Two giants of Roman Catholicism in the 20th century became saints yesterday at an unprecedented twin canonisation that has aroused both joy and controversy in the 1.2 billion member Church.
Pope John XXIII, who reigned from 1958 to 1963 and called the modernising Second Vatican Council, and Pope John Paul II, who reigned for nearly 27 years before his death in 2005 and whose trips around the world made him the most visible Pope in history, were declared saints by Pope Francis.
While Pope John died half a century ago, critics say the canonisation of Pope John Paul – which sets a record for modern times of only nine years after his death – is too hasty. They also believe he was slow to grasp the seriousness of the sexual abuse crisis that emerged towards the end of his pontificate. While the late Polish Pope is hailed for his role in helping to bring about the fall of communism, critics have questioned his actions as the child abuse scandals – which have since shaken the moral authority of leaders of the world’s largest religious denomination – began coming into the open.
Specifically, they have pressed the Vatican over what Pope John Paul knew about sexual abuse by Fr Marcial Maciel, the Mexican founder of a disgraced Catholic religious order, the Legionaries of Christ.
Fr Maciel lived a double life for years as a paedophile, womaniser and drug addict while running the rich, conservative order he founded and being held up by the pope and his aides as an example of an outstanding religious leader.
Pope John Paul’s defenders said that, while aides might have known the allegations were true, they kept much information from him. The Pope seemingly ignored the warnings, believing the charges were part of a plot against the Church similar to those by communist authorities in Poland during the Cold War.
Maciel was eventually disciplined in 2006 by John Paul’s successor, former Pope Benedict, when the Vatican was forced to admit that decades of allegations were true.
Groups representing victims of sexual abuse have criticised Pope John Paul over the Maciel case as well as his decision to give Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, who was forced to resign in 2002 after scandals hit the United States, a prestigious job in Rome.
“Popes can’t wield massive power yet evade responsibility for massive wrongdoing just because his aides may have carefully shielded him from the gory details,” the US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (Snap) said in a statement. But some in the Church think popes should not be made saints, even if they are undoubtedly saintly men. “This is an example of the papacy canonising itself,” said Luigi Accattoli, one of Italy’s most respected Catholic authors.
Accattoli knew both popes and is sure they were holy men, but has some reservations about the politics of saint-making.
“By canonising a Pope, the papacy confirms itself. It’s as if they are saying that the policies of previous popes are untouchable,” he told Reuters. “In a sense the Church tries to withdraw itself from judgement by public opinion”.
John Thavis, author of the best-selling book The Vatican Diaries noted that it was John Paul who wanted more ‘ordinary’ saints, encouraging the Vatican’s saint makers to find lay people and even a married couple to canonise. “So it’s a little ironic that, with his own canonisation, the focus has shifted back to the top of the hierarchy,” he told Reuters.