Give JPII critics their due

June 2, 2008 By

jpiicritics Imagine getting access to the building that stores files for and against Pope John Paul II’s case for sainthood. How would you explain and describe to readers the process by which this occurs?

Michelle Boorstein of The Washington Post had this task. In Rome she visited the Office of the Postulator of the Cause for Beatification and Canonization, going to the very office that houses the documents for and against JPII.

Boorstein deserves credit for explaining Catholic doctrine and providing good details to support her main point, as the paragraphs below illustrate:

… (What) is found here overwhelmingly supports the late pope’s “cause,” often in the most affectionate terms — a stuffed animal from a couple who credit him with an end to their infertility, a wedding dress from someone who had longed for a partner. Countless letters include those from a prostitute who got her faith back and a singer who was able to forgive her daughter’s killer. There are also historians’ studies of his long papacy, and John Paul’s own writings, including verse that refers humbly to his “fallible thoughts.”

Blesseds and saints aren’t metaphors in Catholic doctrine. They are held up as real examples of people who successfully imitated Jesus in their lives (or deaths, in the case of martyrs), and are well known among Catholics for their holiness.

Boorstein also deserves credit for making an important subpoint — so popular is the late pontiff that criticism of him is difficult:

From the start, this has not been a typical investigation. On the day of John Paul’s funeral in 2005, Catholics in St. Peter’s Square shouted out “Santo subito!” — “Sainthood now!” In the face of strong public enthusiasm, his successor, Benedict XVI, waived the usual five-year wait before formal considerations could begin. Since then, the advocacy has only stepped up to get John Paul quickly through a process that can take centuries.

Yet Boorstein’s story could have used more balance. Yes, she named his critics; and yes, she outlined the general case against the idea that JPII lived a life of heroic virtue, as the paragraph below shows:

The office has received a handful of arguments against sainthood for John Paul, whom church reformers, particularly in Europe and Latin America, have long lambasted. Letters circulating point to the clergy sex abuse scandal, the treatment of women in the church and the repression of dissident theologians.

But Boorstein’s story contained no quotes from critics. This is a key omission. What is the specific case against JPII? Readers are never told.

Maybe no critics are willing to speak on the record against JPII. If so, that is a story: JPII’s critics have been silenced. But that certainly wasn’t the case during his pontificate!

Boorstein’s story overall was well done. If more stories were like hers, the press would be a lot better off.

(Photo by user Jim Forest used under a Creative Commons license.)

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Filed Under: Catholicism, Religion
  • Stephen A.

    I’m usually eager to speak out for giving more balance to a story that seems imbalanced. But if such critics cannot easily be found – even after an exhaustive search (and let me stress that I’m not sure that’s been done in this case) – then perhaps the story is that there are very few critics of moving forward with quick canonization at this point.

    I’d hate to give critics half the story when they represent 1/10th the population of those who care about this serious enough to have an opinion, unless one devotes the entire story to critics, noting that they are few and sometimes not eager to speak out.

    I suspect the latter is the case here, since I certainly understand this is a serious issue to Catholics and shouldn’t be taken lightly, still, I bet some critics are weighing the benefits and liabilities of attaching their name to the title “prominent/preeminent critic of Canonization for JPII”. The risk of that, since the number of critics *seems* so small (again, assuming) seems a great possibility.

  • http://vjmorton.wordpress.com Victor Morton

    John Paul certainly doesn’t lack for public critics in re his handling of The Situation, and not always from a position of liberal dissidence. To put it crudely — doesn’t the Vatican have Tom Doyle’s phone number or Leon Podles’ e-mail available. I would be surprised if none of that ilk either have testified or will do so. After all, the Church even asked Christopher Hitchens to testify in Mother Teresa’s case.

  • Ron

    The Vatican might want to speak to one of the men whom Father Maciel molested, and whose suffering JP II swept under the carpet for decades. I have to confess that I find the enthusiasm for John Paul baffling. He was a celebrity, the ecclesiastical equivalent of Elvis Presley, and nothing more. And as his celebrity grew, the crisis in the church which he could not be bothered to address spiralled out of control. According to St. Josemaria Escriva, a big part of holiness is doing your job. The pope’s job is to govern the church. By that standard, John Paul was miserable failure.

  • Doug Sirman

    When a certain Bishop asked JPII to speak on the self-induced calamity of sexual abuse, JPII responded “They won’t let me.”

    I don’t know who “they” were, but I strongly suspect “they” will never be willingly named by any authority within the Church.

    I don’t know who the questioning Bishop was, but I seriously doubt it was Cardinal Groer.

  • Julia

    John Paul got rid of the office of Devil’s Advocate which may be why it’s difficult to get specifics on his critics.

    It’s my understanding that in Poland one of the main ways the Communist government harassed priests was to accuse them falsely of sex abuse. So – people who knew him well say that he had a tendancy to dismiss out of hand any accusations of priests molesting children or acting out with adults, particularly in seminaries. It’s one of his major failings in my book, but more understandable when you read about how the Communists undermined the priests of Poland. The church in Poland is still sorting out the circumstances where priests were compromised due to blackmail or serious threats to family members. John Paul didn’t have any family and knew he was freer to stand up to them because of that.

    Bring back the Devil’s Advocate.

  • FW Ken

    The pope’s job is to govern the church.

    The pope, like any bishop, has three jobs: to teach, to sanctify, and to govern. I agree that he was deficient in the last of those. Many who believe in his greatness agree.

    church reformers

    Shades of John Calvin, Martin Luther, and Henry VIII (ok, scratch Henry). Shades of a Church selling indulgences and episcopates, popes with bastard children, and intrigues to suppress the Gospel of Thomas.

    Seriously, this sort of loaded language needs to be challenged, particularly in a protestant culture such as the United States. But I don’t think the case against John Paul need be explicated: if you followed coverage of the dissident movements over his 25+ pontificate, you know the problem. He didn’t ordain women, approve abortion, or sanction same-sex relationships. In short, he wasn’t an Episcopalian. He actually seemed to believe all that superstitious stuff about Jesus as the way to the Father, present in the Eucharist elements. He wasn’t inclusive, you see.

    I won’t argue that for some of us, standing up to American arrogance, preserving the historic priesthood and calling dissident theologians on their heresies argues for JP’s greatness. I will argue that “church reformers” is a loaded term that mars an otherwise good article.

  • http://www.tmatt.net tmatt

    Another crucial note missing from the story is that JPII has many lively critics on the right, many linked to his broad embrace of other word religions. One critic ON THAT ISSUE was Cardinal Ratzinger.

    So the story should have at least mentioned critics on the Catholic right.

    Google: John Paul, Sainthood, kiss, koran

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=John+Paul%2C+sainthood%2C+Koran%2C+kiss&btnG=Search

  • http://www.bluffton.edu/~bergerd Dan Berger

    a wedding dress from someone who had longed for a partner.

    Is it just me, or does this seem a little forced? “Partner” is highly generic; but “wedding dress” (coupled with the fact that the dress is from a serious-enough Catholic to attribute her “partner” to JP2′s intercession) says “husband” to me.

    Is this a new AP stylebook requirement, that “husband” or even “spouse” is unacceptably non-PC?