IN HIS beatification as in his life,
John Paul II prompts bitterly contrasting opinions.
For his supporters,
his beatification Sunday in the Vatican at a service presided over by
his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, was but the most logical development
for a holy man of patent goodness and moral probity.
For his
critics, the ugly shadow of the clerical sex abuse crisis which
developed into a raging bushfire during the latter years of his 27 year
long pontificate begs a serious question about the appropriateness of
this beatification.
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd was but
the latest of a number of critics to express reservations about John
Paul II when she wrote earlier this week: “ . . . How can you be a saint
if you fail to protect innocent children?”
Not only is there the
question of John Paul II’s apparent “blind eye” to the burgeoning sex
abuse crisis in countries like Ireland and the US but there is also the
embarrassing extent to which he was duped by Marcial Maciel Degollado,
the founder of the Legionaries of Christ.
For years during John Paul’s
pontificate, Fr Maciel, thanks largely to his prodigious fund-raising
abilities, enjoyed a privileged relationship with the Holy See.
Yet
last year, the Vatican described Fr Maciel as someone who had lived a
life “deprived of scruple and authentic religious sentiment”, thus
tacitly admitting accusations that he had not only abused seminarians
but that he had also fathered three children with two different women.
Can a pope who got it so wrong about one of his most prominent priests
really be a good candidate for beatification and, of course, eventual
canonisation?
Supporters of John Paul are totally unfazed by this
objection. They say that the question of his management, or indeed
mismanagement, of some church affairs does not impinge on his spiritual,
moral and holy qualities.
Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the
Congregation for the Cause of Saints, recently pointed out that the late
pope was being beatified not because of his “impact on history or the
Catholic Church” but rather because of his “heroic” virtues, the way he
lived the Christian virtues of faith, hope and love.
Supporters
also argue John Paul II was never interested in the day-to-day running
of the Vatican ship so he simply delegated huge responsibility to his
closest and most trusted advisers.
The problem is he may not always have
received the best advice from those trusted Curia aides, many of whom
were unforgivably slow to recognise not only the worldwide dimensions
but also the sinful depravity of clerical sex abuse.
Then, too,
there is the obvious question prompted by the relative rapidity of his
beatification which comes just six years and 29 days after his death on
April 2nd, 2005, making it the fastest beatification in modern times.
Is
this not an unseemly rush, ask critics?
Even some senior Curia figures
reportedly have their reservations.
In a very obvious sense, this
fast-tracked route to sainthood clearly began during John Paul’s funeral
when those “Santo Subito” (Make Him A Saint Immediately) banners
spontaneously appeared in St Peter’s Square. In the early church, saints
were declared by popular acclamation.
To some extent, this seems to
have happened to John Paul II.
Then, too, there is the
consideration that the cause for the beatification of John Paul has had
one very important sponsor, namely his successor Benedict.
John
Paul’s longtime private secretary, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, once told
experienced “vaticanista” Marco Tosatti that no adviser was more
important to John Paul than the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
Put
simply, when he had an important decision to make, he consulted Cardinal
Ratzinger.
Whilst that observation may prompt concern about some of
those decisions (especially in relation to the sex abuse crisis), it
nonetheless indicates the close links between two very obviously
different popes.
Contrasting opinion on the figure of Karol
Wojtyla is nothing new. During his pontificate, supporters saw in him a
charismatic, dynamically evangelical pastor who played a vital role in
the downfall of East Bloc communism.
Critics, on the other hand,
including some Catholic critics, bemoaned his hard-line conservative
teachings, especially on sexual mores.
Inevitably the figure of
the first non-Italian pope since 1522 was at times complex, if not
mysterious.
Those western liberals who were often at odds with his
ultra-conservative teaching on sexual morality, priestly celibacy, women
priests, homosexuality, divorce and abortion were more than likely to
find themselves in total agreement with his repeated calls for an end to
third world debt and for serious curbs on the world wide armaments
industry.
No one who attended the United Nations World Food Summit
in Rome in November 1996 will ever forget the ironic parallels between
John Paul II’s speech and that of his alleged archenemy, Cuba’s
communist leader Fidel Castro.
Both men made similar calls on the
privileged West to finally face up to its moral responsibilities re the
developing world and the growing North-South, rich-poor gap.
Karol
Wojtyla was clearly an enigma.
An archconservative in theological
terms, he was ultra-modern in his willingness to harness the tools of
the age – television, air travel, internet – for the purposes of his
evangelical mission.
No pope has ever taken Christ’s final exhortation
to the Apostles more seriously: “And he said unto them. Go ye into all
the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (St Mark Ch.16,
V.15).
In an interview with Rome daily, La Repubblica last
weekend, John Paul’s long-time senior spokesman Dr Joaquin Navarro-Valls
suggested John Paul was “passionately” committed to getting out his
message.
The problem was, however, that he was often such a good
communicator that people, in particular the media, tended to become
obsessed more with the messenger than the message.
Recalled by
Navarro-Valls as someone who “never wasted a minute but yet was never in
a hurry”, John Paul II was a man for whom prayer was not so much an
obligation as a necessity.
While it is probably wrong to recall him as a
politician in religious clothing, he nonetheless made a huge impact on
the affairs of man by his repeated willingness to denounce injustice,
social tensions and warfare in places as diverse as the Holy Land,
Lebanon, ex-Yugoslavia, Rwanda – not to mention the invasion of Iraq.
For
all those and many more reasons, his supporters are not surprised by
the relative speed of his beatification.
Indeed for them, the “Blessed”
John Paul cannot become “Saint” John Paul quick enough.
All the
indications are that their best wishes will shortly be fulfilled.