[ad_1]
During his 27-year pontificate, Pope John Paul II canonized so many people that some have dubbed the Vatican the “factory of saints”. Now, the legacy of the Polish Pope himself is clouded and some Catholics wonder whether declaring him a saint in 2014, just nine years after his death, was not a hasty decision.
Last week, the Vatican released its report on the destitute Theodore McCarrick, a star of the Catholic Church in the United States who was expelled from the priesthood last year after an internal investigation found him guilty of sexual abuse by of minors and adults Abuse of power.
The report showed that John Paul II promoted McCarrick to the archbishop of Washington DC in 2000, despite persistent rumors of his sexual misconduct, with the Pope believing the prelate’s words, denying the allegations, and dismissing the advice from several senior Church officials who advised him not to.
The report reignited a debate among John Paul II’s defenders and detractors who accompanied his canonization – an official acknowledgment that a person lived and died in such an exemplary way that he was with God in heaven and is worthy of worship, or adoration. , inside the church. “Saints are human beings and saints, in their humanity, can be deceived,” wrote papal biographer George Weigel.
The head of the Polish Bishops’ Conference said that McCarrick “cynically deceived” John Paul II, but not all Poles agreed. In Warsaw, someone pasted a sheet of paper on the João Paulo II boulevard sign with the text “João Paulo II boulevard victims In the United States, the influential newspaper National Catholic journalist he urged the bishops to “suppress the cult” of the Pope.
This would mean that although John Paul II continued to be considered a saint, schools or churches should not have his name and devotional activities should be private. “It’s time for a tough showdown. This man… undermined the testimony of the global Church, destroyed its credibility as an institution and set a deplorable example to bishops by ignoring reports of abuse victims, ”the newspaper said in an editorial.
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said he had no comment. OR McCarrick report he believed that John Paul II’s willingness to believe in the then cardinal’s denial was likely influenced by his experience in Poland, where the Communist government used false accusations to weaken the Church.
Proponents of John Paul II offered the same explanation for countering claims that the Pope turned a blind eye to Father Marcial Maciel, the Mexican founder of the religious order of the Legionaries of Christ, who was the best-known sex offender in the Church.
“The problems that have arisen with the way John Paul II treated McCarrick show that it is a mistake to be hasty in the canonization of someone,” said Father Tom Reese, an analyst with the independent organization Religion News Service. “I am against the canonization of popes because they generally have more to do with the politics of the Church than with holiness,” he said. “The saints must be role models. How can one follow the model of a pope, unless he is a pope? ”
John Paul II canonized almost 500 saints, compared to 300 in the previous 600 years.
The Pope changed a previous rule of the process leading to canonization, known as the “cause”, according to which the process cannot begin until 50 years after a person’s death. John Paul II reduced the period to five years and allowed immediate exceptions. When Pope Benedict XVI was chosen in 2005, he renounced the rule, allowing John Paul II’s “cause” to begin a few weeks after his death.
Catholic author Dawn Eden Goldstein tweeted that the McCarrick report he did not change his conviction that John Paul II was a saint, but he did change the way in which he addresses his prayers: “Now I say: dear Saint John Paul II, put an end to this, now do it”.
.
[ad_2]
Source link
