More miracles for John Paul II

These are great. Santo Subito!

Wheelchair-boy ‘miraculously walks again’ at memorial visit to tomb of Pope John Paul II

By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 11:25 PM on 02nd April 2009

A child crippled by a kidney tumour was able to walk again after praying at the tomb of Pope John Paul II on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the late pontiff’s death, it was claimed last night.

The nine-year-old Polish boy was brought to St Peter’s Basilica on a pilgrimage to the grave of the Polish pope who died on April 2 2005.

Last night Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the former private secretary of Pope John Paul, said that after praying at the tomb in the crypt of the Rome basilica he ‘suddenly’ started walking again.

‘He was brought in a wheelchair because he wasn’t able to walk,’ the cardinal said. As soon as the boy emerged from the basilica, he told his parents: ‘’I want to walk.’ He got up and started walking, healthy,’ the prelate said.

He said the boy is from Gdansk, the Polish seaport known as the birthplace of the Solidarity movement which helped bring down decades of Communist rule in John Paul’s homeland in the late 1980s.

If investigations reveal that there are no scientific explanations for the child’s recovery, the healing may be put forward as the miracle needed to declare John Paul II ‘blessed’. A second miracle will be required to declare him a saint. [After beatification…]

...

Only a month after John Paul’s death in 2005, Benedict put him on the fast track for sainthood by waiving the usual five years before a person’s life and works can be examined. Vatican officials say the process is taking its course, and the required miracle has been identified for examination.

One possible miracle involves the curing of a French nun with Parkinson’s disease.

Cardinal Dziwisz said ‘there is always hope’ that John Paul II will be announced a saint before the fifth anniversary of his death. But in an interview with Polish TVN24 television, he said the process must go though all necessary stages ‘so there can be no doubt.‘ [Well… there must be a moral certitude, not "no doubt".]

The cardinal – who now heads John Paul’s old diocese of Krakow, Poland – indicated there was no shortage of potential cases of possible miracles to investigate.

The head of the Vatican’s saint-making office, Archbishop Angelo Amato, said the process already got a boost when Benedict waived the five-year waiting period.

In an interview with Vatican Radio, he said the process must actually be more rigorous and thorough for a pope like John Paul since he was so well-known.

‘Promptness doesn’t mean speed or superficiality; on the contrary this requires care and professionalism,’ Amato said.

The parliament in Poland, the pope’s homeland, observed a minute of silence yesterday to mark the anniversary. Masses and prayers were also being held across Poland.

==============

‘Miraculous’ recovery from ‘non-survivable’ gunshot wound could beatify Pope John Paul II

Cleveland, Ohio, Apr 4, 2009 / 01:55 pm (CNA).- A man who suffered a "non-survivable" execution-style gunshot to the head during a mugging in Cleveland has had a "miraculous" recovery possibly due to the intercession of Pope John Paul II. If the late pontiff is credited for the miracle, it would lead to his beatification. [This from the beginning reminds me of some of the amazing stories I read when I was doing the Studium at the Cong. for Causes of Saints. Amazing and inexplicable things. Amazing.]

Jory Aebly, 26, suffered the gunshot would five weeks ago. Doctors at the Metro Health Medical Center declared it to be a "non-survivable" injury, ABC’s Good Morning America reports.

Hospital chaplain Fr. Art Nedeker administered Aebly with the Sacrament of the Sick, asking Pope John Paul II to pray for Jory and to protect him. [This is an important element: There has to be a specific intention to pray for the intercession through that specific person. This usually requires the suggestion and prompting of someone who knows about the cause and then how to report it.]

Fr. Nedeker explained that the Pope had promised him [!] he would always pray for the patients at the hospital and blessed a dozen rosaries with special patients at the hospital.

The priest gave Aebly the last of the rosaries [This is sounding to me more and more to a serious cause for a miracle.] that had been blessed by the Pope, after which Aebly consistently improved.

He was released on Tuesday, two days before the fourth anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s death.

Dr. Robert Geertman, a neurosurgeon involved in Aebly’s treatment, told Good Morning America his patient’s survival was "one in a million."

"My jaw was on the floor after a day or two of seeing he is hanging on. …I’d say it’s pretty miraculous," he said at a press conference days after the shooting.

At the press conference announcing Aebly’s release, Fr. Snedeker said:

"I stand before you today and can say, to my mind, Jory is a miracle." [At the level of the Congregation all the medical records would be reviewed.]

Aebly himself credited his recovery to "the many prayers from family, friends and co-workers" and others.

His mother Deb Wolfram told the press conference she believes in "the power of prayer" and said she believed people’s prayers helped her son through his ordeal, Good Morning America says.

A Vatican official reported that the investigation into the alleged miracle could take time. [Of course!]

"We cannot predict a precise schedule," Monsignor Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Caucus of Saints told ANSA. "All stages, including the examination of the miracle, have to be conducted in a particularly thorough way."

Approval of the miracle could lead to Pope John Paul II’s beatification, leaving one more miracle before he can be canonized.

Here is what happens.

When people think there was a verifiable miracle, they start a cause, like a court case.

All the "proofs" must be gathered… documents and testimony gathered according to a procedure.

Once everything is gathered in the place where the alleged miracle occured, it is sent to Rome.

The Congregation verifies that the procedures were followed correctly. Then they look at the theological aspects of the claim: can it be demonstrated that the people prayed to X or asked for a miracle through X, etc. It has to be explicit and not just mixed in with "Jesus, Mary, Joseph and X, Y, Z all the saints and angels!" Often there is an image or relic or project to pray to X.

In the case of a cure (there are other kinds of miracles too!) the healing or change in condition must be sudden, complete and lasting. That must be demonstrated by proofs. The medical records are studied by a panel of doctors and other necessary experts. They look into the diagnosis and prognosis and then what happened in stark scientific terms. They determine if what happened can be explained by the science they know.

With a miracle, the Congregation has to look at the evidence and then determine that what happened. within moral certitude, through the intercession of X, the condition was grave/dire/serious and there was a sudden complete and lasting change that cannot be explained.

What I like about this case is that there was a priest who knew what was going on and there was an object associate with John Paul II and his own remark. The person’s prognoss was very bad and the healing was sudden and complete and seems to be lasting and they can’t explain it.


This is a great book...

JPII remembered & Orthodoxy

by Rod Dreher, Cruncy Con

Amy Welborn notes that four years ago today (April 2), John Paul II died. She quotes a First Things essay by Fr. Thomas D. Williams, on why JP2's faith that we were entering a "new springtime" could not be seen as shallow optimism, but something deeper. Excerpt:

So what did he discern? The first significant sign of spring does not involve twittering birds and pink buds. What we see first is slush and mud: The world in spring gets uglier before it gets prettier. That, after all, is why T.S. Eliot called April the cruelest month: Winter kept us warm, covering earth in forgetful snow.

In the slush and mud of his own day, John Paul II saw something emerging: a meltdown of formerly frozen ideologies and consolidated problems. People's disillusionment with the therapeutic promises of Freud, the voluntarism of Nietzsche and the utopianism of Marx may not lead to a sudden embrace of Christian faith, but it does prepare the way, just as the Prodigal Son's hunger brought him back to his father's house. We can witness an opening to and hunger for spiritual realities, located in a generalized dissatisfaction with what the world offers.

Please God, yes. As Walker Percy said, what else is there? It might be worth recalling a piece I wrote some years back, when I was a Catholic, defending John Paul's cultural vision against some extreme narrow-mindedness from a few knotheads of what is now my church. I still stand by this piece. For all my frustration with JP2 over his handling of the sex-abuse scandal, he was probably the foremost Christian prophet of our time. Excerpt:


Unlike his Orthodox counterparts, this pontiff lives in the real world. He understands that if Christianity is to survive, much less thrive, in the third millennium, believers cannot afford quarrels over past grievances. There are deep theological divisions between East and West, and any ecumenism that etends otherwise is false. But isn't working more closely to combat the functional nihilism that accompanies the spread of consumerist values a more pressing concern than fussing over the fate of the Filioque clause? The pope knows that the key question in the era of post modernism and globalization is not what brand of Christianity the world will follow; it is whether the world will follow Christianity at all.

It is said that the Greek Orthodox regard John Paul as a symbol of the Westernization they despise. Who are they kidding? The pontiff who was the scourge of the militant atheist ideology that made martyrs of millions of Orthodox believers is the same man who is the fiercest enemy of the secular Western juggernaut. Have the Orthodox been paying attention for the past two decades? Do they read his stuff? Maybe not. The late Alexander Schmemann, the eminent Russian Orthodox theologian, lamented his faith's "complete indifference to the world," claiming that official Orthodoxy lived in a "heavy, static, petrified" world of "illusion." Orthodox consciousness "did not notice the fall of Byzantium, Peter the Great's reforms, the Revolution; it did not notice the revolution of the mind, of science, of lifestyles, forms of life," Schmemann wrote in his private journal. "In brief, it did not notice history." John Paul does.

Well, I don't completely stand by that piece. I would have phrased things somewhat differently were I to write it today; I understand now why the filioque clause is a much bigger deal than I knew then. But I still believe basically as I did then: that we cannot and should not say the theological differences between us are not serious, but now is not the time to keep a practical and instrumental unity around certain causes. The Evangelicals and Catholics Together movement isn't about converting Evangelicals to Catholicism, or vice versa. It's about bringing traditionalist members of the two great Christian traditions together to work together on issues of mutual concern. Boy, would I ever love to see Orthodox and Catholics Together. Maybe somebody should start that. Metropolitan Jonah is in Dallas this weekend. If I have the chance to speak with him, I'll suggest it. Hey, you never know. Springtime is bustin' out all over.

Benedict XVI on John Paul II and Vatican II

"A Qualified Interpreter and Coherent Witness"

VATICAN CITY, NOV. 14, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is the address Benedict XVI sent Oct. 28 to the international congress on the theme "The Second Vatican Council in the Pontificate of John Paul II." The event was sponsored by the St. Bonaventure Theological Faculty and the Institute for Documentation and Study of the Pontificate of John Paul II.

* * *

To the Most Reverend Father Marco Tasca
Minister General of the Friars Minor Conventual and Grand Chancellor
of The Pontifical Theological Faculty of St Bonaventure Seraphicum

I learned with joy that the Pontifical Theological Faculty, together with the Institute for Documentation and Study of the Pontificate of John Paul II, has chosen to promote an International Congress on the theme "The Second Vatican Council in the Pontificate of John Paul II". With this initiative the Theological Faculty's intention among other things, is to develop a deeper reflection on the current situation of the Church in view of the celebration of the eighth centenary of the Rule that St Francis presented to Pope Innocent III in 1209, for which he received verbal approval. With this important scientific event the Institute for Documentation and Study proposes to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the election of Karol Wojtyla to the See of Peter with a view to making better known the great Pontiff's teaching and love for the Church in the historical and theological context of the Council which was so dear to his heart.

Dear Minister General, as I address my cordial greeting to you, I ask you to express to your Conventual Confreres, the Professors of the Athenaeum, the Director and Members of the Institute and all who are taking part in the Congress the sentiments of fatherly affection that I feel for each one of them.

I can only rejoice at the choice of a theme that unites two topics of quite special interest to me: on the one hand, the Second Vatican Council, in which I had the honour of taking part as an expert and on the other, the figure of my beloved Predecessor John Paul II who made a significant personal contribution to that Council as a Council Father and subsequently, by God's will, became its first executor during the years of his Pontificate. In this context it seems only right also to recall that the Council sprang from the great heart of Pope John XXIII, the 50th anniversary of whose election to the Chair of Peter we are commemorating today, 28 October. I said that the Council sprang from John XXIII's heart, yet it would be more accurate to say that ultimately, like all the great events in the Church's history, it came from the Heart of God, from his saving will: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (Jn 3: 16). To make divine salvation accessible to contemporary man was Pope John XXIII's main reason for convoking the Council, and the Fathers worked with this in mind. For this very reason, "As the years have passed, the Conciliar Documents" as I recalled on 20 April 2005, the day after my election to the Pontificate, "have lost none of their timeliness; indeed, their teachings are proving particularly relevant to the new situation of the Church and the current globalized society" (Message to Cardinals, 20 April 2005).

In practically all his documents, and especially in his decisions and his behaviour as Pontiff, John Paul II accepted the fundamental petitions of the Second Vatican Council, thus becoming a qualified interpreter and coherent witness of it. His constant concern was to make known to all the advantages that could stem from acceptance of the Conciliar vision, not only for the good of the Church but also for that of civil society itself and of the people working in it. "We have contracted a debt to the Holy Spirit", he said in his Reflection prior to the Angelus on 6 October 1985, referring to the extraordinary session of the Synod of Bishops which was about to be celebrated precisely in order to reflect on the Church's response during the 20 years that had passed since the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council. "We have contracted a debt to the Spirit of Christ.... This, in fact, is the Spirit who speaks to the Churches (cf. Rv 2: 7); during the Council and by means of it, his word has become particularly expressive and decisive for the Church" (ore, 14 October 1985, p. 12).

We are all truly indebted to him for this extraordinary ecclesial event. The multiple doctrinal legacy that we find in its Dogmatic Constitutions, Declarations and Decrees still stimulates us to deepen our knowledge of the Word of God in order to apply it to the Church in the present day, keeping clearly in mind the many needs of the men and women of the contemporary world who are extremely in need of knowing and experiencing the light of Christian hope. The Synod of Bishops that has just ended placed these needs at the centre of its own rich and fruitful reflections, reaffirming the hope expressed in the past by the Constitution Dei Verbum: "So may it come that, by the reading and study of the sacred books, "the Word of God may speed on and triumph' (2 Thes 3: 1), and the treasure of the Revelation entrusted to the Church may more and more fill the hearts of men" (n. 26), bringing them the salvation of God and with it authentic happiness.

This is a commitment that I am pleased to entrust in particular to you, dear Professors of the Pontifical Theological Faculty, who venerate the Seraphic Doctor St Bonaventure as its heavenly Patron. In the wealth of his thought, St Bonaventure can offer interpretative keys which are still up-to-date and with which you may approach the Conciliar Documents to seek in them satisfactory answers to the many questions of our time. The anxiety for humanity's salvation which motivated the Council Fathers, guiding their commitment in the search for solutions to the numerous problems of the day was equally alive in St Bonaventure's heart as he faced the hopes and anguish of the people of his own time. On the other hand, since the basic questions that man carries in his heart do not change with the changing of times, the answers the Seraphic Doctor attained have remained substantially applicable also in our day. In particular, the Itinerarium mentis in Deum that St Bonaventure composed in 1259 has remained valid. Although it is a guide to the heights of mystical theology, this precious little book also speaks to all Christians of what is essential in their lives. The ultimate goal of all our activities must be communion with the living God. Thus, for the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council too, the ultimate aim of all the individual aspects of the Church's renewal was to lead the faithful to the living God revealed in Jesus Christ.

I am certain that the Pontifical Faculty of St Bonaventure and the Institute for Documentation and Study on the Pontificate of John Paul II will continue to develop their reflection on the Conciliar texts, also availing themselves of the insights shared during this Congress. I assure you in this regard of the support of my prayers and, as a pledge of heavenly illumination for work that will yield abundant fruit, I impart the Apostolic Blessing to you, Most Reverend Minister General, to the Relators of the Congress and to all the participants, as well as to the John Paul II Foundation which generously contributed to it.

From the Vatican, 28 October 2008

BENEDICTVS PP. XVI

Weigel: There Is No Match for Theology of Body

Contrasts It With View of "Sex as Sport"

By Robert F. Conkling
BALTIMORE, Maryland, OCT. 20, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The teachings of John Paul II's theology of the body offer a healing vision of human sexuality that the dominant culture simply can't match, says Catholic thinker and author George Weigel.

Weigel said this during the opening keynote address at the Catholic Medical Association's 77th Annual Education Conference on the applications of Pope John Paul II's theology of the body to the practice of medicine.

Some 306 physicians and 18 medical students gathered Oct. 9-12 in Baltimore, Maryland, to reflect on "Theology of the Body: Modern Challenges to Health, Conscience, and Human Dignity."

The annual conference, held under the patronage of wife, mother and Catholic physician St. Gianna Beretta Molla, opened with a Mass presided over by Cardinal William Keeler, the retired archbishop of Baltimore. Archbishop Edwin O’Brien, who currently leads the see of Baltimore, presided over the closing Mass.

Weigel, author of Pope John Paul II's biography "Witness to Hope," said the 21st century is characterized by the question of being or nothingness: “We are witnessing a new Gnosticism, where the belief exists that the material world, including the human body, is utterly malleable, and changeable.”

He said that this new Gnosticism affirms that “anything that can be changed should be changed," and that this trend is especially noticeable in the realm of human sexuality.

When nothing in the realm of human sexuality is taken as a given, this leads to a “dictatorship of relativism,” the author said, quoting Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's address to the conclave that led to his election as Benedict XVI.

Truth collision

Whenever "my truth and your truth collide,” stated Weigel, these irreconcilable truths are being resolved through the coercive power of the state.

He contrasted this view of “sexuality turned contact sport” to the teaching of John Paul II in his theology of the body, which the late Pope was already working on during the conclaves that eventually resulted in his election to the papacy.

The Christian response to this new Gnosticism is found in the “theology of the body,” stated Weigel, as it offers an expanded insight into the biblical story found in the Book of Genesis.

He explained that John Paul II looked back to the beginning when God brought into being the first man, then the first woman. John Paul II discovered that before original sin, there was the original solitude of the first man (Adam), the original unity of the man with the woman (Eve), and both with God, and the original nakedness without shame.

Together they discovered God’s love through a free gift of self, and openness to the gift of fertility, the author explained. John Paul II considers that the original unity of Adam with Eve -- and both with God -- was ruptured when Adam and Eve used each other rather than freely giving themselves to each other.

The giving of themselves in holy marriage, fully open to each other's body, is an icon of the love of God, Weigel affirmed.

According to the author, this new teaching that is now available to the entire Catholic Church, from the original writings of John Paul II to publications by other authors, offers the dominant culture that sees sex as sport, a healing vision unmatched by anything the culture itself has to offer.

Love in Truth

A preview of Pope Benedict's next (3rd) Encyclical letter: Caritas in Veritate (Love in Truth). It looks like its gonna be pretty solid- again. Thank God for Benedict XVI!!!

Amazon Book Description

Pope Benedict's third encyclical, Love in Truth("Caritas in Veritate"), applies the themes of his first two encyclicals --love and hope (God is Love, Saved in Hope) -- to the world's major social issues. Drawing on moral truths open in principle to everyone (the natural law) as well as on the teaching of the gospel (revelation), Pope Benedict addresses Catholics and non-Catholics alike, challenging us all to recognize and then to confront the social evils of our day.

The first part of the encyclical examines the dynamic teaching of Benedict's predecessors, Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II. Both men contributed greatly to the body of doctrine known as "Catholic social teaching". Both men challenged the simplistic division of political perspectives into "conservative" and "liberal", and "right" and "left". Both men were convinced that the natural moral law and the teaching of the Gospel were indispensable for a world in desperate search of hope and meaning.

In part two, Benedict surveys the social issues that confront the human race today--assaults on the dignity of the human person such as the attack on human life, poverty, issues of war and peace, terrorism, globalization, and environmental concerns. Benedict provides sound moral principles to address these social and economic problems, and to promote a culture of life and genuine peace.

Far from being a partisan political tract, Love in Truth avoids the posturing that dominates so much political discourse, yet without compromising the truth or love. In this outstanding work, Pope Benedict shows us why so many observers regard him as the world's leading moral voice, and one of the most insightful and profound social/political thinkers of our day.

Rod Dreher: Solzhenitsyn and Wojtyla, tragic prophets

A nice piece by Rod Dreher, the Crunchy Con, on JPII & the Russian prophet.
I think Dreher's a little too gloomy. The messages of prophets take many years to sink in, and I dare say that the people who needed to listen to the two men have: Orthodox and Catholics.

12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, August 10, 2008

Rod Dreher is a Dallas Morning News editorial columnist. His e-mail address is rdreher@dallasnews.com.

Two men stood astride the 20th century as prophets without peer: Pope John Paul II and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Their experience and testimony contained and transcended the terrible truths of the bloodiest epoch in human history. And they died tragically – tragic, in the Greek sense: They were admired and even beloved. But largely ignored.

Totalitarianism, the new form of government made possible by the mass ideology, bureaucratic forms and advanced technology, forged the consciences of these men, Slavic Christians both. Karol Wojtyla lived under the Nazis in Poland; Alexander Solzhenitsyn fought them with the Red Army. As a priest, Mr. Wojtyla suffered under the communist puppet government the Soviets installed in Warsaw. The Soviet government sentenced Mr. Solzhenitsyn to labor camp for vaguely criticizing Stalin in a letter.

In the 1970s, both emerged as deadly threats to the Soviet empire. Moscow expelled Mr. Solzhenitsyn, a Nobel laureate who became the world's most famous dissident. In 1974, upon leaving Russia for the West, he issued an impassioned plea for his countrymen to "live not by lies!"

Individuals who choose to live in truth, no matter its cost, could bring down the rotting, stinking corpse of communism.

Four years later, providence gave the Roman Catholic Church something it had never seen, a Polish pope. The new pontiff, who took the name John Paul, returned to his homeland triumphally and became the focus of spiritual resistance to communism. How did he do it? By demolishing official lies with simple truths, spoken plainly.

A year later, Solidarity was born. Eleven years later, the Soviet empire was dead.

The heroic John Paul and Alexander Solzhenitsyn, slayers of the communist dragon – that's how we like to remember them. But neither fits into the West's triumphalist liberal democratic vision.

In fact, as much as they loathed the atheistic, materialistic barbarism of the East, both warned in uncompromising terms of the spiritual and moral decay at the heart of the liberal capitalist democracies.

In his most famous address in exile, Mr. Solzhenitsyn spoke at Harvard's 1978 graduation, delivering an apocalyptic vision of Western civilization as spiritually decrepit, given over to pleasure and material gain instead of virtue and higher values – and no model for post-communist Russia to follow.

Many liberals who had admired the dissident novelist thenceforth considered him a reactionary crank. Conservatives who championed his anti-communism struggled with the Russian Orthodox believer's harsh criticism of capitalist democracy.

It was the same with John Paul. Though far more accepting of modernity, the pontiff chastised the West not to think itself so smug in its victory over Marxism. In his 1995 encyclical The Gospel of Life, the pope condemned the West's "culture of death," in which technology, freedom and moral relativism combined to pose dire threats to human life and dignity.

Read the rest here.