An article in the July 6th DETROIT NEWS was
titled: INFLUENTIAL POPES CLEARED FOR SAINTHOOD BY FRANCIS by Nicole Winfield
of the Associated Press. The subtitle read: Tradition relaxed for John Paul II,
John XXIII.
The whole issue about “relaxing tradition” has to do with
Pope Francis going ahead with the sainthood of John XXIII even without the
traditional (and I thought mandatory) second confirmed “miracle” attributed to
the pope being canonized.
I have trouble with the term “sainthood” and how it is being
used and defined. To me a saint is someone like Mother Theresa who dedicated
her life to the poor and sick of India; some one that gives one’s own life to
others.
But do you become a saint because you changed history? I
think if you change history for the common good you become a great man of
history but a saint?
John XXIII has always been my favorite pope mainly because
he called up VATICAN II; an ecumenical council that in my mind put the Catholic
Church on a road to modernity and humanism something Benedict XVI tried so hard
to undo.
John Paul II defeated Communism and liberated the country of
his birth (Poland) from the 50 years of depredation under Communist
dictatorship.
John Paul II did not stop priestly sexual attacks on
children about which he most certainly must have known and maybe even tried to
hide or cover up.
I am glad Francis did not go ahead and grant sainthood to
Pope Pius XXII (the pope during WWII) because there are some real concerns
about that pope being a little bit too friendly with the Nazis; Jews are
challenging his nomination for sainthood.
I guess the Catholic Church can make saints out of whom they
want but I feel it somehow dilutes the power of the title of saint when it is
applied to popes or people who influenced history for the benefit of man but
did not, in my mind, reach that level of “holiness” that to me defines a saint.
Mother Theresa, even though she turned away from her faith
in the end, believing nobody listens to people’s prayers, her life’s dedication
to the poor and sick, makes her a saint to me.
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