Just as happens in movie films, canonisations produce a word picture of a
new
saint with a slogan worthy of Hollywood. In his homily on Sunday
April 27 at
the twin ceremony canonising Popes John XXIII and John Paul
II, Pope Francis I
described them, respectively, as 'the pope of
exquisite openness¹ and 'the
pope of the family.¹ The common bond shared
by the rugged peasant-diplomat
from Bergamo, Angelo Roncalli, and the
ubiquitous Slav crowd-puller from
Poland, Karol Wojtyla, was how as
towering figures of the twentieth century
they addressed 'courageously¹
the issues of the day which confronted their
pontificates.
This double-billing, however, could not conceal the political dimension
that
united them in acclaimed sanctity. John XXIII, the Pope who opened
the
windows of Tridentine Catholicism to change and reform, and John
Paul II who
with authoritarian firmness pursued a restoration policy
which was continued
by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, who as pope
emeritus had a place of
honour at the unique ceremony of the four
popes.
Recognised already as a super-star of the contemporary world, the
first
Argentine to occupy the petrine throne enhanced his phenomenal
personal
popularity since his election almost 14 months ago by
signalling to the
world's 1.2 billion Catholics that the broad church
which he envisions has an
inclusive place for two such contrasting
leaders. Their joint canonisation was
a significant expression of
synthesis representing how Francis sees in the
different roles of both
men a fundamental unity of purpose and shared values
consistent with his
own calls for a transparent church embracing simplicity,
poverty and
evangelical missionary fervour.
'They were priests, bishops and popes of
the 20th century,¹ Francis told the
estimated 800,000 pilgrims mostly
from Poland as well as the many more viewers
who watched the proceedings
on television. 'They lived through the tragic
events of that century,
but they were not overwhelmed by them. For them, God
was more powerful;
faith was more powerful.'
Journalist Jim Yardley, In the International
Herald Tribune, noted that the
canonisation ceremony offered Francis 'a
stage to underscore his world agenda
of trying to bring together
different Catholic factions as he prepares for two
major meetings in
which prelates are expected to address some of the most
contentious
social issues facing the church.¹ This was a reference to next
October's
Extraordinary Synod on the family which aims to reach conclusions at
a
second assembly next year, and the Council of Eight Cardinals charged
with
reform of the Roman Curia. 1. John Cooney, Francis¹s Ecumenical
Project
collegial papal reform, Doctrine and Life, May-June,
2013.
In the days leading up to the ceremony Vatican officials sought to
supercede
the political sub-text with a religious message, namely, that
by canonising
the pope of change and the pope of restoration together
the liberal and
conservative constituencies within the church would work
together more
harmoniously in future. This is a goal easier expounded
than achieved, as I
observed at the Friday April 24 midday press
briefing in the Salla Stampa on
the Via della Concilizione, where
Fathers Federico Lombardi, Francis Rostica
and Manuel Dorantes beamed
like anchor men on a celebrity television show at
which the guest
speaker, Dr Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the former Vatican
spokesman and
member of Opus Dei, regaled journalists at length with fond,
sometimes
funny and insightful stories of what it was like working with JP2.
It
took almost an hour and a half of beatific memories before journalists
were
invited to ask questions. This brought the conference back to earth
as several
relevant ones were fired about the tardiness of Pope John
Paul II in tackling
the clerical paedophile scandals and his personal
patronage and protection of
the disgraced late Fr Marcial Maciel, the
Mexican founder of the Legionaries
of Christ. In unison the Vatican
apologists insisted that Pope John Paul, by
then struggling with the
infirmities of age, authorised the inquiry which
under Pope Benedict led
to Maciel's being disgraced and confined to a
monastery. Navarro-Valls
revealed how he raised the question of Maciel¹s
standing with Pope
Benedict on his first day as pope and of how the former
Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger who had led the investigation as Prefect of the
Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith had decided to handle the matter
head on.
Just as it seemed that the earlier jollity might vanish in further
questioning about the untimeliness of canonising John Paul, a reliable
Italian
journalist prompted Navarro-Valls to recall at what moment did
he realise he
> was working for a saint!
> While recognising the
santo subito acclaim of the crowd when John Paul died in
April 2005
and of how Francis decided on his own authority as current pope to
canonise John XXIII on the basis of one miracle only I found myself
less
engaged in the canonisation process than I had been at the conclave
of March
2013 which elected Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires. 2.
Doctrine and
Life, April 2013.
Our contemporary understanding of
a saint is that of a person whose lifestyle
is inspired by a lifetime of
virtue, ethics, compassion, solidarity and
community. In spite of the
jubilant wandering gruppo after gruppo of Poles
who took over Rome¹s
shrines, streets and trattoria, I felt strong
reservations about
Wojtyla¹s canonisation. A church historian told me of how
as late as
2003 he attended a meeting of newly ordained priests at which John
Paul specifically urged them to model their priesthood on Maciel. An Anglican
theologian who is 'an honorary Jesuit, Noel Coghlan, contends that JP2's
confrontations with those whose views he
found difficult to accept
such as Hans Kung, Edward Schillebeeckx and the
Jesuits under Pedro
Arrupe - raises grave questions about his role as a model
of a way of
life.
During my six day stay in Rome I re-read an interview which I did
back in 1992
with Cardinal Leo Joseph Suenens, then 87, at his convent
retirement home in
the Brussels suburb of Stuyvenburgh ahead of the
English language publication
by Veritas of his book, Memories and Hopes.
Referring to a book, Making
Saints, by Kenneth L. Woodward which
highlighted John Paul's 'factory¹
approach to canonisations, Suenens
said that in in his own lifetime he had met
six or seven persons who
everyone knew were saints. He mentioned Mother Teresa
of Calcutta,
Archbishop Dom Helder Camara of Recife and the Founder of the
Legion of
Mary, Frank Duff. It remains a matter of curiosity to me that the
Belgian primate did not include his hero John XXIII and that a precondition
of
the interview was that I 'leave alone¹ matters of controversy
surrounding John
Paul¹s pontificate. 3. John Cooney, Cardinal Suenens
Remembers, Doctrine and
Life, April 1992.
Said Cardinal Suenens:
'But I say to everyone: "Be a saint but do not try to
be canonised." We
should revise completely the procedures for canonisation.¹
Despite these
niggling doubts that Francis was making his first mistake with
the twin
canonisation, and recalling the many extraordinary people including my
parents May Clark and Francis Cooney who are among Cardinal Suenens¹s
uncanonised saints, I nonetheless felt an exhilaration that I was attending the
church's solemn conferral of
sainthood on two popes I had seen John
XXIII in audience in 1962 ahead of
the opening of the Second Vatican
Council and being introduced to John Paul by
the late Cardinal Tomas
O'Fiaich and Jim Cantwell at the Pontifical Irish
College in January
1980 just months after his visit to Ireland.
Such was were the numbers
of pious Poles in Rome that on the big day I could
not get through the
barriers closing off St Peter¹s Square and had to find a
spot in a
ristorante on the Piazza Risorgimento where for a five euro café
Americano (double the usual price) I was able to follow the ceremony on
television. While I might have watched the ceremony more
comfortably and
concisely on SKY television at home in Dublin, I had come to
Rome with
the added intention of gauging the reformist mood in Rome in the
run-up
to October's Synod. In the days after the canonisations, there were
meetings of three important bodies established by Pope Francis: the Council
of
Cardinals (plus Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin) which is
mapping
out an overhaul of the Roman Curia under the chairmanship of
Cardinal Oscar
Rodriguez Madriaga, who appeared to be enjoying his new
found celebrity satus
and was to be seen conversing with well wishers
without his canonical gear in
the Borgo Pio; the Council for the Economy
which under Australian Cardinal
George Pell is mandated by Francis to
come up with economic policies that will
introduce best financial
practices for the Holy See; and, particularly the> Commission for the
Protection of Minors chaired by Boston Cardinal Sean
O'Malley, on which
Irish woman Marie Collins serves.
At the end of the commission's initial
three day meeting, Cardinal O'Malley
said it would recommend the adoption by
Francis of concrete rules to hold
bishops accountable if they fail to
report suspected cases of child abuse. Some new names will be to the commission
which will be addressed by Francis at its next meeting.
Despite O'Malley's
bravado which runs contrary to the declared position of the Italian ERpiscopal
Conference, I detected a lot of uncertainty in the Vatican corridors of power
about what new dispensation might emerge from all the groups. > That
Francis will have to move quickly and resolutely was hinted at by
Archbishop George Ganswein, now head of the papal household and former
personal secretary to Pope Benedict, who recently told German television
that
Francis is 'not everyone¹s darling¹. 4. The Tablet, p. 33, April
20, 2014.
As if on cue to remind liberati that the old guard has not
gone away, Cardinal
Mueller, the German head of the Congregation of the
Doctrine of the Faith, was
still bent on correcting 'radical feminist¹
tendancies among American nuns.
(Mueller¹s scolding tone belies hopes of
a more humane treatment by the
doctrinal congregation with the welcome
news of the lifting of sanctions on
silenced Irish Marist priest, Fr
Sean Fagan.)
Speaking to Religion News Service, Cardinal Walter Kasper,
'the pope¹s
theologian¹ sidestepped Mueller by observing that fresh
criticism of American
nuns was typical of 'the narrower¹ view that of
officials of the Roman Curia
tend to take. More scathingly on her
website the County Laois-born Bishop
Bridget Mary Meehan of the Roman
Catholic Women Priests movement, cited the
old Irish song, 'Will they
ever learn, no they will never learn... ' adding:
Cardinal Mueller is taking
the Leadership Conference of Women Religious
to task for failing to get
permission from the Vatican for their speakers and awards. They
decided
to give Sister Elizabeth Johnson, a prominent feminist theologian, the 2014
Outstanding
Leadership Award. Imagine, that in this day and age, nuns do
not want to ask Vatican permission
to run their own agenda. Father, may
we please, pretty please invite ---------
as a speaker?¹ 5.`Bridget
Mary's Blog, May 5, 2014.
This kind of crude censorship recalls for me
how back in 1967 as secretary of the
Catholic Society at Glasgow
University I was required by Archbishop James
Donald Scanlan to submit
for his approval a draft list of prospective
speakers, a practice which
was ended in 1968, the year of student revolutions
throughout
Europe.
According to the Archbishop of Dublin and former Vatican
diplomat, Diarmuid Martin, the ordination of women is 'not on the table at the
moment¹, though he noted that Brazilian
Bishop Erwin Krautler has been
reported as saying that Francis is open to
ordaining married male men,
viri probati. 6. The Tablet, Martin open to
married priests, April 26,
2014. And in their response to a Vatican survey ahead of the October Synod,
Archbishop Martin and the Irish Episcopal Conference have acknowledged that the
church¹s teaching on marriage and family life is disconnected from the real life
experience of many Irish
Catholics. Many respondents expressed
'particular difficulties¹ with the
teachings on extra-marital sex and
cohabitation by unmarried couples, divorce
and remarriage, family
planning, assisted human reproduction and
homosexuality. 7. Sarah
MacDonald, Church teaching out of sync with Irish
life, survey finds,
The Tablet, March 22, 2014.
Furthermore, Ireland's Prime Minister, Enda
Kenny,who attended the canonisation ceremony and issued Francis with an
invitation to visit Ireland, went out of his way to heal recent rows with the
Holy See by asserting that with the advent of Francis a situation now existed
where the Irish church
wants to deal with the scandals of the past 'in
an upfront and open way¹. The
the Irish embassy to the Holy See is
reopening under diplomat Emma Madigan
8. Paddy Agnew and Patsy
McGarry, Church-State bond stronger, says Kenny, The
Irish Times, Monday
April 28, 2014.
In spite of these optimistic noises from the upper echelons
of church and state in Ireland, the reality is that for at least the past two
decades opinion polls have shown consistently that the majority of Irish
Catholics want women priests.
The time has arrived for a full public to
ensure that women are not the losers in future reforms in Ireland and they are
admitted to the altars and pulpits as priests.
John Cooney is a
former Religious Affairs Correspondent of the Irish Times
and the Irish
Independent. He is the biographer of John Charles McQuaid, Ruler of Catholic
Ireland.
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