By Sandro Contenta
Toronto Star
April 30, 2011
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/983035--pope-john-paul-ii-deserving-of-sainthood-or-of-condemnation-for-ignoring-sex-abuse
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| A child runs in front of a giant poster of the late pope John Paul II displayed in St Peter's Square in the Vatican on April 29, 2011. John Paul II will be honoured on May 1 at a beatification ceremony in Saint Peter's basilica. |
On Sunday, hundreds of thousands of Catholics are expected to gather in Rome for the beatification of John Paul II, the most charismatic pope of modern times.
For a Roman Catholic Church still reeling from the fallout of sex abuse scandals, the religious celebration comes as a much needed reprieve.
At his death six years ago, a popular movement began to virtually acclaim John Paul a saint. An estimated four million pilgrims descended on Rome when Parkinson’s disease ended his 27-year pontificate, some shouting “santo subito” —sainthood now — at his funeral mass.
His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, agreed to fast-track the beatification, which declares John Paul “blessed” and is the last step before sainthood. He waived the five-year waiting period for starting the process after a candidate’s death.
The Vatican credited the Polish pope with the miraculous cure of a French nun who said her Parkinson’s disappeared after praying to John Paul. Church-appointed doctors concluded there was no medical explanation for the cure. For John Paul to become a saint, the Vatican will have to declare that a second miracle has occurred.
Doubts have been raised about the nun’s miraculous recovery. But to many Catholics, John Paul’s accomplishments during his time as their spiritual leader are reason enough for veneration.
He’s the pontiff who helped unravel the Soviet Union by encouraging democratic movements in his native Poland. He took a firm stand against the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and made inter-faith dialogue a priority, becoming the first pope to visit a mosque.
He was also “the rock star pope,” making more than 100 foreign trips and holding massive outdoor masses. And in his final weeks, no longer able to speak, he could move large crowds with a simple wave or a pained expression.
“All the world loved the man,” says retired autoworker Bill Dranski, 74, one of 56 GTA residents travelling as a group to the beatification. “He gave everyone hope.”
Within the church, John Paul’s largely conservative doctrines were at times contested. But with the church struggling, most seem willing to overlook past differences and experience his beatification as a unifying moment, says Rev. Gilles Routhier, a theology professor at Quebec City’s Laval University.
The years since John Paul’s death have been tumultuous ones for the church, presided over by a successor with none of his charisma.
Conservatives and progressives are deeply divided over the historic reforms of the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s. Many have been appalled by reactionary signs, most notably Pope Benedict’s lifting of the excommunication of four fundamentalist bishops, one of whom denied the Holocaust. Relations with other faiths are also strained.
“There are forces that are pulling (the church) apart,” Routhier says. “John Paul II was a pope who rallied the faithful, and we don’t have that (with Benedict) at the moment.”
Many will no doubt be reminded of this contrast in leadership at the beatification. But the ceremony also raises questions about John Paul’s role in the sex abuse scandals, many of which occurred under his watch.
“Is he not the pope who kept silent, or who didn’t take firm decisions, or who didn’t see or didn’t measure the gravity of things?” Routhier says, outlining the kinds of questions that might be asked.
When John Paul’s beatification was announced in January, the U.S.-based Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests criticized what it described as a “hasty drive to confer sainthood on the pontiff under whose reign most of the widely documented clergy sex crimes and coverups took place.”
The sexual abuse of children and adolescents by priests speaks directly to John Paul’s poor management of the church, says Massimo Faggioli, assistant professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn.
The late pope left the running of parishes to bishops he appointed, who were “known more for their obedience and silence than for their intelligence or courage,” Faggioli says. They had an interest in covering up sex abuse by parish priests, fearing it would reflect badly on their management skills and hurt their careers, he adds.
“During his pontificate, John Paul clearly overlooked this,” Faggioli says of the sex abuse. “He did not pay attention, and gave too much power to cardinals and bishops.”
The most disturbing case is that of Mexican priest Marcial Maciel Degollado, a drug addict who ran the powerful Legion of Christ, a staunchly conservative movement that had John Paul’s firm backing.
Father Maciel, as he was commonly known, died in 2008. He was accused of abusing at least nine seminarians and of fathering several children with different women, one of whom says she was his common-law wife for 21 years. He also channelled large sums of money to the Vatican, part of it from the selling of private audiences with John Paul for as much as $50,000.
The allegations were widely reported in the Mexican press. The nine seminarians also wrote to the Vatican about their ordeal. Yet the Vatican didn’t act until after John Paul’s death. In 2006, Pope Benedict removed Maciel from public ministry.
Pope Benedict has also been criticized for his handling of sex abuse allegations when, as Cardinal Ratzinger, he was John Paul’s enforcer of Catholic doctrine. But Faggioli argues that the troubled Church he now heads is very much the product of his predecessor.
So on Sunday, when the Catholic faithful watch Pope Benedict preside over the veneration of his predecessor, the ceremony will strike Faggioli as somewhat ironic: “The one who is left cleaning this mess has to beatify the one who created it.”
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