More than 1 million people will flood Vatican City Sunday, May 1, for the beatification of Pope John Paul II, and some St. Thomas students will be among them.
Twenty-five St. Thomas students and one graduate student will be among the crowds on Divine Mercy Sunday when Pope John Paul II is beatified, which is the first step in becoming a saint in the Catholic Church.
St. Thomas senior Peter DeMarais is in Rome for the department of Catholic studies’ semester program, and he said he will be attending the beatification.
“Being in the center of the Catholic Church as a young person for one of the most monumental moments in the modern Catholic Church is overwhelming and beautiful,” he said.
“I feel blessed and honored to be able to be a part of it,” he added.
The Rev. Erich Rutten, campus ministry director, said many people are attending because Pope John Paul II “has made an incredible impact not only on the church but in the world.”
Rutten said when Pope John Paul II was elected in 1978, “he was looking ahead to the turn of the millennium” and saw it as one of the “providences of God that he was placed in that role between the Second Vatican Council … and carrying the church into this new millennium.”
Of the expected 1 million travelers in Rome, Rutten estimated about 300,000 will be younger people.
“[Pope John Paul II] had an incredible gift for reaching out to and challenging young people to not just take their faith for granted, but really take it up and live it and make a difference in the world,” Rutten said.
“And I think they really respected him for that,” he added.
DeMarais said he’s prepared for Rome to be flooded with crowds.
“Rome is about to turn into a mix between a zoo and a Disney theme park,” DeMarais said. “The excitement is overwhelming and enthralling.”
Rutten said St. Thomas students attending the ceremony will be able to watch history happen.
“[Students] will be able to tell their kids and grandkids, ‘I was there,’” he said.
DeMarais said he is most looking forward to attending and “seeing the crowds and being a part of history.”
“It really is the opportunity of a lifetime,” he said.
Lizzy Schmitt can be reached at schm9587@stthomas.edu.
I am very opposed to the beatification of this man.
I am very opposed to the whole Catholic Church
He still owe you money?
This man did much to attack the Traditional Catholic Church. It does not matter that he was a “nice” man and likable. He did a great amount of damage to the Church in the following actions that have caused scandal to the Church and to the Faith:
1. Kissing the Koran
2. Altar Girls
3. Communion in the Hand
4. Legion scandal
5. Tampering with witness Cardinal Law
6. Rampant homosexual molestations under his pontificate
7. Scandalous encyclicals (gone over in detail by the Remnant and Sungenis)
8. Assisi Gathering involved blasphemy and prayer to the “gods” of other religions
9. Taking part in pagan (e.g. Native American) rituals, well documented and photographed.
10. EXTREMELY suspect universalism, to the point that one of his speeches had to be edited to remove the heresy.
11. World Youth Day. Just watch a few videos. Sacrilege is frequently occurring.
12. The disgrace of apologizing to the World because the Church wasn’t modern enough.
13. Visiting synagogues and the Wailing Wall
14. Asking St. John to bless Islam, which historically involved wars against Christians. Muslims killed many Christians.
And the list can go on and on. Faced with that, we blink with disbelief and ask, “He was beatified for what?”
I am very opposed to yellow colored pencils.
@ Plese
The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ “The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.
JP2 was a man who championed universal acceptance and inter religious harmony. These are modern times, we show people respect and accept them for their differences. I know a number of Muslims who have the utmost respect for Christianity because of what he did. We have a common religious background with Judaism and Islam.
You have not given any proof of “Pagan Worship,” I hope it is not hearsay.
“Muslims killed many Christians,” Yes they did, Christians also killed many Muslims, it is called war, and that is what our fore fathers did, do not forget the crusaders.
We are Christians, we forgive and love our neighbors because that is the Christian, Human thing to do.
Altar girls—-you must be kidding. They (girls) are Christian human beings, it is not like he invited Hitler to come and hand out the Eucharist.
JP2 was a man living in/ ahead of the times. Plese are a man living in the past.
“He did a great amount of damage to the Church in the following actions that have caused scandal to the Church and to the Faith:”
I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you’re either trolling or you’re joking.
I am very opposed to red M&Ms.
“I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you’re either trolling or you’re joking.”
No I’m not joking or trolling. John Paul II is not a true Catholic. The remnant of true Catholics is so very small in this time compared to those who claim to be “Catholic” – which is so very similar to the times of the Arian Crisis, when the remnant of true Catholics was small indeed, but those claiming to be “Catholics” held their Arianism over the truth. Today, Modernism is held over the truth and then blended in with it to create a hybrid religion.
Today, conciliarists, liberals and neo-Caths praise the beatifying of a man who embodies the spirit of the new religion, since, at least for the neo-Caths, they believe that this new religion is actually Catholicism because that is EXACTLY what they have been taught all these years – when the straight fact about the matter is that a new religion was fabricated in the late 60’s that now calls itself “Catholicism” and has even blended in along with the true religion due to its close proximity with it. It is a confusing and wicked time we are living through.
“We have a common religious background with Judaism and Islam. ”
They worship a different God. Our God is a Trinity. They deny this. We do not worship the same God.
“Altar girls—-you must be kidding.”
Altar girls is a sacrilege. In the Encyclical Allatae Sunt on July, 26, 1755, Pope Benedict XIV stated in paragraph 29: “Pope Gelasius in his ninth letter (chap. 26) to the bishops of Lucania condemned the evil practice which had been introduced of women serving the priest at the celebration of Mass. Since this abuse had spread to the Greeks, Innocent IV strictly forbade it in his letter to the bishop of Tusculum: ‘Women should not dare to serve at the altar; they should be altogether refused this ministry.’ We too have forbidden this practice in the same words in Our oft-repeated constitution Etsi Pastoralis, sect. 6, no. 21.”
Judaism, Islam and Christianity share a common background, that is the old testament. No where did I mention that we worship the same God. Our Muslim brothers consider Jesus a prophet and respect Him as such.
You as a “true Catholic” know very well that the Pope is the successor of Christ, through the apostle Peter. That is the Apostolic Tradition. What the Pope considers true and right is as such considered true and right by Christ/God Himself.
There is nothing Christian or Catholic about denying someone an opportunity to serve their God just because of Gender.
“There is nothing Christian or Catholic about denying someone an opportunity to serve their God just because of Gender.”
But we are all called to different states of life. Can a woman be a father? No. Can a woman be a priest? No because our Lord chose only men. Can a woman serve at the altar? No because the altar is meant for men alone. Does that mean that women can’t serve God? Absolutely not but they are called to serve Him in different ways.
“Judaism, Islam and Christianity share a common background, that is the old testament.” So what? That doesn’t make Koran kissing or praying to other’s “gods” ok. In fact, Catholicism views those actions as blasphemy.
“What the Pope considers true and right is as such considered true and right by Christ/God Himself.” False the Pope can sin and make errors. In fact, modern popes have made many errors. The Pope is very, very rarely infallible. Look up sedevecantism or sedeprivationism sometime.
I am opposed to tuna sandwiches.
“Modern Popes have made many errors.”
Opinions are like butts, everyone has one, but some stink!!
Matthew, in regard to the idea of Papal infallibility, it is true and correct. Check via Vatican I, that council put that into canon law that what the Pope said was infallible.
Another thing that i think you are blowing out of context here Matthew is what the Pope is trying to do. He must lead the Catholic Church as well as spread the good news to any that he can. If it means he must partake in certain rituals that you find blasphemic.
Also the fact of the Kissing of the Koran, is perfectly alright. Muslims believe that Mohammed was inspired to write this as an act from Allah, so therefore these are clearly Allah’s words that Muslims are reading yes? And then to put it all into consideration with our God. Yes we believe in a Trinitarian God, but you put it as though we worship 3 different people. When in reality they are all the same, when you pray to Jesus Christ, you pray to God and the Holy Spirit, and it is a circle around.
Going to the Old Testament, where Islam was born, Ishmael was the son of Abraham and therefore worshipped the same God that modern day Christians and Catholics worship.
And then that would make the Qur’an a work of the same God, the God of Abraham that we worship as well. So the Kissing of the Qur’ran is not seen as blasphemy, it is…
seen as a linking of the two religions. They are more linked than you know, and I fear that you staying tooo much in the traditionalist Catholic point of view.
The fact of the matter is that JPII gave us the Keys to the Vatican II documents, have you read them? and interpreted them how he did? If so please elaborate.
But what Vatican II did was give the church an update, an this update was to bring more people into the church, since the whole goal of Christianity is to spread the good news of the empty tomb, then we must change how we do it to accomodate the times. Women now are having a larger role in the church than previous times and thus allowing women to be altar servers IS NOT WRONG. It is a way to allow women to interact in the mass that they might now have otherwise. As you have stated, the altar is made for Men, but Women have just as much of a right to be on the altar and serving alongside the men. Men and Women need each other in order to better Serve the LORD, so what better way than to allow them to be altar servers?
Also, I have looked and scoured for anything in the Catechism for anything that says otherwise. There is nothing in there about Women being Altar Servers.
you are quoting really old sources that do not apply to the times that we are in…
Some of them do apply, but others, especially the one you are quoting regarding women, is obsolete due to the modern times and the call for union in the church.
In regards to the homosexual scandals, that is not his fault at all. Most of the ones you are referring to happened here in the United States, and it took almost to the end of His Pontificate for those to even come out and he and the Vatican handled it nicely.
But one thing that you need to do, get your head out of the hole of the Traditionalist Catholic teaching (in your case you are literally way to traditionalist, to the point where some of the more modern and current teaching is lost and not use).
Yes we do use these traditional catholic doctrines but make them applicable to today’s world. If you read everything, word for word from the bible and older texts then We as Catholics nowadays would be very different. Read Deuternomy and try to follow those laws word for word, doesn’t work too well does it?
The Church needs to modernize in order to spread the word of the gospel, and that is something that Blessed Pope John Paul II did, he was not afraid to go outside of his comfort zone to do this, and in your eyes he committed blasphemy, to the world however he is seen as one of the most important…
David, you are wrong on multiple accounts:
“The Church needs to modernize in order to spread the word” False. Modernism is defined as a heresy – in fact the greatest of all heresies by Pope St. Pius X.
“your eyes he committed blasphemy, to the world however he is seen as one of the most important” To the eyes of the world he caused great scandal forcing many people to ask if our Lord Jesus Christ is God. After all, this man claims to be his Vicar and kisses a Koran. JPII caused unfathomable scandal.
“…that what the Pope said was infallible.” False. Only when he is speaking infallibly. How many times has a Pope done this in history? Very, very few times. Look it up.
“Also the fact of the Kissing of the Koran, is perfectly alright. ” Not according to Roman Catholicism. The Church has frequently condemned Islam as a religion and said that those who pray to the God of the Muslims do NOT pray to the same God as Catholics.
“But what Vatican II did was give the church an update” By and large the Council was a display of the heresy of modernism.
“Women now are having a larger role in the church than previous times and thus allowing women to be altar servers IS NOT WRONG” You provide no reasoning. This practice has been condemned for…
“In regards to the homosexual scandals, that is not his fault at all. ” So the man in charge of the Church is not responsible for those working below him? JPII allowed bishops to get by without removing them for ministry. JPII and Vatican II are reasons that allowed for such a crisis of molestation to occur.
“But one thing that you need to do, get your head out of the hole of the Traditionalist Catholic teaching” What my Catholic grandfathers believed is and has to be the same faith that I believe now. If they were right then, I am right now. The Faith does not and can not change. Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
“…is obsolete due to the modern times and the call for union in the church.” To say that the teachings of the Church change is heretical.
Women should never be allowed into the sanctuary. Neither should men. Only consecrated men (priests) and those assisting the priest say Mass should be allowed into the sanctuary.
I can’t blame you for being surprised at my comments. After all, the only brand of Catholicism that you are probably familiar with is the “feel good” sentimentality of JPII. But that isn’t Catholicism. The Latin Mass and Traditional Theology is Catholicism. The “feel good” mentality is not taught by our Lord who commands us to honor and worship Him.
Does kissing a Koran worship the one true God? No.
“Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ.” – St. Athanasius, AD 373
“It is granted to few to recognize the true Church amid the darkness of so many schisms and heresies, and to fewer still so to love the truth which they have seen as to fly to its embrace.” -St. Robert Bellarmine
Matthew
You have your old ways, the ways of the Traditionalists that still remain in the Catholic church. The Latin Mass that is considered the High Mass (I know that it is the Highest Mass that one can be a part of, so DO NOT quote me from this) is still used in the Church, it just depends on where you go.
The Vernacular that the Church is implementing has allowed a greater participation in the Mass for those who do not know Latin (if it is a language that you know, good for you but I will tell you that a good portion of the world doesn’t know how to speak the Latin). The Mass is meant to have the fullest participation of everyone, not just going through the motions of it all. I for one love being able to hear and understand the Bible at Mass and hearing it in my own language.
Still what you are saying the “feel good” religion mentality that JPII put into people, I would say is False, having grown up near the end of His pontificate, I did not get this feeling at all.
I will not argue anymore with you but will leave you with this.
What JPII did was generate a new revitalization of the Church in the Young People of the world.
In order for someone to be beatified there must be a Miracle done after the person died, by way of praying to them. JPII has done…
but again this is all your opinion, and the opinion of the Vatican right now, as well as Benedict XVI is to have JPII Beatified.
You might not like the direction that the church is Heading and if you do not Agree with that, then that is your problem, and your belief system.
I for one am shocked then that you chose to come to St. Thomas to be honest, because that “feel good” religious ideal that JPII gave the world (I personally don’t think so) is right here and alive on Campus. You might not see it, because you are stuck in your very Traditionalist ways, but me as coming here and getting involved with religious groups on campus and doing Charismatic Prayer (please attack this, I want you to soooooooooooo badly) I have come into a fuller realization of my Faith than at any point in my life.
You know who I thank because of that? God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and a man known as JPII. His teaching a writing inspired a generation of New Theologians, Priests, and believers which IS THE ULTIMATE GOAL of Christianity/Catholicism. Is to Spread the news, and spread the News he did.
If anyone then says that it is not from the institution of Christ the Lord Himself, or by divine right that the blessed Peter has perpetual successors in the primacy over the universal Church, or that the Roman Pontiff is not the successor of blessed Peter in the same primacy, let him be anathema.- Pastor Aeternus, First Vatican Council
Granted, no woman can serve as a priest, any more than a woman can serve as a baby’s father. But altar servers don’t receive Holy Orders. They walk around in the front of the church (small-c) and hand stuff to the only ordained guy up there. The male-only restriction on servers was a discipline, not a doctrine, not a matter of faith and morals, not subject to infallible Magisterial authority (papal, ordinary, or otherwise), and is no more eternal law than the practice of priestly celibacy. There’s no more evil in it than in having women sing. Of course, a number of early Church synods banned the practice of singing by anyone in the congregation, but we hardly follow those anymore, do we?
Because they’re disciplinary.
agreed John
“Blind obedience is not Catholic; nobody is exempt from responsibility for having obeyed man rather than God if he accepts orders from a higher authority, even the Pope, when these are contrary to the Will of God as it is known with certainty from Tradition. It is true that one cannot envisage such an eventuality when the papal infallibility is engaged; but this happens only in a limited number of cases. It is an error to think that every word uttered by the Pope is infallible.” (Open Letter to Confused Catholics)
“The Vernacular that the Church is implementing has allowed a greater participation in the Mass for those who do not know Latin” One can and should participate by prayerful participation. One’s participation is NOT measured by the amount of words that they say. We have missals to translate for us. There are important reasons for having the Mass remain in Latin.
Break with tradition is rejection of Christ. Its like the tower of Babel story where the people tried to build a civilization that excluded God. Pretty much like the liberal reasoning of today. Tradition is our connection to the past, to the time of the apostles, to Christ
“You might not see it, because you are stuck in your very Traditionalist ways” Good because I don’t want to be sucked into the “feel good” sentimentality that is NOT Christian in its essence.
“His teaching a writing inspired a generation of New Theologians, Priests, and believers which IS THE ULTIMATE GOAL of Christianity/Catholicism” And by and large these inspired men are not Catholic.
“Of course, a number of early Church synods banned the practice of singing by anyone in the congregation, but we hardly follow those anymore, do we?” For that reason the majority of people at my Chapel do not sing.
Here’s an interesting article related to the debate going on here. It talks about the debate over Apostolic Tradition and proper interpretation of the documents of the Second Vatican Council, and is entitled “Who’s Betraying Tradition”
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1347670?eng=y
And here’s Pope Benedict’s address concerning this topic to the Roman Curia on December 22, 2005
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2005/december/documents/hf_ben_xvi_spe_20051222_roman-curia_en.html
Mr. Plese, your comments do not go far enough! You say that you condemn all these feel good catholics, but yet you are one of them as well! You have bought into the modernism that is today! You tolerate these actions just like everybody else. If you don’t like it, you should get out. Otherwise you are just as guilty. Mel Gibson didn’t like it, so he did something about it!