Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 5:25pm

PopeWatch: Paul VI

 

 

 

Well, Pope Paul VI will be the latest modern Pope to be canonized on October 14.  Being proclaimed a Saint is becoming a perk of the job apparently, in lieu of a gold watch.  If Pope Francis were really concerned with clericalism, he would have to look no farther than this ominous trend.   Prior to Saint Pope Pius X, the last Pope to be canonized was Pius V, who was canonized in 1712 almost a century and a half after his death.  Oh well, we live in a time of cheap grace and PopeWatch has no doubt that the canonization machine set up for contemporary popes is worth as much as the cheap grace.  If Paul VI can be a Saint, perhaps there is hope for all of us who are mediocre or worse at our jobs, and allow chaos to reign because of our weakness.

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Clinton
Clinton
Wednesday, October 10, AD 2018 5:44am

Interesting that over the last century the Church has been helmed
by more saints than She has been since Her earliest days, and yet
by any reasonable metric, She’s in terrible demographic condition.

Quotermeister
Quotermeister
Thursday, October 11, AD 2018 7:38pm

‘The encyclicals of Lambertini are models of precise thought and clearly identified purpose, reflecting his Thomistic formation. The bull Magnae nobis admirationis set the standard for canonical treatment of marriages between Catholics and Protestants, and his laws for canonization lasted right into the twentieth century. Because of their gravity, he was careful that canonizations not be rushed, but “If anyone dared to assert that the Pontiff had erred in this or that canonization, we shall say that he is, if not a heretic, at least temerarious, a giver of scandal to the whole Church, an insulter of the saints, a favourer of those heretics who deny the Church’s authority in canonizing saints, savouring of heresy by giving unbelievers an occasion to mock the faithful, the assertor of an erroneous opinion and liable to very grave penalties.” He instinctively would have been cautious about canonizing popes in rapid succession “subito” lest the practice become like the “apotheosis” of Roman emperors, which was a hint of decay in the Imperial dynasties. That flexibility of the pantheon had made sober Roman citizens cynical, like Vespasian himself: Vae, puto deus fio! (“Woe is me, I think I am becoming a god!”)’

— Fr. George W. Rutler — “A Faithful Pope of the Enlightenment”
https://www.crisismagazine.com/2018/pope-of-the-enlightenment

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