I walk through the valley of the shadow of death

Always look on the bright side of life.

Since presumably the Church has proof of the saint-ability of the two popes, it also presumably has proof of their complete innocence in all those rapes.

@3, yes, but after that in the Old Testament:

Numbers 21
8The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.”
9So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.

BTW it was The Lord who sent the biting serpents in the first place, and the graven image of the brazen serpent that The Lord commanded was Nehushtan.

Read your scripture before you cast stones, cacafuego.

I'm sorry. I seem to have such a loathing for the Catholic church - even the supposedly good guys like that goon running for Pope in New York. They act so entitled. So enlightened. So morally superior. And now they are making a saint out of that old crank JP II. John XXIII? Well, he did some good, I guess. It is my sincerest hope that one day, people, most people, won't give the tiniest little shit what Rome has to say about anything.

Maybe he can be the patron saint of pedophiles. He's already the patron saint of World Youth Day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patron_sain…

What a melodramatic way to go. It's like something out of a John Waters movie.

As far as "idols" are concerned, my sister-in-law, who went from Catholic to "unaffiliated Baptist" (which really is going from the frying pan to the fire) regularly berates her poor concentration camp surviving Polish grandmother for the "idol" she "prays to" - a statue of the Virgin Mary that is the only thing her family was able to take from the house when the Germans came in the middle of the night and said they had to scram in 20 minutes. (Since they weren't Jews, they only had to do hard labor with no food). Her family hid that thing the entire time they were in the camp, and she brought it with her when she came to the US.

Obviously It means a lot to her, and if she wants to "pray to it" I think she's entitled. Mr. Vel-DuRay and I are going to make sure it gets tucked in her coffin with her when she goes to her reward, instead of ending up in the garbage, and we're going to make sure she gets a Catholic burial.

NEWS: Execution Device Kills Person

Please have some respect for the Catholic voodoo, superstitions & fairy tales! ...bring on the swinging incense ball, with the Archbishop & his entourage clad in their finest dresses & party hats! Praise the Pope and all who contribute to this bizarre criminal empire!

Why pontificate over an accident?

Catalina @9, I was thinking more Fellini.

Mac @10, zing!

I bet the catholic priests that didn't go to jail think he worked some miracles.

@12: Not bad, but not the best entry in the thread. You definitely get points for trying, though.

Wait. Doesn't the Church claim to be God's etc. here on Earth? You'd think they might pay attention when He tries to send a message not to canonize someone. They wouldn't listen to His voice, so He tipped over their monument to get their attention.

They're going to be in so much trouble if they go ahead with this. Unless... Unless... they don't really believe in God and this is all a big pantomime to keep the rubes in the pews and the money filling the baskets?

@16, religious "logic" doesn't work like that. When something bad happens, gawd is testing you. When something good happens, gawd is rewarding you. Heads I win, tails you lose.

@6, what in hell does that have to do with anything? And read the proper scripture, which isn't the "Old Testament", it's the Torah. Jesus. So to speak.

God wanted another angel. Miracle achieved!

Sainthood ain't what it used to be.

JPII was not perfect but he did leave the church better than he found it.

@20: Damn right. Used to be that you'd just become a saint for having a critical mass of people venerate you. That's how pretty much all the pre-Nicene saints came into being, and even quite a few after that as well. Hell, St. Brigid was a goddess that the Irish refused to stop worshiping, so they just converted her into a saint.

Honestly, I wish there were a waiting period for canonizing someone. I have no problem with beatifying someone soon after their death, but canonization should wait at least 100 years after the person's death before they can be a saint. I'm pretty sure John XXIII will still be holy enough in the next century to get canonized. I'm not so sure about JPII.

@23--There IS a waiting period for canonization, although it's no 100 years. There's a five-year wait for the first part--to be Venerable, or on the official road to canonization. (The miracles presumably happen as quickly as they need to.) Pope Benedict waived even the five-year wait for JPII, because Bene was not well-received and he needed to score a few points from JPII fans.

@10, FTW. I enjoyed that.