but Sts Pius I and Alexander I of the first 31 popes). Since the 4th century I believe only Pope St Martin I has received the martyr’s crown. Not saying they are not saint’s, but martyrdom is a no brainer for canonization. 😉

One of the things about the mid era popes is that they were often not really known personally to wider Christendom. You also have the political intrigue around the papacy during the end of the first millennium through the mid part of the second millennium. Because of that you likely did not have a cult praying for their intercessions and thus less recognition for a cause for sainthood. This is in contrast with modern popes of the last 150 years where we have extensive writings or even recordings of them with the popes of the last 60 years.
 
Hmm, interesting responses so far! I think Usige’s point is very interesting: the Pontiffs of the last 100-150 years have a fairly good corpus of writings through which we can know them. (In fact, my “all of them” vote is largely based on their writings; I’m that sort of guy. :))

If you’re voting for only a few of them, could you also say why? I’d be interested in discussing things like that. 😉
 
I voted that all of them should be canonized!

But you guys are making me want to read more about papal history.
 
Exsultet said:
I voted that all of them should be canonized!

But you guys are making me want to read more about papal history.
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A good “popular” history to get started is Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes by Eamon Duffy. 🙂

If you want to read the source documents, the best anthology I can think of is still Denzinger’s Enchiridion Symbolorum (if you can stand the small print.) You can also find the writings of almost all the recent Popes (I checked as far back as Gregory XVI) on the Vatican website. The major ones are translated into English. Happy reading! 👍
 
Usige said:
To be fair, 29 of the first 50 popes were martyred (all but Sts Pius I and Alexander I of the first 31 popes). Since the 4th century I believe only Pope St Martin I has received the martyr’s crown. Not saying they are not saint’s, but martyrdom is a no brainer for canonization. 😉

One of the things about the mid era popes is that they were often not really known personally to wider Christendom. You also have the political intrigue around the papacy during the end of the first millennium through the mid part of the second millennium. Because of that you likely did not have a cult praying for their intercessions and thus less recognition for a cause for sainthood. This is in contrast with modern popes of the last 150 years where we have extensive writings or even recordings of them with the popes of the last 60 years.
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Good points. Modern communication does make it easier for us to “get to know” the pope. I’m sure that’s a factor.
 
I voted for all of them. But my favorite on that list is Pius XII.

I’ve recently watched at least three different movies on FORMED that were either about him or where he was featured.

What a great man and Pope.
 
phil19034 said:
I voted for all of them. But my favorite on that list is Pius XII.

I’ve recently watched at least three different movies on FORMED that were either about him or where he was featured.

What a great man and Pope.
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No disagreement from me there! 👍
 
All of them deserve it I’m sure but the only one I know a lot about myself is Pius XII. Unfortunately his canonization effort is probably more stalled by politics than anything due the senseless controversy over not opposing Hitler enough during WWII. Yes, I know that these accusations have been thoroughly discredited but I don’t see the Vatican rushing forward with his canonization anytime soon, which is a shame.
 
I think it’s inappropriate to see the papacy as an “assembly line” into sainthood, which “all of the above” would seem to come close to.
 
Tarpeian_Rock said:
I think it’s inappropriate to see the papacy as an “assembly line” into sainthood, which “all of the above” would seem to come close to.
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Good point, but I specifically selected these men for discussion because I believe that they did, in their own way, live a life of heroic virtue, and were (to quote Joe) “tough Popes for tough times”. Even today, their writings are go-to resources for apologetics, especially against liberalism, indifferentism and Protestantism. I’m certainly not suggesting that everyone from Peter to Francis should get an automatic canonization! 🙂
 
multitude said:
Pope Leo XIII, I’m a little surprised he isn’t.
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Same here, I didn’t comment when I clicked him. Very prophetic indeed.

That’s not a vote against any of the others, several of whom should be regarded as “venerables”.

Pius X warned against prelates who posed as “social scientists” in the manipulative sense worldly institutions too often try to imply, whereby they would find themselves reformers of “faith” divorced from the tradition of Christ and the Apostles, either making empty appeal to “experience” not based on the action of the Almighty in our lives as we learn to place trust, or - just as bad and more subtle - an authoritarian diametric reaction to same. True “modern-ity” is to listen to what the same Holy Spirit is saying to the Church as in Rev 2-3. It’s alarming how Teilhardian the Church is, and all kudos to Pius X at warning, rather than to those who don’t want to understand the warning.
 
Vic_Taltrees_UK said:
Same here, I didn’t comment when I clicked him. Very prophetic indeed.

That’s not a vote against any of the others, several of whom should be regarded as “venerables”.

Pius X warned against prelates who posed as “social scientists” in the manipulative sense worldly institutions too often try to imply, whereby they would find themselves reformers of “faith” divorced from the tradition of Christ and the Apostles, either making empty appeal to “experience” not based on the action of the Almighty in our lives as we learn to place trust, or - just as bad and more subtle - an authoritarian diametric reaction to same. True “modern-ity” is to listen to what the same Holy Spirit is saying to the Church as in Rev 2-3. It’s alarming how Teilhardian the Church is, and all kudos to Pius X at warning, rather than to those who don’t want to understand the warning.
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Yah. The authoritarian diametric reaction is arguably worse and more dangerous, since it creates very capturing, very alluring and highly persistent philosophies that lead to ruin of souls than anything else.
 
Tarpeian_Rock said:
I think it’s inappropriate to see the papacy as an “assembly line” into sainthood, which “all of the above” would seem to come close to.
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The Papacy is NOT an assembly line, it is Apostolic Succession and the Church has always recognized martyrs as Saints, Pope or otherwise. God Bless, Memaw
 
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