There is no doubting that Pope John Paul II, who will be beatified today by his successor at St Peter’s in Rome, was a saintly figure. He was thrust into the papacy seemingly providentially, taking the helm of the Catholic Church when no one expected it given his predecessor had been installed just weeks earlier.
The athletic Pole immediately brought new verve to the vocation. He was relatively young, photogenic, free of the formality that shackles Italian clergymen and engaged effortlessly with his flock. A breath of fresh air that could not have come at a more opportune moment.
Yet behind the ever-present smile, that won over hearts in bountiful abundance, lay a frame of steel and purpose. All too aware of the horrors faced by countries – such as his own – that by a cruel twist of fate were on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, he actively set about tearing it down and accomplished the mission long before his papacy came to an end.
In doing so he also placed himself in harm’s way – detested, as he was, and feared by the forces he unhesitatingly took on. But his reaction to a vile assassination attempt in 1981 was to publicly forgive his aggressor and visit him in prison.
Moreover, in the years that followed he trotted round the globe like no other, kissing the ground wherever he went and using the world’s media, who were putty in his hands, to spread the message he believed he was placed on earth to deliver.
Pope John Paul not only embodied the principles espoused by the Church he represented, he lived them. In his writings, when he dwelt on the mystery of divine mercy, but also through his own suffering – no more apparent when the thorn-like grip of Parkinson’s disease took unyielding hold of him.
In pain and incapacitated, he continued to lead by example. So much so that the reflection he delivered after the assassination attempt could also have been applied to his last days on earth.
“In sacrificing himself for us all,” the Pope had said, “Christ gave a new meaning to suffering, opening up a new dimension, a new order: the order of love... It is this suffering which burns and consumes evil with the flame of love and draws forth even from sin a great flowering of good.” That practised belief, as Pope Benedict had observed during his predecessor’s funeral, is what made John Paul II’s words so fruitful.
It is for all these reasons that hundreds of thousands washed the streets of Rome with their tears as they cried out “santo subito” when John Paul II was laid to rest.
However, the arduous formal road to sainthood in the Catholic Church – requiring the broad passage of time and two proven miracles – threatened to silence that call.
In relaxing the time requirement for the process of beatification to take place, Pope Benedict has ensured that the faithful will give vent to their voices once again in Rome.
But in doing so he may also have opened up the Church to criticism. One, for an apparent act of favouritism, perhaps even populism, in relaxing the time requirement; two, because the miracle attributed to the late Pope has been called into question. A better course may have been for Pope Benedict to change the rules on sainthood altogether, for everyone.
This, of course, will hardly matter in John Paul II’s case. He was viewed by many to be a saint in life, and will be considered that in death irrespective of any official pronouncement.