I was a little surprised to read that Pope Paul VI was up
for sainthood.
I said before that the sainthood process is a little silly
with the need for confirmed miracles and such. I always thought that the
potential saint had to have done something dramatically good for humanity to
deserve the sainthood ring around his head.
John XXIII called for Vatican II which modernized the church
and John Paul II helped defeat Communism and the Soviet stranglehold on Easter
Europe EVEN though he allowed priests to sexually violate children.
I don’t know much about Paul VI but I do know that one of Vatican
IIs many pronouncements was a reconsideration of the ban on contraception
(artificial birth control).
A blue ribbon panel was convened and after much expert
discussion, the panel recommended that in light of the Vatican allowing the
rhythm method as a means of contraception, it had admitted that couples can and
should have sex for the pleasure of it and not just for procreation.
Since the Vatican did recognize sex for pleasure, it only
made sense to allow contraception to help the couple prevent unwanted
pregnancies.
Unfortunately John XXIII died too early since he would have
absolutely allowed contraception based on plain logic and common sense but Paul
VI did not have John’s view of the realities of married life even though he
thought he did…really?
Paul did not want to be remembered as a pope that reversed a
church teaching which would have indicated that the church was wrong in its
pronouncement on birth control.
This is a twisted argument since the church has backed out
of many of its pronouncements in the past and even today as in cremation is now
allowed after further deliberation and the conclusion that we will not be raised
from the dead physically at the end of the world, only our spirits will…hmmmmmm.
To me Paul VI was not forward thinking and by keeping the
ban on contraception, he actually did a grave disservice to humanity and
probably was responsible for many female deaths caused by multiple births that
they could not prevent because of his ignorant declaration.
I think the Vatican should re-write the rules for sainthood
and base those rules on something more than supernatural mumbo-jumbo; Paul was
no saint!
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