Pope to Beatify Mel Gibson's 'Passion' Muse

[Kadie]

Pope to Beatify Mel Gibson's 'Passion' Muse

Sun May 30, 7:27 AM ET

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

PARIS (Reuters) - The 19th century German nun whose blood-soaked visions of Jesus's death inspired Mel Gibson (news)'s film "The Passion of The Christ" will soon be put on the path to sainthood, Catholic Church officials have said.


Anne Catherine Emmerich, a sickly mystic who lived from 1774 to 1824, has already reached near cult status among traditionalist Roman Catholics for her book that gave Gibson the grisly details the Gospels did not provide.


The Vatican (news - web sites) says Pope John Paul (news - web sites) II will beatify Emmerich for her virtuous life, not her best-selling book, but the Oct. 3 ceremony will further publicize her Passion accounts that some critics denounce as medieval and anti-Semitic.


"Beatification will almost certainly be interpreted as approval of them," Father John O'Malley, a church historian, wrote disapprovingly in the U.S. Jesuit weekly America.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=598&e=2&u=/nm/religion_passion_nun_dc

[dedhed]

1. May as well beatify Stephen King...

The Vatican says Pope John Paul II will beatify Emmerich for her virtuous life, not her best-selling book...

But I'm sure the book had nothing to do with it!

:bounce:

edit: spelling

[madrchsod]

2. wow!!and here i thought that the

roman catholic church believed in christ,didn`t realize it also believed in mystics..is mel next to receive sainthood?

[CShine]

3. Emmerich's anti-Semitism made her a prime candidate, no doubt

http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/06/29/wmel29.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/06/29/ixworld.html

The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ by St Anne Catherine Emmerich, suggests that Jews organised "blood money" for the Crucifixion - paying people to clamour for Jesus's death to sway Pontius Pilate - and that His cross was constructed on the orders of the Jewish high priest.

[KittyWampus]

4. Wow! The Catholic Church Follows Disney's Business Model

:puke:

Post Script: All we need now is the Catholic Church to release "The Passion of the Christ Action Figures" and for McDonalds to have a
"passion Happy Meal".

[MarkTwain]

5. One Crazy Old Man...

... tipping his hat in the direction of another crazy old man.

Commonalities? Their Business Model.

1. They both conduct their business in "magical thinking."
2. They're both as rich as hell - and made even more so by engaging others to buy into and pay for number one.

[laylah]

6. Please forgive me but I

must :puke: And these fools wonder why people like me declare themselves "recovering Catholics" :silly:

jenn

[SharonAnn]

7. Me too.

Shaking my head about this.

The Catholic Church has no integrity.

[lanparty]

10. On the other hand ...

It will effectively be no better than revelation. More crazy "visions" from a nutcase turned into religious cannon.

The church is REALLY fucking up on this one. They are going to drive a LOT of people out of the church. Last time I looked, American catholics were NOT happy with the Church's top down hierachy (that precipitated the scandal). The pontiff had the NERVE to overturn the consensus of catholic bishops to CLEAN UP the child-raping scandal.

Put on top of this the VERY LARGE number of clergy who WANT priest marriage and you have a recipe for American Catholics splitting from Rome.

[burrowowl]

8. I hope JP II

gives way soon and we get another John XXIII.

[lanparty]

9. This is BAD!!!!

The pontiff will effectively be making this nun's writings part of the bible.

If it is not true ... it MUST be heresy. If he beatifies someone who writes this, then it MUST be true in the eyes of the church.

[ElectroPrincess]

11. No, don't freak

No please, these ties (her life and book connection with Mel's Movie) are tenuous at best. The side shoot meanings of the Pope's act is contrived to inspire inappropriate emotion from the left. If we "go nuts" the wingers will say, "See! The liberals hate the Pope and all Catholics."

We should see this propaganda coming like a slow train wreak. ;)

[lanparty]

12. Why Beatify then????

If you've got someone with a questionable aspect of their life ... why beatify them??? Aren't our standards being lowered when "saints" have heretic visions that they publish?????

When you're talking about religious canon, there is no middle ground. It's either the truth or heresy. Condoning this hullucinigenic "gospel" would effectively endorse re-examination of the "gnostic gospels".

Thats not saying this is a "bad thing". I think the church dicked around with the gospels since the Christian movement was hijacked by Contantine. But for modern Catholicism, they are really opening up the door to stuff they'd rather keep in the closet.

A lot of Catholics will be VERY pissed off at this.