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A thought on today's beatification of Bl. Pope John Paul II


For me the personal holiness and heroic virtue of Karol Joseph Wojtyla are evident to anyone who has eyes to see. I guess if people want to be parochial and get worked up about what he would no doubt dismiss as so many bourgeois concerns, that is, choosing to focus on a couple of trees, thus failing to notice the majesty of the forest, they are certainly free to do so. I mean, it's not like Hitch didn't make a few worthwhile observations in his otherwise brutal "take" on Bl Teresa of Calcutta. Few people have changed the whole world for better, done more to usher in God's kingdom, than Bl. Pope John Paul II.

Like the late, great Dominican theologian, Yves Congar, I, too, have concerns about popes beatifiying and canonizing other popes. However, when the voices of literally millions of the faithful shout out repeatedly, "Santo Subito!", there is a very different dynamic. According to the way saints have traditionally been made, he was a saint then and there. So, while still only beatified, not canonized, all of this constitutes so many formalities, which only affirm the reality of what already is definitively. The heroic virtue and courage of Bl. Pope John Paul II immediately and dramatically affected for the better the lives of hundreds of millions.

Looking at another example, do you really think Archbishop Oscar Romero is not already a saint?

Jesus, I trust in you