Re: questionable conception

Terry Austin <taustinca@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in 
news:Xns9A89CBAA5EE34taustingmail@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P12MUNIF.HTM
>> 
> If it was issued ex cathedra, the Pope might well acknowledge the 
> petitions, but - by Catholic doctrine - it is directly inspired by God, 
> and all else is irrelevant. It would, of course, be expected that many 
> good Catholics would also feel the same inspiration.

I believe there's a theory that forms of devotion which become very
popular 
with the laity need to be taken seriously, even if not ultimately
approved. 
The Miraculous Medal would be a case in point. Thérèse de Lisieux's Story 
of a Soul became wildly popular and it took all of 17 years for Saint Pius

X to open the process of canonization, and 28 years for her to become an 
official saint. JP2 declared her to be a Doctor of the Church, despite the

fact that she was hardly an intellectual:

"Sometimes, when I read spiritual treatises, in which perfection is shown 
with a thousand obstacles in the way and a host of illusions round about 
it, my poor little mind soon grows weary, I close the learned book, which 
leaves my head splitting and my heart parched, and I take the Holy 
Scriptures. Then all seems luminous, a single word opens up infinite 
horizons to my soul, perfection seems easy; I see that it is enough to 
realize one's nothingness, and give oneself wholly, like a child, into the

arms of the good God. Leaving to great souls, great minds, the fine books
I 
cannot understand, I rejoice to be little because 'only children, and
those 
who are like them, will be admitted to the heavenly banquet'."

So her poor little mind was very definitely on the fast track. On the
other 
hand, don't hold your breath waiting for Thomas Merton to be cannonized, 
much less doctored, despite his great popularity. So there is more to it 
than that.