Canonization date set for John XXIII and John Paul II - April 27, 2014

[TommyCelt]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/01/world/europe/francis-to-canonize-popes-john-xxiii-and-john-paul-ii-on-same-day.html?hp&_r=0

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Monday set a date next year to declare the sainthood of two of his most influential predecessors on the same day in what was taken as a gesture designed to promote unity within the Roman Catholic Church.

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.The two popes — John Paul II and John XXIII — will be canonized on April 27, Francis said during a meeting with cardinals at the Vatican. Some Vatican analysts said the decision to canonize two popes simultaneously was highly unusual, if not unparalleled.

The pope announced in July that he would canonize the two men but did not set a date. Initially, there were indications that the two men, who have disparate followings among reformers and conservatives within the church, would be canonized later this year.

Both pontiffs achieved considerable international stature: John Paul II for encouraging the fall of communism in his native Poland and across Eastern Europe, and John XXIII for assembling the liberalizing Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.

Unusually, Francis approved the canonization of John XXIII without a second miracle normally attributed to successful candidates for sainthood.

The process leading to the canonization of John Paul II began almost immediately after his death in 2005. In a preliminary step, he was beatified in May 2011 after a Vatican committee credited him with interceding to cure a French nun, Marie Simon-Pierre Normand, of Parkinson’s disease. John Paul II suffered from the same disease.

The second miracle attributed to John Paul II was said to be the healing of a woman who prayed to the pope on the day of his beatification.

In July, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Francis was eager to canonize John XXIII. “Despite the absence of a second miracle, it was the pope’s will that the sainthood of the great pope of the Second Vatican Council be recognized,” he said.

At John Paul II’s beatification ceremony, which drew one and a half million people to Rome, Benedict lauded John Paul II as a central figure in the history of the 20th century and a hero of the church.

“He was witness to the tragic age of big ideologies, totalitarian regimes, and from their passing John Paul II embraced the harsh suffering, marked by tension and contradictions, of the transition of the modern age toward a new phase of history, showing constant concern that the human person be its protagonist,” Pope Benedict XVI, who was Francis’ immediate predecessor and is now known as the pope emeritus, said at the time.

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I'm thrilled with Bl. Pope John's canonization. More hesitant about Bl. John Paul II...because such a short period of time has passed since his death, his closeness to Marcel Maciel and the Legion of Christ, as well as his handling (or lack thereof) of the sex abuse scandals that broke wide open here during his papacy.

IMO, the case of John Paul II needs more deliberation and time before such consideration. Just my $.02...

[rug]

1. Yeah, it looks like Pope John Paul II's political deeds are being recognized more than saintliness.