Just days after the death of Pope John Paul II, “cardinals
eager to uphold his conservative policies had already begun discussing putting
him on a fast track to sainthood.”[1]
This alone could have alerted religionists as to the possible sanctification of
an ideology within the Roman Catholic Church. The force of an ideology to its
partisans can render them deaf to other considerations. The church ideologues
clamoring for the ages-old process of canonization to be disregarded—hardly a
conservative demand—chose not to hear the “notes of caution from survivors of
sexual abuse and historians that John Paul had persistently turned a blind eye
to the crimes in his church.”[2]
Fifteen years later, the Vatican itself admitted that the former pope had known
of the crimes of Archbishop (of New York) Theodore McCarrick yet refused to put
a stop to them. “The investigation, commissioned by Pope Francis, who canonized
John Paul in 2014, revealed how John Paul chose not to believe longstanding
accusations of sexual abuse against [McCarrick], including pedophilia, allowing
him to climb the hierarchy’s ladder.”[3]
Rather than being a mere mistake in judgment, as some conservatives would argue,
the decision to look the other way resulted in great evil. The foreseeable
consequences meant that John Paul II allowed more rapes to happen. Besides the
rather obvious point that a saint would not have done so, and thus the
canonization of John Paul II was erroneous, this case suggests that the “two
miracles” requirement for canonization is itself flawed.
The claim for canonization was that in at least two cases,
people prayed to John Paul II and subsequently were healed. The conclusion that
the former pope intervened with God to cure the petitioners suffers from the
fact that positive correlation does not in itself constitute causation.
Moreover, the emphasis on a metaphysical requirement takes the attention off
the real question: Was the candidate’s life saintly? To say that a cleric was a
religious man is not sufficient, for that goes with the territory. In fact, the
possibility of “insider trading” and “hierarchical favoritism” should trigger
extra safeguards in cases in which the candidates were clerics in the
hierarchy. Put another way, canonization has more credibility in cases in which
the candidates were not bishops, cardinals, or popes.
The metaphysical/life distinction is relevant to
the Catholic Church beyond the issue of canonization. If a lay person believes
in transubstantiation and ingests the body and blood of Christ after the
consecration in the Mass and yet does not reach out to help detractors and even
enemies when they are in need, of what good is the metaphysical belief,
practically speaking? Valuing Christ’s teachings and trying to live by his
example must be met even if the liturgical consecration is revered. The faith
is that the two go together, but if they don’t, the matter of valuing Christ’s
teachings for how to get into the Kingdom of God by how others are treated must
be decisive. Similarly in canonization proceedings, the matter of a candidate’s
life is decisive.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
