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Blessed
are you Pope John Paul II because you believed!
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The
faith of Peter
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the last 60 years, there have been three ceremonies for the Beatification
of a Roman Pontiff. In 1951, Pius X was raised to the honours of the altar
(and canonized only three years later), in 1956 Innocent XI, and in 2000,
Pius IX and John XXIII together. A historical innovation, due to an intensification
of hagiography, never before seen in the Church of Rome. Indeed, one must
look to late antiquity and the medieval period for a similar precedent,
albeit very different, and it is no coincidence that one finds there the
reform Popes, Leo IX and Gregory VII.
Indeed, one must go back to the second half of the eleventh century to find the recognition of holiness by a Pontiff for his immediate Predecessor, such as has occurred with the solemn Beatification - a unique event on the world scene - of John Paul II. Only six years after his death, that death which is still in the hearts of millions and millions of people, believers and non-believers, as happened with the agony of John XXIII. The exceptionality of the papal decision - 'with due respect' for the norms but at the same time "with reasonable haste" as Benedict XVI explained - and the very recent history of the long Pontificate of Karol Wojtyla are not enough to explain the uniqueness of this Beatification and the interest it has created throughout the world. Certainly, all of that explains the influx of one and a half million people into Rome, and in part, the generally widespread consensus which greeted the Beatification whether through a mature and convinced reasoning, or in an only superficial and apparent forgetfulness of the harsh criticism to which John Paul II was subjected during the years he was Pope; dramatic and exciting years now consigned to history. Years and work whose incisiveness and relevance are now beginning to be evaluated and recognized historically, as Benedict XVI himself noted. The Pope in fact said that John Paul II, heir of the Second Vatican Council and of Paul VI, inverted, "with the strength of a titan - strength which was given to him by God - a tendency which could have seemed irreversible". The tendency of closure towards Christ, the only Lord and Saviour of the world. Giving the Church a renewed direction, 'he rightly reclaimed for Christianity that impulse of hope which had in some sense faltered before Marxism and the ideology of progress. He legitimately restored to Christianity its true faceˇK". That it turns its face towards the future which Christ, the only capable of responding to the expectations of the human heart and the final point of history. But aside from the greatness of a Pope - and the even greater humility of his Successor who remembered, visibly moved, John Paul II - the reason for the uniqueness of his Beatification was above all the dimension of faith: the faith of Peter, as described by Benedict XVI. Amongst the waving flags and repeated applause, between irrepressible and copious tears of joy, in an enthusiasm that after the beatification left an impressive silence. In the prayer to God before the new Blessed. Blessed because, like Mary and like Peter, he believed in and entrusted himself to the Lord. By Giovanni
Maria Vian, Editor in Chief, L'Osservatore Romano, 4 May 2011 |