Buddha Is A Saint Of The Catholic Church?

Question

Do other Christians sects acknowledge Buddha also?

http://www.geocities.com/nephilimnot/buddha.html

Answer 1

The tale of the Buddha's life--"protected" by his parents from seeing much of the outside world because of a prediction he'd become a spiritual leader if he did (they wanted him to be a political leader, instead), but ending up a world-changing spiritual teacher nonetheless--made its way into the story of the "Christian saints" Barlaam and Josaphat.

The whole story is summarized pretty well by the Wikipedia article on "Barlaam and Josaphat":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barlaam_and_Josaphat

As that Wikipedia article puts it,

"Josaphat's story appears to be in many respects a Christianized version of Gautama Buddha’s story."

"Josaphat" is a garbled pronunciation of the word "bodhisattva," which means, essentially, "a future buddha."

So, in that sense, the Buddha was for a time listed among the Catholic saints, under the name "Josaphat."
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Answer 2

Not really.

Before the formal canonization process began in the fifteenth century, many saints were proclaimed by popular approval. This was a much faster process but unfortunately many of the saints so named were based on legends, pagan mythology, or even other religions -- for example, the story of the Buddha traveled west to Europe and he was "converted" into a Catholic saint!

In 1969, the Church took a long look at all the saints on its calendar to see if there was historical evidence that that saint existed and lived a life of holiness. In taking that long look, the Church discovered that there was little proof that many "saints", including some very popular ones, ever lived. Christopher was one of the names that was determined to have a basis mostly in legend. Therefore Christopher (and others) were dropped from the universal calendar.

This action did not kick Christopher out of heaven. Remember everyone in heaven are saints whether the Church canonizes them or not. The Church, once again, was just trying to clean up its act.

With love in Christ.

Answer 3

*Is Catholic*

No sorry, Buddha is not a Catholic Saint. There is no evidence in the writing of that webpage that anybody called Buddha a saint.

Perhaps Siddhartha Gautama did make it to heaven and is thus a saint, but the Catholic Church on earth does not know that and does not recognize Siddhartha Gautama as a saint.

Answer 4

Sts Barlaam and Josaphat had a parallel story to Buddha Gautama Siddharta Sakyamuni's story

Answer 5

Most do not acknowledge Buddha because he represents a different worldview that is quite contrary to the Christian faith.

Buddhism teaches that mankind needs enlightenment; Christianity teaches that mankind needs salvation.

Answer 6

Nah .... the person who wrote that takes the religious text out of contexts and piece them together to look as if Buddhism is a subset of Christianity.

Kind of Stupid though.

Answer 7

Christians do not acknowledge fake idol worshipers.

Answer 8

Yeah, sure, and Jesus is a Chinese dagog.

Answer 9

I'm sure he'd be very proud.