be·at·i·fi·ca·tion /bēˌadəfəˈkāSH(ə)n/ noun noun: beatification (in the Roman Catholic Church) declaration by the Pope that a dead person is in a state of bliss, constituting a first step toward canonization and permitting public veneration.
Thank you. As someone who knows nothing about that religion this headline was extremely confusing to me
A quick primer on Saints: from the 10 Commandments…
- You shall have no other gods before Me
- You shall not make idols
- […]
…but having over 10,000 Saints, whom people buy figures and pictures of, then pray to them “to intercede for them before the one and only true God”, is fine.
The number has increased by something like 2,000 new ones in just the last couple decades. Nowadays there are Saints for everything, like:
- Patron Saint of the Internet: St. Isidore of Seville, named by Pope John Paul II. St. Isidore was bishop of Seville in 600 AD
- Patron Saint of the Internet: Carlo Acutis, named by Pope Francis. Was an Italian schoolboy who helped spread Roman Catholic teaching online before he died of leukemia in 2006
Yes, there are duplicates, so people can pick their favorite. And yes, there are all sorts of collectibles.
Nowadays there are Saints for everything
There have always been local gods for everything.
This is why Catholicism has historically been such a sucessful religion, it’s inherently quite syncretic.
It adapts to local conditions and incorporates aspects, just like capitalism and viruses.
Ironic but entirely expected
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In an unprecedented move, the Vatican on Sunday beatified a Polish family of nine — a married couple and their small children — who were executed by the Nazis during World War II for sheltering Jews.
During a ceremonious Mass in the village of Markowa, in southeastern Poland, papal envoy Cardinal Marcello Semeraro read out the Latin formula of the beatification of the Ulma family signed last month by Pope Francis.
At the Vatican, speaking to the public from a window in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis said the Ulmas “represented a ray of light in the darkness” of the war and should be a model for everyone in “doing good and in the service of those in need.”
With them were killed 70-year-old Saul Goldman with his sons Baruch, Mechel, Joachim and Mojzesz, along with Golda Grunfeld and her sister Lea Didner with her little daughter Reszla, according to Poland’s state Institute of National Remembrance, IPN, which has meticulously documented the Ulmas’ story.
The Ulma beatification poses several new theological concepts about the Catholic Church’s ideas of saints and martyrs that also have implications for the pro-life movement because of the baby in the mother’s womb, said the Rev.
Perhaps because the concept of “beatification of a fetus” could be weaponized by the pro-life movement, the Vatican apparently felt it necessary to state that the child was “born” at the moment the mother was executed.
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