{"id":618,"date":"2011-04-27T10:14:27","date_gmt":"2011-04-27T14:14:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/?p=618"},"modified":"2011-04-27T10:14:27","modified_gmt":"2011-04-27T14:14:27","slug":"dueling-blessings-royal-wedding-vs-pope-john-pauls-beatification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/04\/dueling-blessings-royal-wedding-vs-pope-john-pauls-beatification.html","title":{"rendered":"Dueling Blessings: Royal Wedding vs. Pope John Paul&#8217;s Beatification"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s been some griping among Catholics and anti-monarchy types about the April 29 British wedding of Prince William to Catherine &#8220;Kate&#8221; Middleton stealing the thunder of Pope John Paul II&#8217;s beatification on May 1.\u00a0 It&#8217;s like\u00a0Princess Diana vs. Mother Teresa, Part II: Blessings Be Upon Us.<\/p>\n<p>But as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.getreligion.org\/2011\/04\/wedding-threatens-to-overshadow-beatification\/\">I pointed out over at GetReligion<\/a>, the royal wedding date was announced in November; the Vatican announced the beatification date in January.\u00a0 So, it&#8217;s the Vatican&#8217;s mistake &#8212; and one that could easily have been avoided, if there weren&#8217;t such a (<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2011\/04\/is-the-vatican-rushing-pope-john-pauls-sainthood.html\">controversial<\/a>, given the abuse scandal)\u00a0rush to sainthood.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I may be a religion reporter, but I don&#8217;t have a problem with the general public and mainstream media showing more interested in a royal wedding of the\u00a0heir to the throne (and the Church of England&#8217;s future &#8220;Supreme Governor&#8221; and &#8220;Defender of the Faith,&#8221;\u00a0if that makes you feel less guilty) than a beatification &#8212; a term considerably\u00a0less well known than canonization &#8212; of the previous head of the Catholic Church, despite his wider popularity.\u00a0 If it were his canonization, versus a\u00a0different royal wedding, maybe the tables would be turned.\u00a0 And, maybe it&#8217;s also a generational thing.<\/p>\n<p>In any case, John Paul&#8217;s beatification will get plenty of print and <a href=\"http:\/\/ncronline.org\/blogs\/ncr-today\/where-watch-coverage-beatification\">broadcast coverage<\/a>, if the lead-up is any indication, even if the royal wedding gets more magazine covers.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s a sample of recent faith-related stories, from the mainstream media:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/religion.blogs.cnn.com\/2011\/04\/26\/sainthood-explained-understanding-john-paul-iis-beatification\/\">Sainthood explained: Understanding Pope John Paul II&#8217;s beatification <\/a>(CNN)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/newsblogs.chicagotribune.com\/religion_theseeker\/2011\/04\/pope-john-paul-ii-step-away-from-sainthood.html\">Pope John Paul II step away from sainthood <\/a>(Chicago Tribune&#8217;s Seeker blog)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/04\/24\/opinion\/24dowd.html?_r=1&amp;ref=columnists\">Hold the Halo <\/a>(Maureen Dowd, for The New York Times)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/religion.blogs.cnn.com\/2011\/04\/27\/pope-john-paul-iis-blood-to-be-shown-at-beatification\/\">Pope John Paul II&#8217;s blood to be shown at beatification <\/a>(CNN Belief Blog)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2011\/04\/26\/miracles-claimed-from-lat_n_854041.html\">Miracles claimed from late pope&#8217;s intercession<\/a> (Religion News Service)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>P.S. Speaking of religious vs. mainstream news this weekend, we also have\u00a0Rep.<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jta.org\/news\/article\/2011\/04\/26\/3086976\/rep-giffords-to-attend-husbands-shuttle-launch#When:15:09:00Z\"> Gabrielle Giffords&#8217; much-awaited April 29 appearance <\/a>at the final shuttle launch, captained by her husband Mark Kelly.\u00a0 (As GetReligion noted, this would be a good time for some bad news to break, quietly!)<\/p>\n<p>What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>*<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to\u00a0<strong>subscribe to Belief Beat\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to\u00a0<strong>follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s been some griping among Catholics and anti-monarchy types about the April 29 British wedding of Prince William to Catherine &#8220;Kate&#8221; Middleton stealing the thunder of Pope John Paul II&#8217;s beatification on May 1.\u00a0 It&#8217;s like\u00a0Princess Diana vs. Mother Teresa, Part II: Blessings Be Upon Us. But as I pointed out over at GetReligion, the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[127,122,100,20,14,125,121,117,119,120,123,128,126,118,124],"class_list":["post-618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-anglican-communion","tag-catherine-middleton","tag-catholicism","tag-catholics","tag-christianity","tag-church-of-england","tag-kate-middleton","tag-pope-john-paul-ii","tag-prince-william","tag-princess-diana","tag-queen-elizabeth","tag-rep-gabrielle-giffords","tag-rowan-atkinson","tag-royal-wedding","tag-vatican"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Dueling Blessings: Royal Wedding vs. Pope John Paul&#039;s Beatification - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/04\/dueling-blessings-royal-wedding-vs-pope-john-pauls-beatification.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dueling Blessings: Royal Wedding vs. Pope John Paul&#039;s Beatification - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There&#8217;s been some griping among Catholics and anti-monarchy types about the April 29 British wedding of Prince William to Catherine &#8220;Kate&#8221; Middleton stealing the thunder of Pope John Paul II&#8217;s beatification on May 1.\u00a0 It&#8217;s like\u00a0Princess Diana vs. Mother Teresa, Part II: Blessings Be Upon Us. 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She and her family live in Seattle.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/author\/nneroulias"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":620,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions\/620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}