Reply #3: Calling him John Paul the Great is just an unofficial title, kind of like [View All]

[DemBones DemBones]

calling Elvis "The King." It shows people's affection and esteem. Just like people called Elvis "The King" for years before his death, some people were calling John Paul "The Great" before his death.

Elvis, however, had to be voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and that was based on his accomplishments. Sainthood is like that, but more complicated. When the Catholic Church declares that someone is a saint, it means the Church thinks that person is already in Heaven, and thus in a better place to intervene for us. Catholics pray to God but we also ask various saints to pray for us, too, like asking another living person to pray for us except we hope they have a little more clout

To be declared a saint, the person's life has to be investigated thoroughly. John Paul should get an A on this score.

They'll eventually exhume John Paul's body to see if he's "an incorruptible" (one of the saints whose body hasn't decayed, or hasn't decayed as much as it should have -- like the skin's turned dark but the body's basically intact and it's a few hundred years old.) John Paul was not embalmed, BTW, and how they managed that with him lying in state from Sunday until Friday I don't know -- maybe there was ice under him?

But the biggie, the real test for sainthood, is that there have to be medically verified miracles attributed to a dead person praying for people on earth. No doubt many people are already asking John Paul to ask God to heal them. I think it takes one certified miracle to be beatified by the Church; that means the Church officially calls them Blessed, as in Blessed John Paul the Great or Blessed John Paul II. (In Latin, Beatus=Blessed, that's why it's called beatification.)

After being beatified, the potential saint has to be credited with (I think) one more miracle and then it's made official and they're called Saint John Paul the Great (if that comes to pass, which it likely will.)

Do you have any more questions? I'm pretty good at this and other forms of arcane knowledge, the sort that's rarely called for. ;-)