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- WORLD, Page 66World NotesTHE VATICANWas Isabella Good Enough?
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- Should Queen Isabella of Spain become a saint, in time for
- the 500th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of America? To
- admirers pushing her candidacy, she was a wise and pious ruler
- who commissioned the explorer's voyage in 1492, bringing
- Catholicism to the New World. But others remember her as the
- monarch who expelled Jews and Muslims from Spain and presided
- over the Inquisition. Both views must be weighed by the Vatican,
- which has received a petition from an Argentine-born priest
- asking that Isabella be canonized by 1992, when the church plans
- to celebrate 500 years of Christianity in the Americas.
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- The proposal has enraged many Spanish Jews and Muslims, who
- regard her as a symbol of intolerance and have vowed to oppose
- her elevation.
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