Santo very soon? The papacy of John Paul II, in the dark light of doubts

At the funeral of Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square, the sea of ​​mourners they held up banners that read “Santo Sudito” or “Santo ya”. He was a church giant in the 20th century, spread across the world, inspiring generations of believers with his youthful, then aging magnetism, and as a Polish Pope he helped bring down Communism during his reign of over 26 years old. .

Days after his death in 2005, cardinals eager to defend his conservative policies had already started arguing to put him on a fast track to holiness, while devotees in Rome and beyond demanded his immediate canonization, drowning the cautionary notes from survivors of sexual abuse and historians for whom St. John Paul II had consistently turned a blind eye to crimes committed in his church.

Now, after more than a decade of hesitation, his reputation has fallen under the darkest cloud to date, after the same Vatican which rushed to canonize him released a remarkable report last week that blamed the saint’s feet for the advancement of disgraced former cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick.

The investigation, commissioned by Pope Francis, who canonized John Paul II in 2014, revealed how the Polish pontiff chose not to believe long-standing allegations of sexual abuse against McCarrick, including pedophilia, this which allowed him to rise in the hierarchy.

The results detail decades of bureaucratic obfuscation and lack of accountability on the part of a number of high-level prelates and threaten to sully the white robes of three popes. But above all, say the critics, provide strong evidence that the Church has movedor with reckless haste to canonize John Paul II and now she’s trapped in her own rubble.

“He was canonized too quickly,” said Kathleen Cummings, author of “A Saint of Our Own” and director of a center on American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame. He said that given the “truly overwhelming evidence” in the report, if the Church had waited at least five years and not just days to begin the process of canonization, “it probably would not have started because of the complicity of John Paul II in the scandal of sexual abuse of ecclesiastics ”.

A reversal of the canonization, which historians find it difficult to remember, is implausible. Some historians argue that the McCarrick report is more likely to slow down a process that Juan Pablo himself accelerated. But the report can complicate the possibilities canonization of others at the top of the Church hierarchy in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, when the scourge of sexual abuse exploded in the institution.

The Vatican report shows that Pope Benedict XVI told McCarrick to keep a low profile when further abuse allegations emerged in 2005. Francis, despite rumors of abuse from his main lieutenants, was convinced that his predecessors had properly examined the case, according to the report.

Defense

Francis recognized his own failures by believing in bishops rather than victims. He removed McCarrick from the priesthood and in recent years instituted new policies in the church to increase accountability. Many Church Experts Consider These New Rules are corrections to abuse and the almost willful ignorance of church leaders that occurred under John Paul II.

Supporters of Polish say the report only shows McCarrick cheated on the pope, as he did with many others during his half-century of ascension to the highest ranks of the Catholic Church, and this has nothing to do with the heroic Christian virtue that made John Paul II a saint.

Juan Pablo had been “cynically deceived” by McCarrick and other American bishops, Stanislaw Gadecki, director of the Polish Bishops’ Conference, said in a statement. “The Saints make mistakes in judgment. It was clearly an error in judgment, ”said George Weigel, biographer and official witness to Juan Pablo during his beatification process. McCarrick was a pathological liar. And pathological liars deceive people, including saints. “

Weigel said that if perfection was a prerequisite for holiness, Saint Peter himself would not have made the cup. In reality, infallibility, which is sometimes attributed to popes, is not a necessary sacred attribute, and history is full of saints who were not exactly saints in their lifetime.

There has been a satanic priest, prostitutes, thieves, and much more on the path to redemption and holiness. In 1969, Pope Paul VI deleted 93 saints from the calendar universal liturgy of the Church, but above all because they might not have existed, like Saint Christopher, who carried on his shoulders a child who with each step grew heavier with the weight of the world.

But we know a lot about John Paul II. some critics argue that this is reason enough not to celebrate.

Citing the “disastrous and callous decision-making” of John Paul II, which he says puts children around the world at risk, an op-ed in the National Catholic Reporter on Friday urged US bishops to meet next week for its annual conference a “Discuss the request that the Vatican formally suppress the cult of John Paul II. or stop celebrating. “Victims of abuse deserve no less.”

This is a tremendous irony for a pope who has turned the church into an effective canonization factory. Juan Pablo overturned the criteria for beatification from two miracles to one and did the same for the canonization. He produced over 480 saints and put enough in the pipeline for Benedict XVI to canonize dozens more.

Francis followed his example, but chose to canonize people closer to his more pastoral and less doctrinaire vision of the Church, such as Pope Paul VI and Salvadoran martyr Archbishop Óscar Romero.

Jason Horowitz. The New York Times.