JPII Beatification Gets Green-Light

By: Rocco Palmo
Whispers in the Loggia
January 12, 2011



(SVILUPPO: The miracle decree formally accepted by Pope Benedict on 14 January, John Paul II will be beatified on May 1st.) As expected, the decree for the beatification of Venerable John Paul II has been published as of Friday January 14, 2011.

In a development that promises to spark intense reactions across the ecclesial spectrum, Italian reports this morning declare that, nearly six years since his last hospitalization began, Pope John Paul II's path to beatification has cleared its final hurdle.

Under the headline, "The cardinals OK the miracle, Wojtyla will be beatified," the most reliable of vaticanisti -- Andrea Tornielli of Il Giornale -- revealed that the cardinal-members of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints voted yesterday to affirm the finding of the dicastery's medical board that no natural explanation could be found for the healing of a French nun from Parkinson's disease, the same condition which ravaged the Polish Pope in the final act of his monumental 27-year reign. (editor's NOTE: I personally would like to evaluate the Medical evidence that was submitted in support of the miraculous healing of the French nun. In addition to the reservations expressed below, I note that John Paul II was unable to cast out the demon(s) from the allegedly possessed woman whom he encountered while he still lived. In light of his many heterodox teachings and blatently non-Roman Catholic actions it is virtually impossible to believe that he could ever be raised to legitimate sainthood).

With the miracle approved, all that remains is for Pope Benedict to accept the conclusion -- something which would normally take place in a routine private audience with the prefect of the Congregation, Cardinal Angelo Amato, which could occur within days. Preparations would then begin in earnest for what will inevitably end up being the Vatican's biggest gathering since the late pontiff's 2005 funeral, which drew 5 million people to Rome; according to Tornielli, the formal beatification rites could take place in the fall, with 16 October -- the anniversary of John Paul's 1978 election (and, conveniently, a Sunday this year) -- cited as the most likely date.

Thanks in part to the waiving of the traditional "five-year rule" to open the cause on the part of the then newly-elected Benedict XVI, the process bringing the church's greatest saintmaker in history to the penultimate step to sainthood in his own right has reached the milestone with a speed matched by but one other figure: Mother Teresa of Calcutta -- of course, celebrated in life as a saint -- who was raised to the altars by John Paul six years after her 1997 death, but whose required miracle for canonization remains pending.

As other high-profile processes go, it took the cause of Padre Pio of Pietrelcina -- a figure whose devotion among Italians has been measured as surpassing that of Jesus Himself -- 32 years to reach his 2000 beatification; the founder of Opus Dei, now St Jose Maria Escriva, was beatified 17 years after his 1997 death. In earlier times, two exceedingly-popular, eventually-canonized figures of the first half of the 20th century, the Italian virgin-martyr Maria Goretti and the French Carmelite mystic Therese of Lisieux (the beloved "Little Flower") were respectively beatified 45 and 27 years after they died.

All that said, indications over the last month that the medical examination of the Wojtyla miracle had cleared the scrutiny of the sainthood office -- a probe that comes complete with the traditional "Devil's Advocate" -- have, in some quarters, seen a renewed focus on controversial aspects of John Paul's pontificate.

Albeit dwarfed by his enduring worldwide cult, exponents of a protest have focused on what the late Pope knew about matters ranging from the Vatican Bank's handling of the 1982 Banco Ambrosiano scandal to the sexual abuse crisis that erupted over the course of his three decades as the 264th Roman pontiff. In particular, the latter thread has drawn an outcry in light of John Paul's prominent favor for the late founder of the Legionaries of Christ, Mexican Fr Marcial Maciel Degollado, a serial abuser who was removed from ministry after an investigation opened by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in the months before John Paul's death. Under Benedict XVI, Maciel's extensive history of sexual and financial misconduct -- which included his fathering of at least one child and, in the Holy See's posthumous judgment, "at times constitute[d] real crimes" -- saw the Legion placed under an Apostolic Visitation and then given a papally-appointed overseer with broad powers, who recently ordered all traces of the disgraced founder to be purged from the community's public life.

While the miracle phase completes the beatification process, any overpowering concerns about John Paul's biography would have seen the cause halted at the point of the positio -- the extensive study of a candidate's life conducted by the postulator. B16's declaration of his predecessor's heroic virtue in December 2009 (alongside that of Pope Pius XII) signaled the current pontiff's acceptance of the report's conclusion that Karol Wojtyla had emitted the "odor of sanctity" in life, laying any questions to rest and allowing the process to continue on to the investigation of the reported cure.

One question that does remain open is the matter of selecting a feast day for the reported Blessed-in-waiting. As the 2 April anniversary of John Paul's death often falls within Holy Week or the Octave of Easter -- and, as such, would see the feast frequently wiped off the calendar -- it's more than likely that a different date would at least be considered, much as Blessed John XXIII is commemorated on 11 October (the opening-date of Vatican II) and Blessed John Henry Newman is now celebrated two days earlier, on the anniversary of his 1845 reception into the Catholic fold.

Even for a Pope, however, it's important to recall that -- at least, according to the classic ecclesial understanding of things -- beatification designates a figure for veneration solely in their local church, a devotion which is only supposed to extend to the wider communion on the blessed's elevation to sainthood.

Then again, having broken the rules as a matter of habit in life, perhaps John Paul's defying convention anew might just be the most fitting thing of all.

“Why do we need a new translation?”

Texas Catholic Herald, 12/21/10:
Hutton Gibson.com
Hutton Gibson's editorial comments are [bracketed].

The most common questions regarding the new translation of the Roman Missal are: “Why do we need a new translation?” and “What is wrong with what we have?”

We could easily forget both questions; we could bring back the Mass that we had for nineteen centuries, and needed no modification or correction, nor even translation. So we don’t need a translation. And the answer to the second question is too long to fit in these eight pages.

“The Council,” writes David Wood, “called for a vernacular translation as expediently as possible to allow the faithful to enter more fully and fruitfully into the mystery of God’s love and grace made present … through the liturgy.” This is why attendance has fallen off disastrously. But this, says Wood, was a translation of a paraphrase. Of course!

ICEL mandate? Let’s consult and select from Wikipedia.

Bishops from English-speaking countries in Rome for the Second Vatican Council set up the Commission in 1963 in view of intention to implement the Council’s authorization to use more extensively the vernacular language, instead of Latin, in the liturgy.

Ref.: (Vat. II, Liturgy: 36. 1. Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites).

2. But since the use of the mother tongue, whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended. This will apply in the first place to the readings and directives, and to some of the prayers and chants, according to the regulations on this matter to be laid down separately in subsequent chapters.

[This would seem to imply limitation!]

On 15 September 2003, it was formally established as a mixed commission of several bishops conferences in accordance with the Instruction Liturgiam autenticam [After forty years of paraphrase, it now has authority?]

Liturgical books that ICEL has translated include:

Liturgy of the Mass: Roman Missal as a whole, but also, before work on the whole of the Missal was completed, the Order of Mass and the Roman Calendar, the Lectionary for Mass, and supplementary publications such as the Simple Gradual, Eucharistic Prayers for Masses of Reconciliation and Eucharistic Prayers for Masses with Children.

Roman Ritual: the rites for each of the sacraments whose administration is not reserved for bishops, funerals, religious profession, etc.

Roman Pontifical: the rites of confirmation and ordination, blessing of a church and altar, consecration to a life of virginity, etc.

Liturgy of the Hours.

Ceremonial of Bishops.

Roman Martyrology(!).

The first translation of the Roman Missal that ICEL produced appeared in 1973, less than four years after the Latin original had appeared. It sought less a literal correspondence with the original as a dynamic equivalence and avoided technical terms. The result was criticized as unfaithful [Is that all?] to the original and as banal.

[Wikipedia omits that the new missal omitted the three obligatory parts of the Mass, and introduced the old heresies, Arianism and Apocatastasis.]

On 28 March 2001, the Holy See issued the Instruction Liturgiam autenticam, which included the requirement that, in translations of the liturgical texts from the official Latin originals, "the original text, insofar as possible, must be translated integrally and in the most exact manner, without omissions or additions in terms of their content, and without paraphrases or glosses. Any adaptation to the characteristics or the nature of the various vernacular languages is to be sober and discreet." In the following year, the third typical edition of the revised Roman Missal in Latin was released. These two texts made clear the need for a new official English translation of the Roman Missal, particularly because the previous one was at some points an adaptation rather than strictly a translation. … Accordingly, ICEL prepared a new English translation of the Roman Missal, the completed form of which received the approval of the Holy See in April 2010.

In most English-speaking countries, the national episcopal conference decided to put the new translation into use from the first Sunday of Advent (27 November) 2011.

[Please note that this is a new translation of the new invalid novus ordo missae of 1969 -- not of the Catholic Mass. Some day, after all validly ordained priests have died, Rome may return the real Mass.]

Wood: “Armed with several decades of [mis]translation experience and greater awareness of liturgical and Scriptural roots of the Missal texts and facing the [dire] need to make a new translation of the 2000 Missal, a new instruction … was issued in 2001 … which called for a different approach … ‘formal equivalence.’ While not being slavishly literal, each word and phrase in the original Latin is to be accounted for.” So they’ll miss the boat again!