According to Vatican sources, the canonisation of Pope John Paul II is
expected in December and may be accompanied by the canonisation of Pope
John XXIII.
If so, it is a clever move by Pope Francis to balance the
celebration of the life of two such different figures who, in their own
way, affected the modern Catholic Church more than any others.
The Pope
who called the Second Vatican Council is esteemed in large parts of the
Church as a reformist.
Most of the rest would regard Pope John Paul II
as nearer their ideal pope, a star player on the world stage who, while
narrowing the definition of orthodoxy at home, challenged the might of
the Soviet empire abroad and hastened its downfall.
If such a
joint canonisation is what Francis is planning, it could serve another
useful purpose.
There are three other popes in the canonisation
pipeline: Pius IX, Pius XII and Paul VI. Each of their causes is
favoured by a particular faction, and those factions are not so
different from the one that is enthusiastic about John Paul II.
So
Francis has an opportunity to put a stop to a practice – the
canonisation of recent popes – that is doing the Catholic Church’s
reputation no good.
Having given something to each side by canonising
the rival heroes, John XXIII and John Paul II, he could – and should –
order the suspension of the canonisation causes of the other three for a
century or two. Otherwise, they can look like an unedifying exercise in
papal self-congratulation.
Canonisations are supposed to perform
the public good of holding up a holy person’s life for admiration and
imitation. They do not affect the basic question of whether that
person’s soul is in heaven, though they add a degree of certainty to it.
Pope St Pius X, who died in 1914 and was canonised 40 years later, was
the first pontiff to be canonised since St Pius V, who was raised to the
altars in 1712. He was famous for the disastrous excommunication of
Elizabeth I of England in 1570, which, at a stroke, turned English
Catholics into traitors.
Pius X’s singular contribution to the Church
was the persecution of the heresy of Modernism, which had a chilling
effect in Catholic theological development for decades.
Pius IX’s
lasting legacy was his notorious Syllabus of Errors of 1864, which
delayed the Church’s adjustment to the rise of secular democracy by 100
years; Pius XII’s was the continuing embarrassment to the Church caused
by his extreme caution over condemning the Nazi persecution of the Jews.
None of these examples is particularly uplifting. But many
other questions arise. Were there no other holy popes between Pius V’s
death in 1572 and Pius IX’s accession in 1846?
The Church traditionally
prays that every pope should be holy: shouldn’t it just assume these
prayers are answered and move on?
And why is everybody on the list –
with the exception of John XXIII – favoured by conservatives?
Was Leo
XIII, the father of Catholic Social Teaching, not saintly?
Nor Benedict
XV, who tried to stop the First World War; nor Pius XI, who did indeed
take on the Nazis?
These questions may well have occurred to Pope
Francis. And another thought may also have occurred to him: “Enough
already.”