Canonization Quotes

In the annals of history, few men have left a more positive imprint on the world than Pope John Paul II.

I think, internally, we Catholics have known this for a long time. I think we're just thrilled and grateful that the rest of the world now is sharing in the esteem and gratitude that we've had for Pope John Paul II for 26 and a half years.

The pope has been called many things, historic figure, spiritual leader, moral force. But a growing chorus of voices has begun to refer to him as John Paul II the Great, in other words, as a saint.

We take from the art of the past what we need. The variable posthumous reputations of even the greatest artists and the unpredictable revivals of interest in even the most obscure ones tend to reveal more about those who make revisionist assessments than about those who are being reassessed.

Martyrs - those killed because of their Catholic faith - can be beatified even if they don't perform a miracle. However, all beatified individuals must stage a certifiable miracle before being made a saint.

Canonization in modern times is a very, almost scientific process.

Don't canonize me too soon. I'm perfectly capable of fathering a child.

In 2000, Pope John Paul II canonized 120 saints of China, 87 of whom were ethnically Chinese. My home church was incredibly excited because this was the first time the Roman Catholic Church acknowledged Chinese citizens in this way.

It is not the least of a martyr's scourges to be canonized by the persons who burned him.

Orthodox Christians have the habit of claiming all great men, all men who have held important positions, men of reputation, men of wealth. As soon as the funeral is over clergymen begin to relate imaginary conversations with the deceased, and in a very little while the great man is changed to a Christian - possibly to a saint.

The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman Emperor Constantine the Great

His head was boiled, impaled upon a pole and raised above London Bridge. So ended the life of Thomas More, one of the few Londoners upon whom sainthood has been conferred and the first English layman to be beatified as a martyr.

Only lifeless mechanisms move along faultlessly straight lines and compass circles. In art the surest way to destroy is to canonize one given form and one philosophy: that which is canonized quickly dies of obesity, of entropy.

In some Old Testament books, it's very evident that an editor has been at work. That's quite all right. It's part of the process.

It doesn't seem Shakespeare works if you turn him into a religion.

I have a portrait of Saint Thomas More in my office.

This is beginning to sound more like a canonization hearing than a confirmation hearing.

In death, you get upgraded into a saint no matter how much people hated you in life.

Las Vegas is a city of kickbacks. A desert city of greased palms. A place where a $20 bill can buy approval, a $100 bill adulation and $1,000 canonization.

The most effective way of destroying art is the canonization of one given form. And one philosophy.

Where was Mother Teresa's Jesus? He was in the Bible, in the church, in her prayer, in the Eucharist, in her sisters, in the heart of everyone she met, and especially in the poorest of the poor and the lowest of the low. Jesus was in disguise in each one of them. Jesus was behind the foundation of her order. Jesus was behind all that she did.

That the saints were usually in ill luck does not canonize you.

I always felt bad for Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa lived a whole life helping starving children and dying villages, but she could never be declared a saint 'cause she never actually performed a miracle. And it was towards the end, she was desperate to perform a miracle, so she would go up to starving children and go, 'What's that behind your ear? It's a quarter!

We should think about whether canonizations, which are an invention of the Middle Ages, still make sense today.

In the primitive church, it was customary for the Holy Eucharist to be celebrated on the anniversary of the death of a martyr - if possible, on his tomb.