An apparent Neo-Cath "return-fire" for criticisms of the JPII Beatification and future Canonization...

May 19: What? A Pope with a lousy Pontificate should never be beatified, or canonized!


From (double!) coronation to abdication, a terrible pontificate, with far-reaching dangerous consequences - from the biography of Pope Saint Celestine V (Peter Celestine - Pietro da Murrone), who died on May 19, 1296:

In reply to the request of the cardinals, that he should come to Perugia to be crowned, Pietro, at the instigation of Charles, summoned the Sacred College to meet him at Aquila, a frontier town of the Kingdom of Naples. Reluctantly they came, and one by one, Gaetani being the last to appear. Seated on an humble ass, the rope held by two monarchs, the new pontiff proceeded to Aquila, and, although only three of the cardinals had arrived, the king ordered him to be crowned, a ceremony which had to be repeated in traditional form some days later, the only instance of a double papal coronation. Cardinal Latino was so grief-stricken at the course which affairs were evidently taking that he fell sick and died. Pietro took the name of Celestine V. Urged by the cardinals to cross over into the States of the Church, Celestine, again at the behest of the king, ordered the entire Curia to repair to Naples. It is wonderful how many serious mistakes the simple old man crowded into five short months. We have no full register of them, because his official acts were annulled by his successor. On the 18th of September he created twelve new cardinals, seven of whom were French, and the rest, with one possible exception, Neapolitans, thus paving the road to Avignon and the Great Schism. Ten days later he embittered the cardinals by renewing the rigorous law of Gregory X, regulating the conclave, which Adrian V had suspended. He is said to have appointed a young son of Charles to the important See of Lyons, but no trace of such appointment appears in Gams or Eubel. At Monte Cassino on his way to Naples, he strove to force the Celestine hermit-rule on the monks; they humoured him while he was with them. At Benevento he created the bishop of the city a cardinal, without observing any of the traditional forms. Meanwhile he scattered privileges and offices with a lavish hand. Refusing no one, he was found to have granted the same place or benefice to three or four rival suitors; he also granted favours in blank. In consequence, the affairs of the Curia fell into extreme disorder. Arrived in Naples, he took up his abode in a single apartment of the Castel Nuovo, and on the approach of Advent had a little cell built on the model of his beloved hut in the Abruzzi. But he was ill at ease. Affairs of State took up time that ought to be devoted to exercises of piety. He feared that his soul was in danger. The thought of abdication seems to have occurred simultaneously to the pope and to his discontented cardinals, whom he rarely consulted.
...
Some years after his canonization by Clement V in 1313, his remains were transferred from Ferentino to the church of his order at Aquila, where they are still the object of great veneration. His feast is celebrated on 19 May. (Catholic Encyclopedia)
Wait a second: he was canonized just 17 years after his death? Now, there is a process ripe for reexamination.

I'm doing some research and trying to find the reason he was canonized.

The first reason I came across sounds less than edifying...

He was buried at Ferentino, but his body was subsequently removed to the Basilica Santa Maria di Collemaggio in Aquila. Pope Clement V canonized Celestine in 1313 at the urging of Philip IV of France who saw it as an opportunity to demean Pope Boniface VIII whom Philip despised.

Need to look into this so we can make distinctions.

Anyone who wants to assist, feel free!

Sounds like Pope Celestine redeemed himself at the end of his life.

http://www.saint-mike.org/library/papal_library/celestinev/biography.html

Well pleased, he who had again become Peter of Morroni retired to his hermitage of Majella, to devote himself to perpetual prayer and uninterrupted mortification. His successor, Boniface, fearing some schism that was or speedily might be threatened, not from the will of the holy hermit, who was far from having such a thought, but because the simplicity of his heart might not be proof against the wiles of the enemies of the new pope–his successor, Boniface, we say, caused search to be made after Peter, that he might be carefully guarded against all danger. The saint was informed of this, and although he had no thought but to give himself entirely to God, he kept himself concealed during two months. Some time after, he determined to go to Dalmatia, but a storm drove him to Vieste, a city of the Capitanate, where he was recognized by the governor, who sent him to Anagni, where his successor was. Thence he was sent to the castle of Fumone, a short distance from Ferentino, where, for ten months, he languished in prison. Celestine, at the age of eighty-one years, bore this treatment with an apostolical resignation. He died on the 19th of March, 1296, and, by order of Boniface, his body was carried with pomp to Ferentino. His heart is preserved in the church of the Poor Clares. Subsequently his body was removed to the monastery of the Celestines, at Aquila. Clement V canonized Celestine at Avignon on the 5th of March, 1313, seventeen years after his death

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Yes but it still looks bad because it implies the only reason the Pope canonized him was because Phillip IV said to regardless of the merits.

What is the source?

JPII should be canonized even if he had a horrible pontificate because of his holy life, just look at Celestine V.

Response?

An uneventful pontificate of less than six months cannot be compared to an unquestionably disastrous pontificate lasting 26 years.  Any comparison is totally irrational.

As for holiness, Celestine was, in fact, holy.  The Deuce's "holiness" was but a pop-holiness, a counterfeit that was proved to be utterly bogus by the 26 year disaster of his pontificate.  A holy pope cannot take the Church from bad to MUCH WORSE, but The Deuce accomplished this amazing feat -- and he personally authored the most devastating docuмents of the Council that decimated the entire Catholic world in the years preceding his pontificate.  Anyone who thinks he was holy is no longer able to reason.

Celestine at least realized he wasn't up to the task, humbly resigned, and then lived a solitary life of prayer and penance and suffered due to his predecessor's actions against him. He really died as sort of a martyr.

JPII plowed on clueless till the end obliviously overseeing the destruction of the Church.

Here's the reality.  The Papacy was suffering from political problems during this time.  The electors couldn't agree upon a man to elect.  Celestine was renowned for his sanctity well before he was elected Pope.  That is why they chose him and almost forced him into the office.  He was similiar to a Padre Pio or St. John Vianney.  The Cardinals thought electing a man who was considered a living saint would do well to restore the Papacy to its prestige.  Celestine's "mistakes" were not really mistakes at all, but rather a rebuke to electors whose motives were less than noble.  Celestine was far beyond the worldly, administrative tasks that were demanded of him and that is what "scandalized" the Cardinals.  That is what made him a "terrible" Pope.  It was because he was not worldly enough and did not cater to the demands of worldly men.  His "mistakes" in fact revealed true motives such as avarice.  It was God's way of demonstrating their folly, for Celestine was truly a Saint.  To compare this "failing" which was no failing at all in reality, to a perverted, heterodox Pontiff who destroyed the Church is breathtakingly ignorant, both on an historical level as well as a doctrinal level.  

The reality here is that in the case of St. Celestine, no one has alleged any heresy in any of his acts, official or private.  I don't deny John Paul 2's beatification because he was a bad pope.  I deny it because he preached heresy in his official acts and words.  I deny it because he never publicly repudiated his public heresies and apostasies and, based on the Vatican's own reports, he never privately redupiated them either.

This exercise in finding canonized saints that history reviews as not being especially worthy on canonization as an excuse that John Paul 2's beatification is perfectly acceptable is revolting to say the least.  If this is the case, then clearly, based on what we've been hearing over the past few years, John Paul 2's beatification can be grounds for beatifying/canonizing anyone.  Perhaps we can have a very special canonization in Rome on October 31, 2017.  In fact, I wouldn't doubt that something along those lines are being planned right now.

They're really getting desperate, or perhaps they are loosing their minds, or who knows what's going on in their brains.

As has been said by others, it is disgusting and utterly ridiculous to compare Pope St. Peter Celestine with jp.2. The former is an exemplar of humility, self-abnegation and detachment from self and things, whilst the latter was the poster-boy for the anthropocentric zeitgeist that is the chief characteristic of the present age and the legacy of "Vatican II."

Even from his youth, as the Breviary lessons say, the Saint exercised the zeal and love of God, in preference to love of self and creatures, in a heroic degree:

He was hardly entered on boyhood, when he withdrew into a desert, in order to keep his soul safe from the snares of the world. In solitude he fed his mind with heavenly meditation, and brought his body into subjection, even by wearing an iron chain next to his bare flesh.

The transit of the Saint had an effect quite different from the death of jp.2:

How precious his death was in His sight was gloriously manifested by a Cross which appeared shining in the air before the door of the cell. He was illustrious for miracles both during his life and after his death, and when these had been duly investigated, Clement V., in the seventh year after his departure hence, enrolled his name among those of the Saints.

The Collect in the Office and Mass of Pope St. Peter Celestine illustrates the great difference between the Saint and jp.2:

O God, Who didst exalt Thy blessed servant Peter Celestine even to the honour of the chief Bishoprick, and didst teach him to love better to be lowly, grant unto us, we beseech Thee, after his ensample, so lightly to esteem all things earthly, that in the end we, even as he hath done, may happily attain unto those good things which Thou hast promised unto the humble and meek. Through our Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

The translations of the Office are found in the translation of the Roman Breviary made by John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute.

Hey roscoe, just out of curiosty, aside from the Vatican II Popes who do you consider to be anti-popes that haven't been declared as such by the Church? I already know you think Benedict XV was one (ridiculous)...