Catholic World News News Feature
John Paul remembered #8: the case for quick beatification April 14, 2005
On the day after his death, the Vatican's former Secretary of State referred to him openly as "John Paul the Great." During his funeral, many of the faithful in St. Peter's Square brandished signs saying Santo subito, demanding his quick canonization. In the weeks following his death, reports of miracles attributed to his intercession have flooded into the Vatican. Although Church rules require a 5-year waiting period before a cause for his beatification can be opened, the next Pope will be under heavy pressure to waive those rules, and begin the process immediately.
Pope John Paul II himself approved the new guidelines for beatification and canonization-- including the rule that calls for a 5-year waiting period after the candidate's death. The purpose of that rule is obvious: to ensure that the Church proceeds on the basis of calm consideration rather than passing emotion.
At the same time, John Paul II also personally waived the rule in one noteworthy case: that of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. There too, the logic of his decision was self-evident. Mother Teresa's reputation for sanctity was so widespread, and the public reverence for her so intense, that the ultimate result of the Church's investigation seemed to be a foregone conclusion. The long 5-year delay would have served only to frustrate the faithful, making it appear that the Church placed more value on abstract rules than on human models of holiness.
Would the same logic apply to the case of John Paul II?
Many observers-- including many prudent Vatican veterans-- have spoken in terms that suggest they are utterly convinced of the Pope's sanctity. Cardinal Angelo Sodano said in his homily at a Mass on April 2, that the deceased Pope was now "in the serenity of the saints." And by referring to him as "John Paul the Great" the Italian prelate implicitly compared him with only three other Pontiffs: Leo I (440- 461), Gregory I (590- 604), and Nicholas I (858- 867)-- all of them canonized saints.
Cardinal Sodano, to be sure, was not the first to confer that title on the late Pontiff. For several years the title had been suggested quietly by the Pope's most enthusiastic admirers. On March 13, 2005, one Tanzanian prelate became the first to say the words aloud in St. Peter's square. After visiting John Paul II in Gemelli hospital, Bishop Desiderius Rwoma declared: "Certain Popes are called 'the great,' and I don't think we need to wait for his death of call him by that title."
Since the Pope's death, many other prelates and Vatican officials have expressed their own confidence in the personal holiness of John Paul II. Preaching at his funeral, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said the faithful could be sure that "our beloved Pope is standing today at the window of our Father's house." Cardinal Eugenio Sales de Araujo, preaching at a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica on April 8, said that John Paul II is now "celebrating the eternal liturgy with all the saints and the Virgin Mary" and experiencing "the ineffable presence of Jesus Christ."
Meanwhile letters from ordinary members of the Catholic faithful have begun pouring into the Vatican, testifying to miracles that people believe they can attribute to the late Pope's intercession. Some of these reported miracles took place prior to the Pontiff's death. Even Cardinal Francesco Marchisano, the archpriest of the Vatican basilica, disclosed that on one occasion Pope John Paul heard that he was suffering from a throat ailment that prevented him from speaking aloud. The Pope prayed over him, touched the cardinal's throat, and reassured him that his power of speech would soon return-- as indeed it did.
Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, who headed the Pontifical Council for Health Care, offered a more remarkable story to the Italian press. The Mexican prelate revealed that in 1990, when he visited Zacatecas, the Pontiff embraced a 4-year-old boy named Heron Badillo, who was suffering in the terminal stages of leukemia. The boy soon recovered, completely and inexplicably, from his illness. Still, an official at the Secretariat of State cautions that such anecdotal reports will not be enough to ensure the Pope's beatification. The Church's procedures must be followed, he said; the Rome diocese must open a formal inquiry, in which Church officials will rigorously study the life of John Paul II to determine that he showed "heroic virtue" during his life. Once that is done, a new miracle must be approved-- something that occurred after his death, and through his intercession-- before his beatification can be scheduled.
Even in the case of a candidate with a worldwide reputation for sanctity and miraculous powers, the Church does not abandon that detailed inquiry, a Vatican official pointed out. "In the case of Padre Pio, for example, people spoke about the miracles accomplished during his lifetime, but in his cause, we only took one miracle into consideration," says Msgr. Michele Di Ruberto, the undersecretary for the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. The Church, he explained, looks for evidence that the candidate for beatification has performed miraculous healings after his death, as testimony to the power of his intercession.
The formal procedures now followed by the Vatican in appraising candidates for beatification and canonization are of relatively recent vintage. From the first days of Christianity through the Middle Ages, the only real requirement for the recognition of a saint was popular acclaim. A "saint" was simply someone widely recognized among the faithful as a model of holiness.
With the passage of time, bishops recognized that popular devotions could sometimes be misleading. Gradually the hierarchy claimed the right to confer the title of sainthood, and by the 12th century, that right was given to the Pope alone.
For centuries thereafter, the process leading to canonization was not strictly regulated. A candidate's cause was argued by a "promoter," while an official popularly known as "the devil's advocate" was appointed to question every argument, in order to ensure that all doubts of the candidate's sanctity were eliminated.
Finally in 1917, under Pope Benedict XV, the formal rules for a cause were set down in detail. Those rules have occasionally been amended and simplified, most recently by Pope John Paul II himself in his apostolic constitution Divinus Perfectionis Magister in 1983.
The first step in the process-- after the mandatory 5-year wait-- is to examine the candidate's life, to find evidence of "heroic virtue." Theologians then examine all of the candidate's written works and any public speeches that have been preserved, to ensure that there is no sign of divergence from true Catholic doctrine. (In the case of Pope John Paul II, who produced a prodigious body of written work, and thousands of recorded talks, that phase could involve a lengthy research effort.) Finally, if those hurdles are cleared, a miracle must be approved-- with testimony from both theologians and scientists witnessing to it. At that point, the candidate's beatification can be schedule. An additional approved miracle, taking place after the beatification, clears the way for final canonization.
The next Pope, whoever he is, will have the authority to dispense with the 5-year waiting period, and accelerate the cause for John Paul's canonization. That decision, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls, is within the "exclusive competence" of the Roman Pontiff; the cardinals cannot his dictate his choice. But there is little doubt that the leaders of the Roman Curia hope for a favorable decision. Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, the prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, put it neatly when he told the Italian weekly Famiglia Cristiana that "the coming Poe can decide, after evaluating the situation with prudence and wisdom, to dispense with the rules-- as we hope with all our hearts."
Although most of the Popes of the early Church earned popular acclaim as saints, and many of them were martyrs, only a handful of Roman Pontiffs have been canonized since the official process first appeared in the Middle Ages, and only one-- Pope Pius X-- since the days of the Counter-Reformation. The formally canonized Popes are Sts. Leo IX (1049-1054), Gregory VII (1073-1085), Celestine V (1294-1296), Pius V (1566-1572), and Pius X (1903-1914).
Several other Pontiffs have been beatified, again including one 20th-century Pope: Victor III (1086-1087), Urban II (1088-1099), Eugene III (1145-1153), Gregory X (1271-1272), Innocent V (1276-1276), Benedict XI (1303-1304), Urban V (1362-1370), Innocent XI (1676-1689), Pius IX (1846-1878), and John XXIII (1958-1963).
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