There is considerable wisdom in taking the go-slow approach to canonizing anybody.  With the passage of time, a papacy that once was seen in nothing but glowing terms may come to bee seen in a more realistic light, warts and all.  There is no doubt that John Paul II was much beloved by Roman Catholics the world over.  But by giving in to demands for an accelerated process, the Church has effectively cheapened the very idea of sainthood by turning it into a popularity contest.

The fact is, John Paul II, for whatever his strengths may have been, had some glaring blind spots.  His order to priests in central America to take themselves out of the day-to-day struggles of the poor appears to be the result of his own experience with Soviet-style communism in Poland many years before, and not on the actual, on-the-ground reality of those countries.  And of course, there was his glaring refusal to come to grips with the sins of his own institution.

Near the end of the article appears this:

As Father James Martin, the liberal Jesuit writer, noted this week, “[I]n my eyes, anyone who visits the prison cell of his would-be assassin and forgives the man is a saint.”

To Fr. Martin I would say, no, Father, that does not make him a saint.  That makes him a Christian doing what all Christians are enjoined by Jesus to do:  forgive our enemies.

All history is fairly bloody, including the history of the Church.  It might be more fruitful to look forward and create an outline for the human future. Millions of us can already see that religious evangelism and orthodoxy , whether Christian or Muslim or “Other”, is very likely to lead the human race into extinction—and for exactly the same reasons that political orthodoxy creates the same ugly denouement. Human beings by nature come in a vast variety of colors, ideas, histories and cultures. “One size does not fit all” and the sooner this truth sinks into the universal human conscience, the better.

Big B
“although I am not a religious man, I stand by what my grandmother used to say about the catholics, and that is that they are all going to burn in hell for their idol worshipping ways”

This is the hateful clap trap that various Protestant sects should be ashamed of. Catholics, like most other Christian sects believe in one God in 3 forms known as the Trinity. Think of it as how scientists think of light, sometimes they deal with it as waves sometimes as particles, but it is still light. As for graven images, Catholics do not worship them, they have statues, beautiful ornate Churches (build by funds from their congregations) as sacred places to undertake their worship, an interior designer would call it ambiance.

Now I have a question for you, the last words of Matthews Gospel are Jesus said “I will be with you until the end of time”
Where were the bible thumping Protestants like your grandmother for the first 1500 years in the Christian tradition, the Anglicans, Episcopalians, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Syrian, Chaldean, Armenian, Russian, Nestorian Christian etc
can say “he was with us” at the Councils and in our parishes, including the Council of Nicaea where the Creed all these Christian professed was agreed on, and the Councils where the doctrine of the Trinity was agreed on by Christians from around the world, who can trace their genesis back to Pentecost.

PJT: “We feel that we must disagree with these prophets of gloom who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world were at hand.”

But the world (as we know it) HAS come to an end – unemployment is 9%!

Religion, any religion, offers hope against all odds - a blind faith that life is worth living .  Because this life is just the beginning and not the end of our existence. But the reality of living is about feeding the family and paying the electricity bill - and watching Oprah and the Dallas Cowboys so media-centric have we become.

The two - hope and reality - do not always bisect one another. In fact, they rarely do.

A Brazilian sociologist studying the evangelist movement in Brazil calls it “show ‘n tell” - that is, a social and not religious phenomenon. Borrowed, of course, from the US. What is important to the movement is the interaction between people and not religious content - which is the wrapping around the beef sandwich.

The human spirit likes to think it is sharing something special with others - which is the common glue of most religious belief.

What part of “thou shalt have no other gods before me” do the catholics not understand?

For that matter, what part of “thou shalt not worship any graven image” do they not grasp?

although I am not a religious man, I stand by what my grandmother used to say about the catholics, and that is that they are all going to burn in hell for their idol worshipping ways. Hey, their rules, not mine.

Anyone who stands by why children are being penetrated by sick and twisted pederasts (like John Paul) should be in hell right now playing canasta with pol pot.

From Pope John XXIII, Opening of Vatican Council II:

“In the daily exercise of our pastoral office, we sometimes have to listen, much to our regret, to voices of persons who, though burning with zeal, are not endowed with too much sense of discretion or measure. In these modern times they can see nothing but prevarication and ruin. They say that our era, in comparison with past eras, is getting worse, and they behave as though they had learned nothing from history, which is, nonetheless, the teacher of life.

“... We feel that we must disagree with these prophets of gloom who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world were at hand.

“In the present order of things, Divine Providence is leading us to a new order of human relations which, by men’s own efforts and even beyond their very expectations, are directed toward the fulfillment of God’s superior and inscrutable designs.”

(As quoted in a Knights of Columbus brochure, 1971.)

How does one rush to be a saint? Are the Catholics like Republicans trying to shove through a political agenda like Wisconson Walker?

If a person is a saint or not a saint would make sense to me, but rushing to be a saint sounds like rushing to catch a bus? As if Donald Trump rushing to be president and the Royal bastard rushing to get married isn’t enough!

Religion is undoubtedly the most childish thing to be put away when we “grow up”! In fact its really a form of child abuse to twist young minds at such an early age with such divisive and delusional nonsense, don’t ya think?

omygod ot again:  Just a sardonic personal footnote on your comment?  “2000 years later the Churches they started are still going strong, despite controversy, war, barbarian invasions, repression, they are the longest continuously operating institution in the world, they must be doing something right.
  I am reminded by this (though I wish to forget it) that I am 97 years old, therefore I must have done a lot of things wrong!  If I have done anything right, I am grateful, even though I am not, as yet, “the longest continuously operating institution in the world.”

In St. Peter’s, right there on the main floor, is a glass box.  And in it, in full papal regalia, is Pope John XXIII, embalmed. Somehow, that doesn’t seem like “buried” to me, or even “entombed”.  More like a museum display of a mummy.

omygodnot again: Sorry if I put your nose out of joint about the Pope.  It’s just that the man has incredible power to influence the world’s people, and yet he seems extraordinarily reluctant to stick out his honorable neck. And the reason he silently tolerates so much sin and mischief is that he cannot (or is not permitted to) make anybody mad for fear of loss of membership, contributions, and all that power which he is forbidden to use.

As to:  “What has been forgotten in all this hysteria are the Catholic hospitals that treat the poor in the Inner City, or work with immigrants, provide a good Education to those of meager means, legal services to those who can’t afford it.”  It is quite a while since any Pope worked in a hospital, taught in a school or pled the case of a widow who lost her home because she couldn’t pay the mortgage.
As to the contents of the catacombs, labels on tombs, etc.—those trivia matter little when 2000 years later, although Popes may have “done something right” they also did a great number of things wrong—inevitably, since they were human beings.  The problem is in the paternalism, the wealth, the heirarchy, the petpetuation of evangelism and the lack of forthright use of political clout (except in occasional instances when convenient).
  As to repression and the controverrsy—we had better leave that one alone, as the record is mixed depending what repression and what controversy.  The Crusades were a questionable enterprise at best and a very expensive charade, the outrageous odor of which persists to this day.
  Everybody has a right to devotion to religious ideals, but it is best not to lean too heavily on the personnel involved. IMO.

It is evident that most commentators here have bought into the concerted attempt to silence the Church for its criticism of the War in Iraq and Capitalism. The rate of abuse (and any abuse is tragic and should be condemned) is 100 times LESS than in public schools and significantly lower than the rate happening in families. The media, the lap dog of their financial masters did their job well. They forgot to mention that local bishops handle local concerns, they are the ones who are responsible. The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, his responsibility is Rome, not London, New York or LA. That is why they have dioceses, they run day to day matters. On theological matters Bishops known as the magisterium come together to make doctrinal decisions( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magisterium). So it has little to do with local matters unless they involve doctrine.
What has been forgotten in all this hysteria are the Catholic hospitals that treat the poor in the Inner City, or work with immigrants, provide a good Education to those of meager means, legal services to those who can’t afford it.  They were the ones who suffered when the lawyers finished raping the Church.
It is also worth noting that archeologists working in the catacombs under the Vatican identified and confirmed St Peter’s tomb (simply labeled brother of James). Paul’s remains are under an altar in a Church just outside the old city limits of Rome. 2000 years later the Churches they started are still going strong, despite controversy, war, barbarian invasions, repression, they are the longest continuously operating institution in the world, they must be doing something right.

John Paul stood by as the pedophile priest scandal grwe and grew, and did virtually nothing.  In fact, he was actively complicit in its cover-up.  If this man is a saint, then the bar has been lowered as far as it can go.

Peace.

gerard, as Johnny Mac would say, ‘You CAN’T be SERIOUS!!!’

Oh, I get it. You were using hyperbolic sarcasm, continuing the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ theme of today’s posts.

You idea is excellent only if the plane loaded with religious leaders crashed shortly after it’s first take-off. Removing US religion and it’s leaders from the scene would solve 90+% of the world’s problems.

What we need now from the Pope, seriously, is for him to call together a handful of the world’s most influential religious leaders concerned about the fate of man (and woman) kind.  Let them meet at the Vatican and iron out an Encyclicle with enough wheels to pedal from Rome to Washington and deliver their Words of Salvation and the Rebirth of Human Decency to the Masters of World Misrule in New York City and Washington, D.C. Then after that, borrow Air Force One and drop in on London, Paris, Rome, Moscow, Jerusalem, Beijing, Mecca and New Delhi for starters.

WHOOOEEEEEEE! A whole gaggle of ermine-robed, bejeweled, prada-slippered, self-crowned, incense-sniffing, hypocritical self-appointed ‘servants of ‘god’‘, all begowned males, who practice and support the pedophilic rape of male and female children placed in their care, and the care of their ‘priestly’ minions, as a regular practice of their ‘Mother Church’, while attempting to keep their sexual perversions secret…are going to gather and ponder the monumental question of whether they should hurry the appointment of one of their own as a ‘Saint’!
Better they should concern themselves with the futile task of attempting to reconcile themselves to the eternity in hell that surely awaits them, and their ‘Saints’. But only if their ‘god’ exists, of course.
How many of these pitiful caricatures of ‘holy men’, do you suppose, are cognizant enough to realize that child-raping might be a ‘sin’ in almost any ‘god’s’ universe, and therefore surreptitiously ‘pray’ that their ‘god’ does not exist, to spare themselves the infinity of white-hot coal-dancing, with flaming pitchforks jabbing their fat a**es, that lies in their future if their establishment’s figmental ‘god’ should turn out to be real?