Did Pope John Paul II Flagellate Himself to Become a Saint?

The Flagellation and Asceticism of the Pope

Flagellation is the practice of methodically beating or whipping one's or another's body as a religious act. It is a form of punishment used in certain cases under Islamic Sharia law. It also practiced in Christianity with mild self-flagellation using an instrument called a “discipline”, a cattail whip usually made of knotted cords, which is flung over the shoulders repeatedly during private prayer. It’s a highly criticized practice and has become rare these days. The late Pope John Paul flagellated himself regularly to emulate Christ’s suffering and signed a secret document saying that would resign instead of ruling for life if he became incurably ill, a new book shows. The book, called “Why a Saint? was written by Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the Vatican official in charge of the process that could lead to Roman Catholic sainthood for John Paul. It includes some previously unpublished documents. The book, which was published Tuesday, reveals that even when he was not ill, he inflicted pain on himself, known in Christianity as mortification, so as to feel closer to God. The book also confirmed that as his health failed, John Paul prepared a document for aides stating that he would step down instead of ruling for life if he became incurably ill or permanently impaired from carrying out his duties as pope. He signed the document on February 15, 1989, eight years after the failed assassination attempt. The existence of the document had been the subject of many rumors and reports over the years but it has been published for the first time in full in the book.

Asceticism is basically a lifestyle of abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures which is done with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals. Some of the religions like Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, & Jainism, promote asceticism as it is believed that salvation and liberation involve a process of mind-body transformation affected by exercising restraint with respect to actions of body, speech, and mind. People might say, where would they get this idea? Well for Christians it is throughout the New Testament. Christ is quoted as saying that it is hard for a rich man to enter Heaven and that people's riches would get in the way of being saved.

However, it has been revealed that King James in his translation sought to make sure that the feudal system was kept in tact and removed any notion of challenging kings or the rich. Instead he made sure that it was promoted that one should not seek to be rich himself. Furthermore, for those that question the notion that there are now hundreds of English translations of the Holy Bible, need not look further than the Council Nicaea , which removed whole books from the New Testament and declared certain verses heresy. Yes, the Catholic church rewrote the Holy Bible. In Fact the book you read today is not even the Holy Bible, but a very watered down and tiny version of it.

What is rather stupid is that most seminary schools know this and have not corrected it. The modern Catholic church knows it and has not corrected it. I am not sure protestant religions like the Baptist and Protestants know this, since they simply adopted the Catholic bible and did not think for themselves, so much for a Protestant Reformation.

One thing of note about the Council Nicaea. One of the chief reasons they convened the council was not to rewrite the Holy Bible per se, but the larger agenda was to have a concise doctrine of what Christianity was. To that end, the council decreed in that Meletius of Lycopolis and Arius the Berber Christian of Alexandria was not to be given credence in their doctrine that Jesus of Nazareth was not God. In fact the entire world wide Christian church was divided right down the middle on the question. Arius pointed out that "son of God" was something made up and that the entire virgin birth and son were stolen and adopted from Egyptian mythology. He contended that it was not the son that they worshiped but the SUN. And that the halo that is found in pictures is not a "halo" but is the sun sitting behind him. The Asian and Eastern Christians sided with Meletius' and Arius' view that Jesus, if he were Jesus at all, was not to be considered as co-equal with God and thereby eternal, but that he was begotten by the father as a perfect being.

[what is funny is I could not find an adequate picture of Arius nor Meletius. Both were very dark Black people. In all the catholic pictures they are portrayed as very pale and nordic white people. Arius was a Berber, which are people that are darker than me. I know, because I lived in Africa for a time. They are extremely dark and very beautiful people. Their skin is like black wax or black porcelain. It is a shame that white people would be so ashamed that one of their founding fathers of the Catholic church were Black. In fact most of their founding fathers were Black. But, the Europeans could not accept that their core beliefs were started by African people, down to their own doctrine of Jesus.]

If you listen to the Catholic decree you'll note the complete confusion on this point. They compromised to bring together both viewpoints and you have both a "begotten not made of the father" and "light from light, true god from true god", all in one decree.

As it stands, the Ethiopians are, in my opinion, are the only ones with all the books of the Bible and are the true Jews. They are said to still guard the Arc of the Covenant to this day.