Faith & Common Sense: Pope John Paul flagellated himself, new book says

“Writing for the National Catholic Register, Jimmy Akin faults a "pleasure-obsessed culture" for portraying the pope's behavior as repulsive."

Ahmadiyya Times | News Staff | Us Desk
Source & Credit: Ahmadiyya Gazette | March 2010
Edited by Ahmadiyya Times staff.

The late Pope John Paul flagellated himself regularly to emulate Christ's suffering, 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 It includes some previously unpublished documents. Many saints of the Church, including St. Francis of Assisi, St Catherine of Siena and St. Ignatius of Loyola, practiced flagellation and asceticism as part of their spiritual life.

The book, which was published this year, 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.

"In Krakow as in the Vatican, Karol Wojtyla flagellated himself," Oder writes in the book, citing testimony from people in the late pope's close entourage while he was bishop in his native Poland and after he was elected pope in 1978.

"In his closet, among his vestments, there was hung on a clothes hanger a particular kind of belt for pants, which he used as a whip," Oder writes in an AP news item in February, 2010.

“So how do Catholics explain self-flagellation, a practice so foreign to Protestants, let alone non-Christians?” asked Collin Hansen in his article of February 8 in Christianity Today magazine. “Writing for the National Catholic Register, Jimmy Akin faults a "pleasure-obsessed culture" for portraying the pope's behavior as repulsive,” reported Collin Hansen.

“But why should anyone deliberately choose to whip themselves? It is, on the face of it, a crazy thing to do., wrote CathNews.com, on its opinion page of February, 11, 2010. “It is something, we can be sure, that the late pope did only with the permission of his confessor, and after careful consideration,” explained the opinion writer.

Islam does not prescribe any such self infliction or self-mortification to progress in spirituality.

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