Why some conservative Catholics want to stop Pope John Paul II being made a saint

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Ceil-1 said:
I suggest we let the Holy Spirit guide the Church in this matter, and stop giving ourselves authority we don’t have to judge this man.

I am certainly grateful I will be judged by God and not the posters on this thread, that’s for sure. I wonder how you’ll hold up, in the “the mercy you give will be the mercy you recieve” category. My guess is, John Paul II will hold up better than you. But, not to worry, I’m sure you’ll tell God what to think, too.
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And I suggest that you yourself refrain from judging anyone on this thread, rather than preaching to others (which I’ll also point out that other posters did not do). Your personal, sarcastic attacks do not emanate from the Holy Spirit, so yes, I certainly agree that you should let the Holy Spirit guide the Church militant, combined with the Church triumphant, regarding such decisions. Just so you can be sure, the Church militant includes the laity.😉

And very thankfully, you have not been appointed arbiter of who on CAF has moral authority and practical authority to make subjective evaluations when a thread is opened.
 
Mattapoisett64 said:
If I recall correctly, only a handful of popes over the 2,000 years of the Church have been canonized. However, 3 of the most recent 5 late popes are in some stage of the process (Pius XII, Bl John XXIII, John Paul II). My concern is that at some level even just *being *pope seems to have become equated with the level of “heroic virtue” associated with sainthood.
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I share your concern, but mine goes beyond Popes. I don’t have a concern *per se *about popes, but about the rush to canonization of a number of modern figures, who I’m quite sure were lovely, holy people, and quite worthy. But many of us undoubtedly know a bunch of people (I know I do) whom I consider about as saintly (without known miracles) as a human being can be, and whom I have been blessed to know & be influenced by. But that doesn’t mean that all such holy people should be canonized. There’s such a thing as rarity & specialness in degree of admiration & influence, which is what official sainthood used to be. Without that I think sainthood risks being trivialized and generalized. I see no problem with ackowledging the holiness of certain others, but the actual title, i.m.o, should be reserved for that extraordinary segment.
 
cyberwolf001 said:
You do realize we dont have as much influence as many in our Goverment and Media would like us to think we do right?
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I realize, accurately, that the U.S. as a whole, its people and its officials, have way more global influence than you apparently want the U.S. to have and recognize the U.S. to have. It’s simply reality. A true leader of any entity, including the leader of the Vatican, understands this and acts accordingly to marshal his or her influence to effect change. The U.S. is not a minor player in global affairs or in cultural movements. If moral forces in the U.S. had been effectively activated in the previous pope’s reign, it’s my belief that we (the globe) would have been much better off in moral vision than we are today. He had 26 years to make his mark with the U.S., but unfortunately it clearly was not a priority of his, for which the world at large has suffered. To effect the most change it’s necessary to move those with the most power, including those with worldly power. There’s a tremendous amount of untapped spiritual power in the U.S. Popes who disregard that or minimize that by their actions cooperate in continuing to watch the world operate at moral risk.
 
saint or not if i ever have a family i want my first born son to be named John Paul after him. he was such a good man that he is someone we must all look up to as a person to try and live our lives like.
 
Elizabeth502 said:
I realize, accurately, that the U.S. as a whole, its people and its officials, have way more global influence than you apparently want the U.S. to have and recognize the U.S. to have. It’s simply reality. A true leader of any entity, including the leader of the Vatican, understands this and acts accordingly to marshal his or her influence to effect change. The U.S. is not a minor player in global affairs or in cultural movements. If moral forces in the U.S. had been effectively activated in the previous pope’s reign, it’s my belief that we (the globe) would have been much better off in moral vision than we are today. He had 26 years to make his mark with the U.S., but unfortunately it clearly was not a priority of his, for which the world at large has suffered. To effect the most change it’s necessary to move those with the most power, including those with worldly power. There’s a tremendous amount of untapped spiritual power in the U.S. Popes who disregard that or minimize that by their actions cooperate in continuing to watch the world operate at moral risk.
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A few things to consider:

The Pope is a head of state but he is the Leader of the Catholic Church primarily.
One does not have to visit the USA to enter into dialogue with it. How many foreign head of states have to visit the USA to effect or influence change?
During JP2’s reign, the primary US Presidents during that time were:
Reagan (8 years)
Bush Sr. (4 years)
Clinton (8 years)
Bush jr. (5 years)

During George Bush’s presidency, the Pope’s health was starting to fail and would affect how much interaction.

During that time, he surely worked with Reagan to defeat communism in eastern Europe.
During the Bush sr. years he along with Mother Theresa, fought against the Persian Gulf War as they considered it immoral.

During the Clinton years, he and the Vatican fought over abortion especially at the UN Conference in Cairo (1994) and never wasted a moment to speak out against abortion (Gospel of Life)

During the Bush jr. years, he fought against Bush about the Iraq war.

I acknowledge the US has a lot of influence in Geopolitical affairs but before we criticize the Pope, perhaps we should look at ourselves and remove that planket?
 
I confess I don’t know what to make of JPII. On the one hand, with encyclicals like Evangelium Vitae he was unceasing in his stand against the prevailing “culture of death,” but on the other, things like the Assisi conference and kissing the Koran bother me.
 
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very proud of my country- but it’s not the Pope’s top priority. John Paul II was from Poland- and he was as proud to be Polish as many of us are proud to be Americans. He was also the bishop of Rome, and fulfilling that role well was very important to him. He traveled more than any other pope- he didn’t ignore the US. I think he went to Canada & Mexico once, but didn’t go to the US…but who says that someone who comes to one of those countries must visit ours? I’m sure there were times when he visited the United States, but didn’t go to Canada or Mexico.

I want John Paul II to be canonized- because if he is, I’ll be able to say with certainty that he is in heaven. Who wouldn’t want to that with certainty about someone?

John Paul II inspired the vocations of many of the priests who are in their 30’s & early 40’s. They aren’t always traditionalists, but their theology is solid- in general, more so than priests of the generation before theirs. They tend to be very passionate about the Faith, and they, in turn, are the ones who seminarians and future seminarians of today often look to for moral/spiritual guidance. Some seem to be so immersed in the writing of John Paul II & the documents of Vatican II that they seem to see little need to study much else. Thats tempting, because those writings are deep, & can be exhausting just by themselves. That’ll probably wear off in time- a reason not to canonize him too fast. We should think about what made him inspire all those people. I respect him for that.
 
I went to Damien Thompson’s article in The Telegraph and read there, in the comments section, the claim that Pope John Paul II knew about the sexual abuse in the USA and didn’t do anything about it. I don’t know if this is true or not. Can anyone give me some sources which will either confirm or deny these claims with first hand proof?
 
Pope John Paul II may not have been perfect but neither is Pope Benedict XVI or any of the popes of the past. If you ask me, Pope John Paul II was a very good pope and he is definitely deserving of sainthood. 🙂
 
Quite a few Popes who are more deserving of Sainthood than John Paul II, who’s reign was one of decline for the Church. Pius IX and Urban II are just two.
 
Seamus_L said:
Quite a few Popes who are more deserving of Sainthood than John Paul II, who’s reign was one of decline for the Church. Pius IX and Urban II are just two.
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Well, that’s a judgement for the Holy Spirit acting through the Church to make.
 
I have mixed feelings. I remember when JPII came to Denver for World Youth Day. Late Sunday after the closing Mass, he had his departing helicopter fly over us so he could give us his blessing. Most in the crowd around us had tears in their eyes as they waved their handkerchiefs to him and I found out later through a friend who was on a rather “high” level of organizing this event that he did this totally out of love for the faithful because his security force was not going to allow it out of safety concerns. Also, don’t forget that upon his death the crowd in St. Peter’s Square were calling for “Sainthood Now” in Italian. There is some level of influence with the reigning Pope by the community of faithful when speaking in unity.

I loved him dearly but having said that, I can well remember my frustration that no liturgical reform seemed to be coming forth from his Pontificate and the many errors continued on. As usual, there seemed to be more silence than speech coming from the Chair.
 
Elizabeth502 said:
And I suggest that you yourself refrain from judging anyone on this thread, rather than preaching to others (which I’ll also point out that other posters did not do). Your personal, sarcastic attacks do not emanate from the Holy Spirit, so yes, I certainly agree that you should let the Holy Spirit guide the Church militant, combined with the Church triumphant, regarding such decisions. Just so you can be sure, the Church militant includes the laity.😉

And very thankfully, you have not been appointed arbiter of who on CAF has moral authority and practical authority to make subjective evaluations when a thread is opened.
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A bit defensive, aren’t we? 😉
 
Tsuwano said:
Not all saints required “a couple centuries” to be canonized. Both St. Francis and St. Claire were canonized relatively recently after their deaths. In fact, I believe the miracles normally required for canonization were even waived for St. Francis. The old process for canonization of saints was probably less consistant that the present one.
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By St. Francis’ time the current system was already in place. However, Pope Gregory IX waved it all, including the beatification based on his personal knowledge of the saint. Pope Gregory has been Cardinal Hugolino, the former protector of the Franciscan Order. Therefore, he was a friend of St. Francis and knew him very well. He canonized him. The same thing happened with St. Clare. The pope was a Franciscan. He knew Clare over the course of 40 years. He did not need any more information on her.

The point here is that the process is subject to the authority of the papacy. Canonization can be one of those infallible acts of a pope or it can be the product of discernment by an entire body. It can be a combination too.

In the case of Elizabeth Ann Seton, one of the miracles was waved, because it did not come. The Holy See felt that her life spoke for itself. It accepted her canonical status minus one miracle. Later the number of miracles were reduced anyway. There were people who opposed the canonization of St. Francis. They later turned out to be heretics.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
I went back and read the article, and sadly I must agree with it.
Many times I've asked those who admire John Paul II what it is they love so much about him, and not too surprisingly, the answers are very similar to the reasons given by those who love Princess Diana and Bono of U2. Unfortunately though, during all those warm and fuzzy photo shoots, very serious problems went unchecked within the church.
 
I think we’re seeing the downside of a rushed-through canonization now, with Fr Escriva; unless many more miracles are attributed to his intercession, he’ll keep that Roger Maris-like asterisk next to his name since he was canonized under lowered standards. Pope Benedict re-raised the standards immediately after becoming pope
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/187701?eng=y scroll down to part 2.
so the exact same problem won’t happen of course.
Admittedly, it’s unclear whether “In other words: the pride and entrepreneurship of a religious order toward their founder or confrere are not enough” refers to Fr Escriva or Fr Maciel, then on his deathbed. My guess is the second. Which provides a segue into the other problem with JPII’s canonization: he didn’t seem to care that tens or hundreds of thousands of children were being molested by priests. His infamous “Maciel is an efficacious guide to youth” must be overcome since the pope has a strong obligation to guard his lambs against omnisexual monster-priests.

But that’s just my opinion.
 
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