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Mon 17 May, 2004 08:35 am
Sorry, but I don't understand the saintliness of a woman leaving her four children motherless in the name of religion. ---BBB
Pope makes saint of woman who died after refusing abortion
By Nicole Winfield in Vatican City
17 May 2004
Pope John Paul II named six new saints yesterday, including a woman who became a symbol for opponents of abortion because she refused to end her pregnancy despite warnings that it could kill her.
The Vatican has long championed the case of Gianna Beretta Molla, an Italian pediatrician who died in 1962 at the age of 39 - a week after giving birth to her fourth child. Doctors had told her it was dangerous to proceed with the pregnancy because she had a tumour in her uterus, but she insisted on carrying the baby to term. In proclaiming her a saint, John Paul praised her "extreme sacrifice" and her simple but profound message.
John Paul also praised the examples of the five others canonised, two Italian priests, Luigi Orione and Hannibal Maria di Francia, and a Spanish monk, Josep Manyanet y Vives, who founded religious orders, a Lebanese Maronite priest, Naamatallah Kassab Hardini, and a wealthy Italian widow, Paola Elisabetta Cerioli, who opened her homes to abandoned children.
John Paul, who will be 84 tomorrow, read his homily himself and appeared in good form as he declared the saints to a crowd of thousands in St Peter's Square.
Among the well-wishers was the Lebanese President, Emile Lahoud, himself a Maronite Catholic who was in Rome to honour Hardini. The priestis credited with healing blind and lame people in the 19th century and is the third Maronite to attain sainthood.
The Pope has made creating new role models one of the hallmarks of his papacy. He has now proclaimed 482 saints in his 25-year pontificate, more than all his predecessors over the past 500 years combined.
In approving the new saints, John Paul confirmed miracles were attributed to their intercession. In Beretta Molla's case, the Vatican says that one of the miracles needed for her to be beatified concerned a Brazilian woman who recovered in 1977 after her fourth pregnancy.
Then on the other hand, when you think of all the parents of the world who have selflessly risked everything for the benefit of others (soldiers, firemen, policemen, physicians dealing with deadly diseases etc.), perhaps it is understandable that this woman was not willing to sacrifice a child in order to give herself a better chance to live.
That would be a really tough choice for those who do believe they are carrying a human life.
Not only Catholics but I think most who believe an unborn child is a human life would have problem killing that child. It is not so much any religious dogma as a deep seated reverence for life.
As for the sainthood thing, I don't know. I always thought there was supposed to be a miracle associated with sainthood and the one cited in this case seems to be a stretch. But then, in my faith, you don't have to die to be a saint.
Pro life advocates do see an unborn child as a human life who at some point, even within the womb, is capable of feeling, experiencing, and, for all we know, thinking. Therefore, to these people, it is morally wrong to knowingly damage the child with alcohol, certain drugs, improper diet, etc. It would follow that they would certainly see it as morally wrong, even murder, to intentionally take the life of that child.
I would not presume to judge a woman who chose to live rather than die with her unborn child, especially when there are other children to consider. I would not presume to judge a woman who made the choice to live when the choice had to be her life or that of her unborn child. At the same time I will not presume to judge a woman who chooses the life of her child over her own.
Foxfyre wrote: Pro life advocates do see an unborn child as a human life who at some point, even within the womb, is capable of feeling, experiencing, and, for all we know, thinking. Therefore, to these people, it is morally wrong to knowingly damage the child with alcohol, certain drugs, improper diet, etc. It would follow that they would certainly see it as morally wrong, even murder, to intentionally take the life of that child.
that's of course their right. but that does not makes them saints. or, on the other hand, Pope should make thousands of saints every year (for some other reasons, not just that one)
Well I can't argue with that logic either. Presumably there was some miraculous association with the woman in this incident; but again, without knowing all the details, it appears to be something of a stretch to arrive at that conclusion.
IMO the current popes has a case of saintitis
do they still have Advocatus Diaboli in Catholic church? You know, that guy that had to find all possible reasons that someone DOES NOT become saint?
They either fired poor guy or he is in long vacation....
But, honestly, I think current Pope is good guy. You can't expect him to reject centuries of tradition and dance happily with homosexuals, while giving them his blessings.
I am pretty afraid we could think about him with only dearest memories when new one comes.
I agree My. I'm not Catholic and therefore don't look to him as my spiritual leader, but Pope JohnPaul has been consistent and grounded in conviction and history will be kind to him as one of the good popes.
The message of Pope Woytila is that we have contemporary saints. Most of his canonizations have been of people who lived in the XXth Century.
When I was in grade school, in the early 60s, the newest saint, Maria Goretti (a 12 year girl who resisted rape and was stabbed to death) had been canonized over a decade before.
Now the world has several new saints per year.
Before Woytila, Mexico had only one saint. Now it has 28.
25 of them were "Martyrs of the Religious Persecution". This means that they were killed by the government during the War of the Cristeros; a mini civil war in Central Mexico during the 1920s, in which militant Catholics opposed "Socialist" education, land reform and the expulsion of foreign born priests with a variety of tactics: from refusing to pay taxes to cutting the ears and noses of the rural teachers to open armed rebellion.
One Cristeros fanatic killed President Elect Obregón in 1928, and one of the alleged intellectual assasins was beatified by John Paul II.
Doglover,
The last thing I would say about Woytila is that he has a case of idiocy.
He is a successful political Pope. Successful in his drive against Communism in Eastern Europe. Successful in his ability for keeping distance with the neoliberalist economic trends. Successful in his open defense of some basic human rights. Successful in his ability to keep the church together.
His papacy has also been quite mediatic: a survival necessity this times.
I don't agree with his view on human personal freedoms (such as the freedom of a woman to terminate a pregnancy).
I don't agree with a lot of what the Roman Catholic Church stands for.
But I have to recognize that the man is shrewd.
I couldn't agree more.
With addition that you can't really expect of Catholic Church to suddenly allow abortions or gay marriages.
But he is definitely Pope that was condemning it much less then others - he very rarely felt urge to point such issues out. Few times he did, but as I said, Church is Church. What is important in society is that Church does not have influence in laws and legal stuff. We can't expect all religious leaders to suddenly become open-minded liberals.
their all philosophy is coming from dark ages. I disagree with it, but I have no problem with it when it's limited inside church walls - who wants it can have it, as long as it does not influences society.
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