Right on the money

What did I say in a previous entry? John Paul II would be canonized pronto.
Already the race is on. 'Fast-tracking,' it's called. Dispense with the pesky five-year wait because he was always in the public eye and the people saw how he lived and how he thought and know he's a saint-in-waiting, for goodness sake. And the people were baying for his canonization at the funeral. Case closed. Rather, hunt for the miracles--which will be found. I think if they had them in the bag and there had been a precedent to canonize him during his funeral--at least beatify him--they'd have done it during the service.

And all I can wonder is, why didn't they fast-track the expulsion of pedophiles from their midst?

When I think back to the days when I was an altar boy and how I was brought up to believe that the Catholic Church was the only true faith, the only religion God cared about, that it was unshakeable, oak-like. Oak-like, and would never sway to the gales of public opinion or be influenced by any force other than the Great Almighty. How times have changed, though the Vatican powers clearly don't see it that way. Is this part of the rush to shore the church's dwindling numbers in the Western world, to add more spectacle like the Romans did toward the end of their empire? I don't know. All it proves to me is that the powers can change the rules when they decide it's expedient.

This changing of the rules made me think back to my childhood, specifically how as young boy I was told if the Russians were to ever invade Ireland and demand that I was to forswear my faith, I was to decline instantly and be happy to be shot to death. I was to laugh in the soldiers faces before starting to recite the rosary. We children were warned that every Irish Catholic would be doing the same if that terrible day ever came:our grandparents would be praying and laughing as they were lined up against a tree and shot, out mothers and fathers, our uncles, aunts, neighbors, a great cacophony of laughter and praying.

Sometimes I'd watch the Soviets ('Russians,' they were called in Ireland) on the telly as they goosestepped--a very graceful march especially in comparion to the dreary old British army steps, I thought also--in front of Red Square and wonder if they'd goosestep into Ireland when they invaded and I envisioned legions of them goosestepping along the motorway into Belfast.

[technorati: Soviet union, Popes, canonization, Vatican]