How was it that Gautama Buddha got included in the Catholic list of Saints.?

Question

maybe Sakyumai Buddha.

Answer 1

well wowie wow wow - an open minded addition,
or the biggest gaff of all time???

seriously????

Answer 2

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

There is much to be gone over in this investigation. It is popular to presume after seeing a few similarities between the myth of buddha and the Story of Barlaam and Josaphat, that the two are one story. Don't be too hasty on the matter. Many might make a convinving case, but there has been no definitive proof to my satisfaction yet presented to me.

Answer 4

My friend, that is false. The official list of canonized saints, does not include Budha. To understand this you must realize that a cannonized saint is a Christian, baptized, in communion with the church that led such an admirable christian life that the church declares him worthy of veneration and imitation. The church then includes that saint in the "canon".i.e the official liturgical calendar of the church for official prayer and assigns them a feast day. No one who is not a christian will ever be included in the canon. Of course this does not mean that we catholics do not recognize that Budha achieved a certaing degree of holiness by his teachings and living, which put him close to God. However,in catholic's eyes Budha felt short of perfect holiness because he failed to see that what he recognized as the "oneness" of the universe and the "nothingess" of nirvana is esentially the uneffable face of God. Budha did not realize that God must be loved and is the perfect fulfillment of all mens' innermost desires, creator, sustainer and end of all things, even though he didn't deny the possibilty of God, he was always silent about His reality or true essence when anybody asked him about God (showing, I guess, how ineffable was the reality of God even in budha's regard).
Budha was however really close to God, and in the catholic faith, we believe that those who were born before Christ came, or have never known Christ are not doomed to hell for this single fact, but are judged by God according to their consciousness, and Budha was a man that preached love and service and sacrifice and non attachment, what can be closer to god than love?, nothing,except perhaps th love for God himself. Thank god that He does not demand absolute perfection from us, because w all fall short of it.
However as I explained Budha is not in the canons regular of the catholic Church, and he does not have a feast or memorial day in the official liturgy either, he is not in the official list of catholic Saints.
I hope my answer cleared out the missunderstanding and helped you.

Peace be upon you.

Answer 5

this was asked the other day ...

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AvIygtLNHBwp6.i9QE6HVknty6IX?qid=20070702220326AAFS8I8&show=7#profile-info-CAkIA6YWaa

here's my reply there ...



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...

As that Wikipedia article puts it,

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


The name "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."
.
Source(s):

(The late professor, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, researched this story. I was a student of his at Harvard's Center for the Study of World Religions.)


EDIT: Baptized or no, listed in the current Roman Catholic canon or not, "Josaphat" was once popularly considered a "saint", and his name remains in lists of Catholic matyrology feast days (November 27).

Answer 6

Buddhists acknowledge Christ as a prophet.