What's in a Name?

Heard the news today that the current Pope, Benedict XVI, is going to pull out all the stops to get sainthood for his predecessor.

Does that mean we will call him Saint Pope John Paul II? Seems like quite a mouthful. Probably something more like Saint John Paul II.

Did you know that Pope John Paul II got more saints named than all of his predecessors put together?

I find this astonishing. Do we know why PJPII elevated 1200 people to sainthood? What was his motivation? Why do Catholics need so many saints?

Except for martyrs, candidates for sainthood have to have a miracle under their belts. Apparently there is already a miracle tucked away for PJPII. He allegedly cured a 4 year old Mexican boy of cancer some years back. Not to say that a candidate for sainthood has to perform a miracle while he or she is alive. That can be done after death.

We could play theological ping-pong with this till the next century.

I can remember when some saints got demoted in the 1960's. Saint Christopher evidently didn't live up to the saintly title. Neither did Saint Philomena. A lot of smoke and mirrors or just legends about those two. So I guess now they're Mr. Christopher and Ms. Philomena.

There was a time back in the dark ages of the 1950's when children enrolled in parochial schools were not allowed to use their given names.

I knew two girls who were given saints' names by the nuns that they had to use in their respective Catholic schools.

One girl had her given name of Eliza changed to Elizabeth.

The other had to use her middle name of Joan because her first name was Dana.

Evidently there weren't any saints named Eliza or Dana and you could not be a student in a Catholic school unless your name was the name of a saint.

I remember how incredulous I was when I heard about this. I think I was more upset about it than those two girls were.

I felt they had been invalidated, negated. Not saintly behavior in my opinion at all.