Why the Rush?

by Sue Rakoczy · January 18, 2011

The news that Pope John Paul II will be beatified on 1 May makes me ask “Why the �rush for popes to beatify/canonize other popes?” I remember when Mother Teresa of Calcutta died, some of the students at St Joseph’s Theological Institute where I lecture were all for instant canonization. I asked them, “What difference will it make to your life? Will you serve the poor more frequently if she has Saint in front of her name?”

The process of beatification and canonization is very political. Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei, was rushed through since he was a favourite of John Paul II. And the only reason Fr Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legionnaires of Christ, �was not beatified by him was that Macial �died in 2008. �What a scandal that would have been as the real facts of his life have shown. In contrast, the cause of Oscar Romero has been stalled for a long while.

In the early 1980s John Paul II changed some of the processes of beatification and canonization. One change was to eliminate the “devil’s advocate”–the person who raises objections.

Here are two objections. The first is that in the early 1980s John Paul II took no decisive action when the scandal of the sexual abuse crisis began to be known. He had a very exalted image of the priesthood and did very little.

The second was his refusal to resign when his health had deteriorated so severely that it has been reported that he spent days in bed, unable to cope with the work he should have been doing. When asked about resigning, he said that “Christ did not come down from the cross”. �But a pope is elected for the good of the church, and a pope with Parkinson’s disease in its later stages (which can include dementia) is not able to do what he was elected to do. What a witness of humility and service he would have given to the church if he had resigned for the good of the church when he was so ill. �He also would have set a precedent for future popes who might live into their 90s with severe illness and dementia.

What political message is his swift beatification giving us?