They need a Miracle along the way to Sainthood

Click image to enlarge saints.

I Need a Miracle

performed by The Grateful Dead
by John Perry Barlow and Robert Hall Weir

I need a woman bout twice my age
A lady of nobility, gentility and rage
Splendor in the dark, lightning on the draw
We'll go right through the book
and break each and every law

I got a feeling and it won't go away, oh no
Just one thing then I'll be okay
I need a miracle every day

I need a woman bout twice my height
statuesque, raven-dressed, a goddess of the night
Her secret incantations, a candle burning blue
We'll consult the spirits
maybe they'll know what to do

And it's real and it won't go away, oh no
I can't get around and I can't run away
I need a miracle every day

I need a woman bout twice my weight
A ton of fun who packs a gun with all her freight
find her in a sidewhow, leave her in L.A.
Ride her like a surfer running on a tidal wave

And it's real, believe what I say, yeah
Just one thing I got to say
I need a miracle every day

It takes dynamite to get me up
Too much of everything is just enough
One more thing I just got to say
I need a miracle every day
I need a miracle every day
I need a miracle every day (got to be the only way)
I need a miracle

© ICE NINE PUBLISHING CO INC

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The Times (London UK)
Saturday 19 December 2009

Pope John Paul II and Pope Pius XII
move closer to sainthood

by Simon Alford

[photo:] File picture showing late Pope Pius XII on his 80th birthday on March 11,1956. (AFP/Getty/Unknown) 'Heroic': Pope Pius XII

The controversial wartime pope accused of failing to openly condemn the Holocaust has moved a step closer to sainthood, the Vatican has confirmed.

Pope Pius XII will be declared venerable after the current pontiff Pope Benedict XVI approved a "heroic virtues decree," the first of three stages before canonisation.

To be declared venerable, a church investigation has to conclude that the person in question lived a life of exemplary holiness and heroic virtue. There must be nothing in the dead person’s writings that enables these characteristics to be challenged.

Pope Benedict has also agreed to declare his predecessor Pope John Paul II venerable, just four years after his death, it has been announced.

Related Links

* Pope John Paul II on fast track to sainthood
* Senior scholars join forces to protest
* Pope 'silent on Holocaust set to be saint'

Jewish groups had asked the pope to delay the process for Pius XII until further World War Two archives could be studied. He reigned from March 1939 until his death in 1958, and opponents claim he failed to explicitly speak out against Hitler or openly offer support to Jewish people.

Both Jewish and Catholic scholars have complained that Vatican archives on Pius XII are only fully accessible for the years up to 1939. It is understood the Vatican has said the 16,000,000 files relating to Pius XII's 19-year reign will not be ready for public viewing until 2014 at the earliest.

“We are saddened and disappointed that the pontiff would feel compelled to fast-track Pope Pius at a point where the issue of the record, the history and the coming to a judgment, is still wide open,” said Abraham Foxman, a Holocaust survivor and the director of the US-based Anti-Defamation League.

The Vatican has maintained that Pius XII worked behind the scenes during the war, fearing that any direct intervention may have worsened the situation for both Jews and Catholics.

In his wartime Christmas broadcasts on Vatican Radio, Pius XII offered support for "those who, although personally blameless, have simply on account of their nationality and origin been killed or reduced to utter destitution."

Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, added: “We are left bereft in our feelings.”

Pope Benedict was first asked to make the decree in 2007, but put the process on hold while asking for a "period of reflection."

But the decision has received some support.

The Reverend Peter Gumpel, a German Jesuit priest and church historian who has spent 20 years supporting Pius XII's cause and has championed him as a defender of the Jews, said he was "delighted" by the decision.

“I’m glad that the truth has been professed,” he said. "The accusation that he was anti-Semitic or anti-Judaic is absolute nonsense.”

Pope John Paul has been on a fast track to sainthood since his death in 2005, after normal church rules, that prevent the process beginning for five years, were dispensed with.

Crowds had chanted “Santo subito!” (“a saint at once”) at his funeral, following his 27-year papacy.

Being declared venerable is the first of three stages which need to be completed.

The former pontiff is expected to be beatified, the second step, next year in recognition for a miracle. To complete the third stage to sainthood, John Paul must be recognised for a second miracle before he can canonised.

Last year Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the official in charge of the beatification process, finished a 2,000-page document summarising evidence that John Paul, who was the first non-Italian pope in 450 years, should be made a saint.

More than 250 claims of miracles have been made. One investigated in 2006 was that of French nun, Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre, who was cured of Parkinson’s disease.

Doctors declared her cure “scientifically inexplicable” after her sisters prayed for the late Pope’s intercession and she found herself able to pick up a pen and write.

In September next year the Venerable John Henry Newman, an English Cardinal who died in 1890, will be beatified during a visit by Pope Benedict to Britain.

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