Author Topic: A New Saint? (Read 20433 times)

poche · « **on:** August 19, 2017, 04:04:57 AM »

Hall of Fame baseball player Roberto Clemente is one step closer to becoming a saint, according to Christian Newswire, which reported late last month that Pope Francis officially declared the former Pittsburgh Pirate "blessed." With beatification, the Puerto Rican has just one step left to become a saint, according to the Catholic Church.
The pope's official blessing came after Clemente apparently met the requirement to perform a miracle. The alleged miracle happened last month when former Olympian Jamie Nieto, who once played Clemente in the film "Baseball's Last Hero," managed to walk again after a back-flip accident in April 2016 rendered the high jumper partially paralyzed from the neck down. His signature move during his competitive years more than a decade ago, Nieto tried to perform the move as a coach, but slipped and broke his neck.
Despite given a slim chance by doctors to regain enough strength and mobility in his legs to walk again, Nieto proved them wrong, the Associated Press reports. The Olympian took 130 nearly unaided steps at his wedding to Jamaican hurdler Shevon Stoddart. He had proposed to her while still in a wheelchair just six months after his accident.
While Nieto credited his recovery to his having "worked really hard," according to the AP, "Baseball's Last Hero" director Richard Rossi credited Nieto's "miracle" recovery to the spirit of Clemente. His proof, according to Christian Newswire, is docuмented in a letter he wrote last year to Pope Francis.
"In meditation, it was revealed to me that Roberto Clemente was a saint," Rossi wrote. "I saw a miracle healing of Jamie Nieto. He will walk at his own wedding to show the grace of the sacrament of marriage. Jesus performed his first miracle at the wedding of Cana."
According to Rossi, who began his campaign to make Clemente a saint in 2014, this is not the first miracle to occur in Clemente's name. Rossi also contends Clemente, a devout Catholic who died in 1972 while attempting to deliver aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua, performed miracles while he was alive, as well. According to a Religion News Service article from 2014, Rossi and a group of volunteers spent time traveling to hear stories about Clemente and used scientific tools, medical records and other methods to try to verify Clemente's "miraculous healing touch."
To become canonized, potential saints need to show proof of at least two miracles. With the first one now apparently down, the world now must wait for the verification of a second.
Rossi did not immediately return The Washington Post's request to comment about what that next miracle may entail, but he showed enthusiasm for last month's news, tweeting Clemente's beatification essentially "greenlights [the player] for canonization."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/ct-roberto-clemente-closer-to-sainthood-20170817-story,amp.html

poche · « **Reply #1 on:** August 20, 2017, 12:00:23 AM »

A cardinal who helped change Catholic missionary work in China is now a possible candidate for beatification.
Cardinal Celso Costantini became the first apostolic delegate to China in 1922.
The situation in China was particularly complex in the wake of European colonialism and the end of the opium trade. Christian missionaries were suspected of being foreign agents. Tens of thousands of Christian civilians, predominantly Chinese Catholics, were killed in the Boxer Rebellion of 1899-1901.
For its part, France considered the Catholic missions in the land to be under its direct protection, despite its recently approved constitution rigidly separating Church and State.
Then-Bishop Costantini was called not only to navigate the complex political situation, but also to work for a change in the mentality with which the missionary work was being carried out.
His appointment to China came not long after Pope Benedict XV’s 1919 apostolic letter “Maximum Illud,” which many believe changed forever the idea of Catholic missions.
The novelty of the apostolic letter was that “Benedict XV underscored that mission territory was not about a place or a religion to be conquered, but rather a place to proclaim the Gospel in order to give all the people a chance to hear the Word of God,” Cardinal Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of People, told CNA.
Cardinal Costantini implemented this vision in China.
In his apostolic letter, Benedict XV asked bishops and superiors in charge of Catholic missions to train, educate and ordain local clergy, and reminded missionaries that they have no other goal than the spiritual one.
Then-Bishop Costantini called the first Chinese National Council, which took place in the Xuijaui Cathedral in Shanghai from May 14 to June 12, 1924.
The council gathered 44 ordinary bishops coming from all over China. No political matters were discussed during that meeting.
The gathering approved a final docuмent with 861 canons (paragraphs) that addressed the need to train a local Church with a local clergy. It voiced hope that Chinese-born bishops would be appointed soon, and recognized that missionaries were just transients. The docuмent noted the importance for missionaries to learn the Chinese language and the need to respect the Chinese tradition.
Although it received little attention elsewhere, the Chinese National Council paved the way to a renewed organization of the Church in China.
According to Cardinal Costantini’s postulators, if the Church in China was able to go underground after the Communist revolution and remain strong until now, is mostly due to the work of the missionary bishop.
The opening of the diocesan phase for his beatification has consequences today: it is reviving the discussion around the difficult current situation between China and the Holy See.
The cardinal was born in 1876 and ordained a priest in 1899. He led an ordinary priestly ministry in his native region of Veneto for 14 years. Then in 1920 he was sent as apostolic delegate to Fiume, a former Italian city that came under Yugoslavia administration after the First World War.
Ordained a bishop in 1921, he was appointed the first apostolic delegate to China the next year.
His time in China witnessed continued changes.
In June 15, 1926, Pope Pius XI sent to the Church of China the letter “Ab Ipsia,” in which he emphasized that missionaries did not serve the interest of foreign nations. He announced that soon native-born bishops would be ordained. The new bishop, the Pope said, had the task to cooperate with apostolic vicars in China for the prosperity of their country.
Pius XI ordained the first six Chinese bishops Oct. 28, 1926, at St. Peter’s Basilica.
The ordination of Chinese-born bishops drew varied reactions among missionaries in China. Some of them, like Bishop Costantini, welcomed the move, while others showed some hostility to the Pope’s decision. Parts of the Diocese of China were directly entrusted to missionary orders, some of which felt they were losing “territory.”
As for the Church’s missionary vision, in February 1926, Pius XI issued the encyclical “Rerum Ecclesiae,” which confirmed the guidelines established by “Maximum Illud.”
Bishop Costantini returned to Italy in 1933, but he kept on working for the cause of the Church in China.
Appointed secretary of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, he backed the translation of the missal into Chinese in order to help faithful to understand the Mass, which at the time was said only in Latin.
After a few years, he saw the fruits of his work.
In 1941 and 1942 came two decrees of the Holy Office, now known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. These approved the use of the local language to celebrate the sacraments in New Guinea, China, Japan, Indochina, India and Africa. Then in 1949 the Holy Office approved the use of Chinese language in the celebration of the Mass.
The Holy See established the ordinary ecclesiastical hierarchy in China in 1946. The Chinese territory was divided in 20 archdioceses, 85 dioceses and 34 apostolic prefectures.
In 1953, Celso Costantini was made a cardinal by Pius XII. He passed away in 1958.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pioneering-missionary-bishop-to-china-considered-for-beatification-68632/

bibleandprayers · « **Reply #2 on:** October 07, 2017, 07:51:49 AM »

it would surely make a lot of catholic baseball fans happy :D

Nadir · « **Reply #3 on:** October 07, 2017, 07:37:29 PM »

B&P, sanctity is not about making baseball fans happy. I don't think it matters that much.

Here is the Washington Posts take on the matter. Well I guess that as good as the Chicage Tribune.

Sections

Vatican dispels claim that Roberto Clemente is on his way to sainthood

By Marissa Payne August 17

Will Roberto Clemente will be MLB’s first saint? Probably not. (AP)
Perhaps a tweet crossed your timeline in the past few weeks, alerting you that Baseball Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente was on his way to becoming a saint after being officially “blessed” by Pope Francis.
That’s “not true,” Vatican officials told The Post on Thursday. While they couldn’t confirm whether anyone has petitioned Pope Francis for sainthood on Clemente’s behalf, both the Vatican and Thomas Rosica, CSB, who works as an English-language press attache for the Vatican in Canada, denied the Puerto Rican native has been beatified.
This likely will come as a disappointment to Richard Rossi, who since 2014 has been trying to drum up support to make Clemente a saint.
Rossi’s journey began after he directed “Baseball’s Last Hero,” an independent film about the life of Clemente, the Pittsburgh Pirates star and devout Catholic who died in 1972 while attempting to deliver aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.
To become canonized, potential saints need to show proof of at least two miracles. Rossi has claimed that the first came last month, when former Olympian Jamie Nieto — who played Clemente in Rossi’s film — managed to walk again after a back-flip accident in April 2016 rendered the high jumper partially paralyzed from the neck down. His signature move during his competitive years more than a decade ago, Nieto tried to perform the move as a coach but slipped and broke his neck.

Despite given a slim chance by doctors to regain enough strength and mobility in his legs to walk again, Nieto proved them wrong, the Associated Press reports. The Olympian took 130 nearly unaided steps at his wedding to Jamaican hurdler Shevon Stoddart. He had proposed to her while still in a wheelchair just six months after his accident.
While Nieto credited his recovery to his having “worked really hard,” according to the AP, Rossi apparently credited Nieto’s recovery to the spirit of Clemente. His proof, according to what appears to be a fake news release posted to Christian Newswire, is docuмented in a supposed letter he wrote last year to Pope Francis..“In meditation, it was revealed to me that Roberto Clemente was a saint,” said Rossi of what he wrote in that letter. “I saw a miracle healing of Jamie Nieto. He will walk at his own wedding to show the grace of the sacrament of marriage. Jesus performed his first miracle at the wedding of Cana.”.The Vatican could not immediately confirm whether it received such a letter or that anyone in the Church may have ever replied to Rossi..Pope Francis receives thousands of letters every day,” a Vatican spokeswoman said..Rossi provided a photograph of a letter that appeared to come from the Vatican that was dated December 2014 and signed by P. Boguslaw Turek. The letter stated that any attempt to canonize Clemente must first go through the Archbishop of San Juan in Puerto Rico. .Rossi admitted in an email to The Post: “[T]he Archbishop of Puerto Rico has been less passionate than Pope Francis” about making Clemente a saint, but insisted it will happen..The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that Rossi, who grew up near Pittsburgh, was the pastor of a nontraditional church in Cranberry, Pa., who was charged in 1994 with attempted murder in the beating of his wife. According to the Post-Gazette, she recanted her story, the trial ended in a hung jury, and he served 96 days in jail after a plea bargain. He and his family moved to Southern California in the mid-1990s, where he became pastor of a church in Long Beach, but left after charges of misdirected funds, the paper said.

Nadir · « **Reply #4 on:** October 07, 2017, 07:38:27 PM »

APologies for the atrocious formatting.

CathInfo.com

Author Topic: A New Saint? (Read 20433 times)

poche

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bibleandprayers

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