John Paul on sainthood fast track

[Maeve]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/05/13/pope.sainthood/index.html

ROME, Italy -- Pope Benedict XVI has said he is putting his predecessor John Paul II on the fast track to possible sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church.

The pope said Friday he had dispensed with rules that normally impose a five-year waiting period before beatification -- the last step before sainthood -- can even start.
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Personally, I think it's a bit soon; John Paul shortened the wait to 2 years for Mother Teresa but less than two months? On the other hand, we declared saints by public acclamation for the first millennium of the Church...so :shrug:

[Matilda]

1. It's political of course.

It will make it easier for Benedict to keep to JPs traditionalist
agenda.

Why don't they just say that sainthood is in the gift of the Pope.
That's how it's been for the past twenty years, so they should be
honest about it.

[DemBones DemBones]

4. Hasn't the Pope had the final word on sainthood for longer

than John Paul's pontificate? I thought it had been that way for centuries, maybe since the Church decided to exert some standards instead of allowing every local hamlet to name all the saints they chose.

I just read another article that said Benedict will no longer preside over beatification ceremonies, only canonizations, giving the beatifications back to other prelates. He almost has to cut back on the number of papal functions John Paul II took on when he was a very healthy (and much younger) new Pope in 1978 and the next year or two. Remember how he hiked and skied in those early years?

[Az_lefty]

2. I though he was going to be proclaimed LPII The Great ?

I know being identified as "The Great" is different than Sainthood, but I'm not sure exactly what the difference is. If someone could help me with understanding this I would appreciate it.

[DemBones DemBones]

3. Calling him John Paul the Great is just an unofficial title, kind of like

calling Elvis "The King." It shows people's affection and esteem. Just like people called Elvis "The King" for years before his death, some people were calling John Paul "The Great" before his death.

Elvis, however, had to be voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and that was based on his accomplishments. Sainthood is like that, but more complicated. When the Catholic Church declares that someone is a saint, it means the Church thinks that person is already in Heaven, and thus in a better place to intervene for us. Catholics pray to God but we also ask various saints to pray for us, too, like asking another living person to pray for us except we hope they have a little more clout

To be declared a saint, the person's life has to be investigated thoroughly. John Paul should get an A on this score.

They'll eventually exhume John Paul's body to see if he's "an incorruptible" (one of the saints whose body hasn't decayed, or hasn't decayed as much as it should have -- like the skin's turned dark but the body's basically intact and it's a few hundred years old.) John Paul was not embalmed, BTW, and how they managed that with him lying in state from Sunday until Friday I don't know -- maybe there was ice under him?

But the biggie, the real test for sainthood, is that there have to be medically verified miracles attributed to a dead person praying for people on earth. No doubt many people are already asking John Paul to ask God to heal them. I think it takes one certified miracle to be beatified by the Church; that means the Church officially calls them Blessed, as in Blessed John Paul the Great or Blessed John Paul II. (In Latin, Beatus=Blessed, that's why it's called beatification.)

After being beatified, the potential saint has to be credited with (I think) one more miracle and then it's made official and they're called Saint John Paul the Great (if that comes to pass, which it likely will.)

Do you have any more questions? I'm pretty good at this and other forms of arcane knowledge, the sort that's rarely called for. ;-)

[Princess Turandot]

5. I think he should have waited a bit..

for the media focus on him to die down. I don't know why the period was set at 5 years, but I wonder if the intent isn't something rather like the Baseball Hall of Fame, where a candidate needs to wait 5 years to be considered, so that enthusiasm for a player when he retires which may be based on only recent events, doesn't cause an automatic election by the press for that reason. Election to the HOF needs to be based on an evaluation of a career, not one or two seasons. I'm not comparing the B HOF with sainthood obviously; I'm just saying that for reasons like that, you may want a waiting period.For example, the first official death recorded on 9-11 was that of Father Judge, a franciscan friar who was a fire department chaplain, and who was killed when hit by falling debris while rushing to minister to someone on the ground. He was already a very popular and decent man, there was a lot of publicity about him after his death and without the idea of a waiting period, perhaps there might have been a call to make him a saint.

In the case of the 'average' person who was canonized, the waiting period probably didn't mean much, probably because they were not well known enough to have a groundswell of pressure to canonize the person. On the other hand, in these modern times, it gives the Vatican time to make sure it knows as much as possible about a lesser known person.

The miracles, in the end, are viewed as affirmations from God that the person is a saint, aren't they? It isn't the miracles which make someone a saint - it's how they lived. When Frances Cabrini died, in Chicago, and was later entombed in NYC, the Vatican asked her Order to have her heart removed and sent to Rome, because they knew that ultimately she would be canonized. Few have lived a life of service to as many people as possible as she did, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus - personally, as devoted to the poor of India as Mother Teresa was, she IMO accomplished quite a bit less than Frances Cabrini did, in much more difficult times.

[Matilda]

6. The waiting period was set for exactly the reasons you put forward.

To let emotions die down, and look at the whole thing with a more
objective view. There also used to be a Devil's Advocate, appointed
by the Vatican to challenge the evidence presented in favor of
sainthood, but John Paul abolished that position. A pity, because
it provided more checks along the way.

I'm really quite disturbed by what has been happening with the
canonisation process over the past twenty years, because it seems
more and more that those whom the Pope looks on with favor are
fast-tracked, while others who may be more worthy are sidelined.
I can't help but believe that enormous pressure is exerted from the
top down.

I have become very cynical about the whole process, and that's a
shame. It should mean something, but it's becoming cheapened when
it's used as a political tool.

[DemBones DemBones]

7. The good thing about John Paul II's activism as a

"saint-maker," hurrying various causes along, was that he urged those who are in charge of the process to find more worthy laity, more worthy non-Europeans, more worthy women (whether religious or laywomen), and more worthy married couples who might be considered for sainthood.

It's about providing more saints that can be role models that ordinary laity can feel a kinship with, which is hardly a bad thing. I think they still investigate as thoroughly and challenge the evidence -- I thought, in fact, that they had only done away with the title "devil's advocate" because it was misunderstood, not with the position itself. But you may be right that they did away with the position. No doubt we'll read more about the process if John Paul's canonization gets under way.

Two women were canonized yesterday, but the media paid little if any attention since they weren't big-name saints! Even sainthood has its pecking order. ;-)

John Paul II also named St Therese of Lisieux a Doctor of the Church, which was, in my view, mainly a PC move to get another woman Doctor in the lineup. At least, I don't hold the Little Flower in the same esteem as a theologian/philosopher/mystic as I do St.Teresa of Avila or St. Catherine of Siena. Or St. Edith Stein. Maybe I'm wrong about Therese, though; I admit I haven't read more than scraps of her writings.
I do think it was a well-intentioned move by John Paul and the Little Flower probably stacks up with some of the male Doctors, if we ran through the list.