JP2 Canonized? Hardly Playing Devil’s Advocate

The following article (minimally edited) was submitted last June to The New Oxford Review, in reply to an article which NOR deigned to print.

by Steven Speray
HuttonGibson.com

John Paul II mostly likely will be canonized by Benedict XVI. And why not? Tom Bethell’s article “Playing Devil’s Advocate” gives possible reasons why this canonization should perhaps be put on hold, but hardly plays devil’s advocate as to why this process should never take place. In the end, Bethell dismisses his entire advocate thesis with, “Obviously, John Paul was a man of personal holiness” and “should proceed without haste in formally discerning his sanctity.”

Bethell states, “only the Church can declare someone a saint,” but great Catholic saints were recognized by the faithful though never canonized by the Church. St. Patrick is a prime example!

John Paul II, like St. Patrick, is recognized by many as a saint. But is John Paul II really, like Patrick, a great Catholic leader filled with personal holiness?

To question John Paul’s personal holiness among Vatican 2 “Catholics” is like asking Muslims whether Mohammed was a true prophet. It cannot be done without greatly upsetting their devoted followers.

However, truth doesn’t man-please and truth is what matters.
What makes John Paul II a man of holiness or unholiness?

Like St. Patrick, John Paul II seemed a deeply prayerful man. But what price orthodoxy? Who canonizes heretics but subsequent heretics?

Was John Paul orthodox in his teaching? Did he knowingly believe and teach any kind of heresy by way of word or action that would be contrary to the faith, keeping men in or leading men into heresy and apostasy?

In Ireland, St. Patrick wasted no time condemning the Druid religion as Devil-worship. He went about the countryside declaring the Gospel while denouncing druid paganism. He welcomed no druids to pray to their gods for peace. He went not inside their pagan temples nor prayed with them, and he certainly never received as a bishop the blessings from leaders of this pagan religion. He actually broke their laws in public and prayed incessantly that his life be spared from death by the druid hand.

St. Patrick was concerned of the Druid spells and poisons precisely because he knew the evils of false religion with its black laws of heathenism, false laws of heresy, and the deceits of idolatry.

The result of Patrick’s witness to Christ in Ireland was the complete conversion of the entire country to Catholicism which, in turn, saved civilization as the Scriptures (as well as many other great works) were preserved by his monks.

How does this contrast with John Paul II?

In 1985, John Paul II prayed “with” African Animists known as “witch doctors.” (L’Osservatore Romano, August 26, 1985, p. 9.)

On February 5, 1986, in the city of Chennai (Madras for the Zoroastrians) India, John Paul II, alongside Dr. Meher Master Moos, actively participated in a Zoroastrian ceremony by lighting a candle while wearing a pagan stole with the symbols of the pagan religion.

The following year, “During his visit to Phoenix in 1987, John Paul II received a ritual ‘blessing’ from the Pima Indian shaman Emmet White using an eagle’s feather. John Paul said that the act had ‘enriched the Church.’”

In 1986 and 2002, John Paul II invited all the world’s religious leaders to Assisi, Italy to pray and offer sacrifices to each his own god for world peace. Leaders from Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Tenrikyo, Shintoism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, and Voodoo attended with prayers, and even with animal sacrifices from the Voodooists, all in the name of peace.

John Paul II also promoted Islamic culture when he stated in his message to “Grand Sheikh Mohammed,” Feb. 24, 2000: “Islam is a religion. Christianity is a religion. Islam has become a culture. Christianity has become also a culture… I thank your university, the biggest center of Islamic culture. I thank those who are developing Islamic culture…” (L’Osservatore Romano, March 1, 2000, p. 5.)

This is a culture that blasphemes the Most Holy Trinity while misleading literally a billion people away from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Later, John Paul II, on March 21, 2000, prayed: “May Saint John the Baptist protect Islam and all the people of Jordan…” (L’ Osservatore Romano, March 29, 2000, p. 2.)

In his Feb. 4, 1993, address to the Voodoo representative of Benin at Cononou, John Paul II actually promoted the African religion of Voodooism implying that man may be saved in Voodoo.

Voodoo priests saw John Paul’s “Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Africa” as an endorsement of their religion. In a paper by N. Adu Kwabena-Essem entitled “Pope’s Apology to Africans,” the Voodooist said, “African religions had their biggest boost two years ago when Pope John Paul II, on a visit to Benin, apologized for centuries of ridiculing African cultural beliefs by the Western world. Benin is the home of Voodoo…The crucial question is whether the Pope’s ‘penance’ will force others to start respecting African cultures, in particular the belief in African religions.”

In 1993, the L’Osservatore Romano estimated the adherents of Voodoo in Benin to comprise a mere 25 percent of its population and dying. What was the result of John Paul’s visit?

Voodoo grew a staggering 60 percent in that same country, according to a January 1996 Associated Press report. Now, Benin celebrates the rebirth of voodoo as an officially recognized religion.

Many more examples of John Paul II mixing religions and taking part in non-Christian religious services, not to mention his recognizing Protestant sects as holy, righteous, and worthy of papal blessings, could be given but these suffice.

Unlike St. Patrick, John Paul knowingly and freely taught, by way of word and action, complete and total apostasy from true Catholicism.

Unlike St. Patrick who converted millions to the true Catholic Faith, John Paul kept and led millions in or into the darkness of false religion including his own subversion of Christianity, as Our Lady of Good Success, La Salette, and Fatima warned, and he did so in the name of Catholicism as one dedicated to Our Lady. His totus tuus was a cover, as was the papal throne which he obviously never truly possessed.

Benedict XVI most likely will canonize John Paul II; why should he not?
John Paul II is the saint of the new religion of Rome masquerading as Catholicism.