The late Pope, John Paul II, has been officially beatified at a ceremony at the Vatican in front of hundreds of thousands of Catholic faithful. Among those at St Peter’s Square is French nun Marie Simon-Pierre, who says she was cured of Parkinson’s Disease. Her apparently miraculous cure is part of the case for the beatification, the last stage before sainthood.
It comes amid criticism of the Church for the speed of the beatification and the clerical child sex abuse scandal. Much of the abuse occurred while John Paul II was Pope, from 1979-2005, and the Church has been criticised for not doing enough to punish those found responsible.
Police in Rome estimated that one million people had come to the city for the event, including large numbers of pilgrims from the late Pope’s native Poland.
St Peter’s Square, in the Vatican, was packed, with the faithful waving banners and flags as Pope Benedict XVI declared his predecessor blessed, or beatified. Rome has not seen crowds of this size since the death of Pope John Paul II six years ago when some three million pilgrims converged on the Italian capital, says the BBC’s Vatican correspondent David Willey.
Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe was among those attending the beatification. A Roman Catholic, he was given special permission by the EU to fly to Italy despite being the subject of a travel ban.
Recent beatifications
- Oct 2003: Mother Teresa, 1910-1997
- March 2008: Marianna Donati, 1848-1925
- Sept 2008: Michal Sopocko, 1888-1975
- Sept 2010: John Henry Newman, Cardinal, 1801-1890
Steps to sainthood
The process, which cannot begin until at least five years after the candidate’s death unless the pope waives that waiting period, involves scrutinising evidence of their holiness, work and signs that people are drawn to prayer through their example:
- First stage: individual is declared a ‘servant of God’
- Second stage: individual is called ‘venerable’
- Third stage (requires a miracle attributed to candidate’s intercession): beatification, when individual is declared blessed
- Fourth stage (requires a further authenticated miracle): candidate is canonised as a saint for veneration by Church
John Paul reformed the sainthood process in 1983, making it faster, simpler, and cheaper. The office of “Devil’s advocate” – an official whose job was to try to knock down the case for sainthood – was eliminated, and the required number of miracles was dropped.
The idea was to lift up contemporary role models of holiness in order to convince a jaded secular world that sanctity is alive in the here and now. The results are well known: John Paul II beatified and canonised more people than all previous popes combined.
There are over 10,000 named saints and beatified people from history, the Roman Martyrology and Orthodox sources, but no definitive head count.
The Catholic Church teaches that it does not, in fact, make anyone a saint. Rather, it recognizes a saint. In the Church, the title of Saint refers to a person who has been formally canonized (officially recognized) by the Catholic Church, and is therefore believed to be in Heaven. By this definition there are many people believed to be in Heaven who have not been formally declared as saints (most typically due to their obscurity and the involved process of formal canonization) but who may nevertheless generically be referred to as saints. All in Heaven are, in the technical sense, saints, since they are believed to be completely perfected in holiness. Unofficial devotions to uncanonized individuals take place in certain regions. Sometimes the word “saint” is used to refer to Christians still sojourning here on earth.
Yesterday apart from a few minutes on the TV news I managed to avoid watching the massive political PR exercise represented by the Royal Wedding. Today I watched a few minutes of the beatification ceremonies and even if it sounds cynical, I could not help thinking that it was just another political and stage-managed PR exercise. No doubt the ritual and the pomp and the ceremony on display at both events fulfils some deep-seated human needs.
It is fortunate that Heaven lies in the realm of the infinite and there can be little cause to worry about over-crowding (and again I can’t help wondering if there are any cases of some unfortunate people who have been recognised and proclaimed as Saints but who – for God knows whatever reason – are languishing in the Other Place).
The k2p blog 