Pope John Paul II died five years ago on April 2.
Because April 2, falls on Good Friday this year, Pope Benedict commemorated the death of John Paul today.
VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI is commemorating the fifth anniversary of John Paul II with a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.
Many pilgrims from Poland, the late pontiff's homeland, joined Benedict in prayer Monday evening.
...Immediately after John Paul's death, faithful were clamoring for his sainthood. But this anniversary comes amid some doubts that a miracle needed for his saint-making will stand up to scrutiny. And there have been questions about John Paul's record in combatting pedophile priests.
How nice of the Associated Press to report on the fifth anniversary of John Paul's death by taking swipes at him!
About those roadblocks to sainthood--
AP contradicts its own reporting.
Immediately after John Paul's death, faithful were clamoring for his sainthood. But this anniversary comes amid some doubts that a miracle needed for his saint-making will stand up to scrutiny. And there have been questions about John Paul's record in combatting pedophile priests.
As far as the Church examining an alleged miracle, one that doesn't meet scrutiny isn't a problem. There have been several claims of John Paul's intervention made. ONE needs to be verified and that verification doesn't come lightly.
Also, the question of John Paul's role in the sex abuse scandal is not standing in his way of becoming a saint.
An AP article by Nicole Winfield begins:
The Vatican this week marks the fifth anniversary of Pope John Paul II's death amid some doubts that the miracle needed for his saint-making cause will stand up to scrutiny and questions about his record combatting pedophile priests.
Well into her article, Winfield writes:
[N]ew questions have been raised about John Paul's record in combatting pedophile priests. John Paul presided over the church when the sex abuse scandal exploded in the United States in 2002 and the Vatican was swamped with complaints and lawsuits under his leadership. Yet during most of his 26-year papacy, individual dioceses and not the Vatican took sole responsibility for investigating misbehavior.
But John Paul himself had long championed the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, the conservative order that fell into scandal after it revealed that its founder had fathered a child and had molested seminarians.
The Vatican began investigating allegations against the Rev. Marcial Maciel of Mexico in the 1950s, but it wasn't until 2006, a year into Benedict's pontificate, that the Vatican instructed Maciel to lead a "reserved life of prayer and penance" in response to the abuse allegations — effectively removing him from power.
Subsequently, Benedict ordered a full-on investigation of the order since its entire existence was so closely intertwined with that of its discredited founder.
[The emeritus head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Jose] Saraiva Martins said historians who studied the pope's life as part of the sainthood process didn't find anything problematic in John Paul's handling of abuse scandals.
"According to them there was nothing that was a true obstacle to his cause of beatification," he said.
The OK from historians led to Benedict's decree last December that John Paul had led a virtuous life. As a result, all that's needed for him to be beatified is for the miracle to be confirmed.
Why would Winfield begin her article with the suggestion that the sainthood of John Paul was in doubt because of the sex abuse scandal in the Church?
And why would that bogus claim be repeated in another AP article 13 or 14 hours later?
Catholic bashing is a favorite sport of the lib media.
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