As We Have Long Known...John Paul II Is a Saint

Dear readers, I don't want to ignore the momentous events in Egypt, but today the entire world has received extraordinarily good news. Pope John Paul II has cleared the final hurdle before being made a saint, awaiting only the final approval from Pope Francis and a date for the ceremony that could come as soon as December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, to whom John Paul was profoundly devoted his entire life. The Vatican's news agency reported that a commission of cardinals and bishops met Tuesday to consider John Paul's case and approved it. A Vatican official confirmed that the decision had been taken some time back and that Tuesday's meeting was essentially a formality. The news confirmed reports in La Stampa newspaper that John Paul could be canonized together with Pope John XXIII, who called the Second Vatican Council but died in 1963 before it was finished. John Paul II has been on a "fast track" for possible sainthood ever since his 2005 death, when hundreds of thousands of people standing vigil in Saint Peter's Square spontaneously shouted "Sainthood now" when his death was announced on 2 April 2005. There remains some concern that the process has been too quick. Some of the Holy See's deep-seated problems - clerical sex abuse, dysfunctional governance and more recently the financial scandals at the Vatican bank - essentially date from shortcomings of his pontificate. Defenders of the fast-track process argue that people are canonized, not pontificates. But the Vatican in the past has sought to balance concerns about papal saints by giving two the honor at the same time. By canonizing John Paul II along with John XXIII, the Vatican could be seeking to assuage concerns about John Paul's fast-track sainthood case by tying it together with the 50-year wait John XXIII has had to endure. Many in Poland have been awaiting the final steps of John Paul's progress, which has been championed by Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the Polish pope's longtime private secretary. Reverend Robert Necek told Polish TVN24 television : "This is the next and the last step towards canonization. It will be presented to Pope Francis and the pope will take the appropriate decision." As Pope - the Vicar of Jesus Christ and successor of St. Peter - John Paul revolutionized the modern papacy. He took his mission out of the confines of the Vatican and around the world, pushing back the boundaries - proselytizing, reforming, opening new churches wherever he went in Latin America, the United States, the East and Africa. He wooed and won the media with his personal gifts and variety. He was the skiing pope, the poet pope, the best-selling CD pope, the designer robes pope, the intellectual pope. But he never descended into trivia celebrity. He was the pope who brought down Communism...who worked ceaselessly toward Christian reconciliation with the Jews...who raised his voice against the contemporary culture of death...who brought millions of young people to faith with his often-quoted words : " Do not be afraid." He never consulted pollsters, but marched to a stern, unyielding drummer. So John Paul II was sometimes the infuriating pope, the retrograde pope, the silencing pope, the pope who ignored the revolutionary changes in the status of women. His uncompromising limitations, as well as his extraordinary accomplishments, reflect the vanished world of Poland where Karol Wojtyla came of age in the time when Nazi Germany ravaged his beloved country before his own eyes. This brought him early wisdom, respect for all human life and sensitivity to the suffering of Jews under the Nazis. John Paul was one of the most traveled world leaders in history, visiting 129 countries during his pontificate. As part of his special emphasis on the need for holiness, he beatified 1,340 people and canonised 483, a combined total that exceeds that of his predecessors during the preceding five centuries. He named most of the present College of Cardinals, consecrated or co-consecrated a large number of the world's past and current bishops, and ordained many priests. A key goal of his papacy was to transform and reposition the Catholic Church. He wanted "to place his Church at the heart of a new religious alliance that would bring together Jews, Moslems and Christians - a great [religious] armada." John Paul II was proclaimed venerable by his successor Pope Benedict XVI, who beatified him on 1 May 2011. Some key elements of his strategy to "reposition the Catholic Church" were : (1) emphasising the importance of "starting afresh from Christ" : "No, we shall not be saved by a formula but by a Person." (2) defending the dependence of man on God and His Law ("Without the Creator, the creature disappears") and the "dependence of freedom on the truth." He warned of man "giving himself over to an illusory search of an illusory freedom apart from truth itself." (3) He described the mutually supporting relationship between faith and reason, and emphasised that theologians should focus on that relationship. (4) He talked about the dignity of women, although he asserted the Church's lack of authority to ordain women to the priesthood, claiming that without such authority ordination could find no support, and he dwelt on the importance of the family for the future of humanity, explicitly re-asserting Catholic moral teachings against euthanasia and abortion ("All human life, from the moments of conception and through all subsequent stages, is sacred") that have been in place for well over a thousand years and urged a more nuanced view of the forms of capital punishment while condemning it generally (calling euthanasia and capital punishment part of the "culture of death" that is pervasive in the modern world). ~~~~~ As Saint Thomas More became the Renaissance Man for All Seasons standing firm against the immoral excesses of Henry VIII, so John Paul II stood firm against the immoral excesses of the 20th-century secular world. He is truly Our Saint - whether we are religious or atheist. The man who suffered the modern world's most evil moments personally, but who kept constant and deep faith with the fundamental goodness of man, recognized that man must be connected to the universal truths of his existence and to the universal God Who represents them. We are all the children of John Paul II and every one of us can follow his precepts and call on him and his wisdom at any moment for help, understanding and guidance.