Pope Francis and his predecessor Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI were present yesterday at the service of canonisation of Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II, which the Vatican called “the day of the four popes”. Two giants of the 20th century Roman Catholic Church became saints at an unprecedented twin canonisation, which has brought both joy and controversy in the Church.
John XXIII and John Paul II were declared saints at extraordinary speed since, by convention, the Church has waited a few hundred years for the dust to settle after their deaths, with slow promotion from “Venerable” to “Blessed,” before declaring de fide that a soul is with God in heaven.
The double canonisation has attracted controversy. John XXIII, who called the modernising Second Vatican Council and reigned for five years, died 51 years ago, while John Paul II who reigned for nearly 27 years, died only nine years ago. More pertinently, John Paul II is held to have been lax in grasping the seriousness of the clerical sex abuse crisis which has wracked the Church in the last decades.
Moreover, some in the Church think popes should not be made saints, even if they are undoubtedly saintly men. By indulging in papal saint-making the papacy is in effect canonising itself. Ironically, it was John Paul II himself who had pleaded for the Vatican to find “ordinary people” to canonise.
To establish that a soul is indeed in heaven, two miracles have to be ascribed to the candidates for canonisation. Miracles are defined as “an event that apparently contradicts known scientific laws”. The saints themselves do not perform miracles. This is done by God at their request. He, God, interferes with the laws of nature to cure from terminal illness those who have prayed to the candidate.
John XXIII produced only one miracle, but Francis declared that this was enough. John Paul II produced a second miracle when a Costa Rican woman, who suffered from a brain aneurysm and had been given a month to live, prayed to John Paul II after seeing the Polish Pontiff on a magazine cover, and on May 1, 2011, the anniversary of his beatification, was cured.
For many, the Catholic Church’s attribution of otherwise unexplained events to miracles strains credulity. However, the miraculous is at the heart of the Catholic religion, whether it be the Resurrection of Jesus or the teaching on Transubstantiation. Jesus established his credentials as the Son of God by taking complete control over the physical world, turning water into wine, walking on water, curing lepers and reviving those who were already dead.
Miracles are found throughout the history of the Church, performed by holy men and women while they were living, or by their relics when they were dead. At the heart of the controversy over the miracles performed by John XXIII and John Paul II is whether human beings, because they have the largest brains, not only know more than other creatures but know all that there is to be known. The Church therefore applies very strict criteria in the validation of miracles.
The Church yesterday declared John XXIII and John Paul II to have left an indelible mark on Catholicism. The millions of Catholic believers who thronged St Peter’s Square had no doubt in their minds that the canonisation of two of the most beloved popes of the last 50 years followed only the most scrupulous investigation by Pope Francis, and were utterly worthy of imitation by them.