Word: pius
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Papal politics, unlike presidential politics, is never a winner-takes-all scenario. And that makes the Vatican unlikely to abandon its effort to beatify Pope Pius IX, despite protests by liberal and Jewish groups. The latter are incensed that the current pontiff, so deeply committed to healing the church's relationship with the Jews, would propose sainthood for a man who in the mid-19th century forced Rome's Jews back into the ghetto and stripped them of their civil rights after having initially allowed them greater freedom. Further fueling the protests is the case of Edgardo Mortara...
...voting members. John Paul, having already named more saints than any other Pope, plans on Sept. 3 to declare two of his predecessors blessed. The elevation of John XXIII, hero of the progressive Vatican II initiatives of the early 1960s, will raise no hackles, but that of Pius IX, an oppressor of Jews in the mid-1800s, will. (The march toward canonization of another Pius--XII--has stalled in the face of renewed charges that he stood by silently during the Holocaust.) John Paul also plans to bestow sainthood on two women this year--the Polish nun Faustina Kowalska...
...Deheisha, the speech's effect depended on whether one listened to the Pope's music or his words. He made no mention of flash points such as the "silence" of Holocaust-era Pope Pius XII or the distinction between sins of misguided church members and the possible misguidance of the church as a whole. Some Jewish leaders later pointed this out. But most echoed the American Jewish Congress's Phil Baum, who admitted that "it was perhaps wishful thinking that the Pope would explicitly apologize in his visit to Yad Vashem today for the silence of Pope Pius...
...Roman Catholic church can't find a politically correct Pius. Since the 1960s, it has synchronized the canonization process of liberal hero Pope John XXIII and conservative favorite Pius XII, but recently Pius' "cause" has stalled. The Vatican won't say why, but Jewish groups' critiques of the Holocaust-era Pope may have played a role...
...church has chosen an odd replacement. On Sept. 3, along with John, it plans to beatify Pope PIUS IX. The earlier Pius had the longest reign in history (1846-78), but he plagued Rome's Jews, repealing civil rights and forcing them back into the ghetto. He also had a role in the kidnapping of a Jewish boy named Edgardo Mortara, who had been baptized by a Catholic servant. Despite an international outcry, Pius acted as a surrogate father to the child, who later became a priest. Italian Jews are nonplussed. "The beatification of Pius IX exalts a symbol that...