On Sunday, Pope Francis will enroll Popes John XXIII and John Paul II in the roster of saints – alongside Pedro Calungsod and Lorenzo Ruiz of the Philippines, who took over three centuries to get into the list. This will be the first time, in over 2,000 years, that two pontiffs will be canonized together.
Benedict XVI was the first pontiff to resign since 1415 A.D. when Pope Gregory stood down to avoid schism. He is attending the canonization. “Rome will witness an event that’s never happened in the city’s history: two living popes and two pope saints,” Msgr. Liberio Andreatta told reporters.
The last time a pope was declared a saint was in May 1954. Pius X was the first pontiff, since Pius V five centuries earlier, had been canonized.
Thus, 19 heads of state plus 24 prime ministers will attend. Guesstimates abound on how many pilgrims will flood into Rome where hotel room rates bolted by 63 percent.
“You’ve got a good chunk of humanity who can remember vividly these two men,” Cardinal Timothy Dolan notes. “This is a vivid way to say that the pursuit of virtue is for today.”
Francis splices, in one ceremony, two schools of thought on what a pope should be. A simple parish priest figure, like Angelo Roncali of Italy and a globe-trotting star like Karol Wojtyla of Poland.
Elected as transition pope in 1958, Roncali as John XXIII, called out: Apertura a sinistra. “Open the windows and let the fresh air in.” He died in 1963, before the Second Vatican Council, which he convened, jolted a sclerotic church to its founding fervor.”
“Let me tell you about my uncle,” John XXIII’s great-nephew Marco Roncali told L’Osservatore Romano. He has devoted 30 years to studying the pontiff’s life and documents.
“Often at home, I heard testimonies of his goodness, his silent charity… I remember that when I was small, I accompanied Giuseppe, the Pope’s youngest brother, in the evening: (John) was, a
“Pope of flesh”, he said. “He rendered visible that holiness which was private and public.” His legacy partly consists of “a second conciliar spring is being lived”, the answer to a widespread need of mercy, which is a key word of a pastoral pontificate.
John XXIII was puzzled why his visits to orphanages, hospitals and prisons in Rome created a stir in the press: Shouldn’t the bishop reach out to the neediest? He was his same simple self in talking with orphans and prisoners to presidents and diplomats. Love begets love: John XXIII charmed people simply because his heart went out to them with great love, a Canadian commentary notes.
John Paul II “was a holy man, but was he a saint?” asks the Irish Times. “His travels, his personal witness to suffering and illness, ability to forgive Mehmet Ali Agca, who tried to assassinate him in 1981, and many other qualities explain why the crowds began that “Santo subito!” (“Make him a saint now!”) chant in St Peter’s Square at his funeral in 2005. That chant was arguably the biggest spur to setting him on the fast track to sainthood.”
In his 27-year pontificate, John Paul proved one of most influential figures of the 20th century, not least because of his fundamental role in the downfall of Eastern bloc communism. His mind-set was formed by resisting first Nazi dictatorship, then Soviet communism.
Reservations persist up to the eve of John Paul’s canonization. These do not impinge on his integrity but with some of his policy failures. These range from the handling of sex abuse cases to his lack of sympathy for the liberation-theology movement of the late ‘70s.
The late cardinal of Milan Carlo Maria Martini questioned some of his appointments, Corriere Della Sera reports. Martini recalls him as a “faithful” man of God whose “best moments” were “his meetings with the masses and with young people… He should have retired before the illness became so bad.”
In the Middle East today, “British nurses hide crucifixes from view; Filipino nurses furtively read banned Christmas catalogues; Christian physicians whisper their weekend plans, referring to church services as “gatherings” at diplomatic compounds. Christian Pakistani matrons scheduling the nursing rota risk false accusations of blasphemy,” writes Templeton Cambridge Journalism Fellow Qanta Ahmed.
Islam reveres Mary the mother of Jesus, values the Injeel (Gospel) and Torah as the Word of God, and holds holy Jesus, Moses and Aaron. (This) is in jeopardy from the Islamists, who would have us deny our brotherhood with Christianity.” The spite drives the exodus of Christians. “Is this what we tolerate, Muslims? Is this who we are? Ahmed asks. “As Muslims we must ease this burden, or risk becoming ourselves that which we tolerate.”
John Paul was cool with Óscar Romero, the El Salvador archbishop gunned down by the military in 1980. For many, Romero was a true martyr, killed because of his denunciation of human-rights abuses. “John Paul produced more beatifications (1,338) and canonizations (482) than all 2,000 years of previous popes, But he could never find room for Romero.”
Pope Francis had been barely a month when he approved Romero’s beatification process.
“Is Francis telling us that John Paul’s battle with communism in his native Poland tainted his vision?”
Francis also received theologian Gustavo Gutierrez, the Peruvian founding father of liberation theology, at Santa Marta last September. Thus, the Irish Times comments, Perhaps, “the miracle is right in front of us: the election of Pope Francis.”
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