Oder the Postulator promotes Carol the Flagellator.
There is an unseemly rush to make John-Paul II a Saint. Files and boxes of evidence is being put together by a bloke named Monsignor Slawomir Oder to make a case and all that is needed now is evidence of a miracle attributable to John-Paul’s intervention. I just wonder how crazy this all has to get before someone cries, “Stop! ‘Christ died for sinners to bring us to God.’ He was whipped so you wouldn’t have to be. Only God is good and a saint is someone who trusts God. Someone so filled with self-loathing that he whips himself needs a therapist not sainthood.”
At a news conference Tuesday, Oder defended John Paul's practice of self-mortification, which some faithful use to remind them of the suffering of Jesus on the cross.
"It's an instrument of Christian perfection," Oder said, responding to questions about how such a practice could be condoned considering Catholic teaching holds that the human body is a gift from God.
In the book, Oder wrote that John Paul frequently denied himself food — especially during the holy season of Lent — and "frequently spent the night on the bare floor," messing up his bed in the morning so he wouldn't draw attention to his act of penitence.
"But it wasn't limited to this. As some members of his close entourage in Poland and in the Vatican were able to hear with their own ears, John Paul flagellated himself. In his armoire, amid all the vestments and hanging on a hanger, was a belt which he used as a whip and which he always brought to Castel Gandolfo," the papal retreat where John Paul vacationed each summer.
While there had long been rumors that John Paul practiced self-mortification, the book provides the first confirmation and concludes John Paul did so as an example of his faith.
Book: John Paul II used belt to whip himself - The Vatican- msnbc.com
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