John Paul II's beatification this weekend is the quickest of modern times - what does it take to be fast-tracked to sainthood?
Catholics may believe there is something supernatural about
their Church, but as the 13th Century theologian St Thomas Aquinas
taught, it is not exempt from the normal realities of human nature -
including the laws of psychology, sociology, and even politics.
If that is true of the Church writ large, it is also true of
the business of declaring saints.
That fact will be on clear display today, when Pope John Paul II is beatified, the final step before
sainthood, in a ceremony in Rome that is expected to draw hundreds of
thousands of people to St Peter's Square.
John Paul's beatification comes
just six years and one month after his death in 2005. The perception of
haste has puzzled some observers, especially those inclined to question
the late pope's record on combating the scourge of clerical sexual
abuse
Formally speaking, the Vatican's explanation is that all the
traditional criteria have been met. There is a popular grassroots
conviction that John Paul was a holy man - an exhaustive four-volume
Vatican study concluded that he lived a life of "heroic virtue" - and a
miracle has been documented as resulting from his intervention.
The miracle involves the healing of a 49-year-old French nun
from Parkinson's disease, the same affliction from which the late pope
suffered.
Five fast-track factors
Without questioning any of that, it is probably fair to say
that institutional dynamics and even a degree of politics also help
explain the rapid result.
John Paul reformed the sainthood process in 1983, making it
faster, simpler, and cheaper.
The office of "Devil's advocate" - an
official whose job was to try to knock down the case for sainthood - was
eliminated, and the required number of miracles was dropped.
The idea was to lift up contemporary role models of holiness
in order to convince a jaded secular world that sanctity is alive in the
here and now. The results are well known: John Paul II beatified and
canonised more people than all previous popes combined.
Since the reforms took effect, at least 20 cases qualify as
"fast track" beatifications, meaning the candidate was beatified within
30 years of death. Taking a careful look at that list, aside from lives
of holiness and miracle reports, at least five factors appear to
influence who makes the cut.
First, successful candidates have an organisation behind them
with both the resources and the political savvy to move the ball. The
Catholic movement Opus Dei (of Da Vinci Code fame), for instance, boasts
a roster of skilled canon lawyers, and they invested significant
resources in their founder's cause. St Josemaria Escriva was canonised
in 2002.
Second, several fast-track cases involve a "first", usually
to recognise either a geographical region or an under-represented
constituency. Italian lay woman Maria Corsini was beatified in 2001,
just 35 years after her death, along with her husband Luigi Beltrame
Quattrocchi. They were the first married couple to be declared
"blessed". Nicaraguan Sr Maria Romero Meneses was beatified in 2002, 25
years after her death, as the first blessed from Central America.
It is also striking that 12 of
these fact-track beatifications have been women. That is arguably
related to an effort to counter perceptions that the Church is hostile
to women.
Third, there is sometimes a political or cultural issue
attached to the cause. For instance, Italian lay woman Gianna Beretta
Molla was beatified in 1994, 32 years after she died in 1962. (Molla was
canonised in 2004).
She is famous for having refused both an abortion
and a hysterectomy in order to save her unborn child.
In other cases, the perceived issue is internal to the
Church. Maria de la Purisima, a Spanish nun, was beatified in 2010, just
12 years after her death in 1998. Vatican officials hailed her as a
model of preserving tradition in a period of "ideological turmoil"
following the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).
Push to canonise papacy
Fourth, Church officials may feel a personal investment in a
cause. For instance, two Polish priests moved through the process
swiftly under John Paul II: Michal Sopocko, the confessor of St Faustina
Kowalska, a mystic and founder of the Divine Mercy devotion, and Jerzy
Popieluszko, a Solidarity leader murdered by the Polish Communists.
Fifth, fast-track cases generally enjoy overwhelming
hierarchical support, both from the bishops of the region and in Rome.
Chiara Badano, a lay member of the Focolare movement, was beatified just
20 years after her death in 1990. Focolare is admired for its
spirituality of unity and its ecumenical and inter-faith efforts, not to
mention its loyalty to the Church.
All five criteria are clearly in place with John Paul II. He
has got powerful institutional backing both in Poland and in Rome, and
virtually all of the officials making sainthood decisions today are John
Paul II proteges.
There is also a push to canonise not just John Paul
the person, but also his papacy, especially its emphasis on recovering
Catholicism's missionary muscle.
Those criteria suggest that it won't be terribly long before
the canonisation arrives, and St John Paul II is formally added to the
Church's list.
If so, both nature and the supernatural will, again, have had their say.