Author:
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: September 3, 2000
Vatican City (Agencies)
- Pope John Paul II defended and praised two of his predecessors on Sunday
in one of the most disputed beatifications of his papacy.
In the process moving
closer to sainthood the tradition- defending 19th-century Pope Pius IX
and the tradition- easing 20th-century Pope John XXIII.
John Paul called "much
loved, but also hated and slandered" Pius IX, bitterly resented by Jewish
groups for condoning the taking of a Jewish-born boy, confining Rome Jews
to what was Europe's last ghetto, and calling Jews "dogs."
"Beatifying a son of
the Church does not celebrate particular historic choices that he has made,
but rather points him out for imitation and for veneration for his virtue,"
John Paul said, stressing Pius' service to the church while acknowledging
rancor over his actions toward the world outside of it.
An estimated 100,000-strong
crowd of banner-waving faithful and Italy's staunchest Catholic nobility
and political leaders filled St Peter's Square.
The morning after hundreds
of Rome's Jews and political liberals held a candlelight vigil to protest
the beatification.
The church's honoring
of Pius "is the reopening of a wound," said Elena Mortara, great-great
niece of Edgardo Mortara, who in 1858 was taken from his Jewish family
at 6 when church officials learned a Catholic maid had secretly baptized
him.
Edgardo grew to enter
the priesthood under Pius' patronage.
The Mortara family, joined
by Jewish groups, have said the beatification threatens to sour the dialogue
between Christians and Jews that John Paul's 22-year Papacy has fostered.
Pius led the church from
1846 to 1878, history's longest Papacy
A noble-born Italian,
he endured the often-violent break- up of the centuries-old Papal states
and called the first-ever Vatican council to enshrine the doctrine of Papal
infallibility.
John XXIII, a jovial,
jowly, peasant-born Italian, started the church's liberalizations of the
1960s when he called the second Vatican council nearly a century later.
Although John died before its completion, the council went on to approve
such innovations as allowing mass in local languages in its bid to more
closely involve the laity in the church.
Thousands of dissidents
broke away from the church after both councils, including in the 20th century
followers of the excommunicated archbishop Marcel Lefebvre who insisted
on continuing to use Latin.
"Divine design has willed
the shared beatification of these two popes who lived in very different
historical contexts," John Paul said, citing John XXIII's own writings
before his 1963 death hoping for Pius' beatification.
While many Italians remember
Pius chiefly for his opposition to the unification of their country.
John XXIII is widely
beloved still today by Italians, who know him simply as "Il Papa Buono,"
or "The Good Pope."
"Pope John remains in
the memory of all in the image of a smiling face and two arms thrown open
in an embrace of the entire world," John Paul said told Sunday's pilgrims.
"He's loved for his good
will, and his simplicity," said Lucrezia Gentile, who traveled from Calabria
in southern Italy, where faithful have been stringing ribbons and banners
in celebration of the beatification.
"Pius IX lived in a very
critical period," said another pilgrim in the square, Delfina Candi, defending
Pius IX without being asked. "It's not like today. Today it's
easy."
Three others were beatified
in Sunday's ceremony: Tommaso Reggio, a 19th-century Italian bishop who
founded the congregation of the sisters of St Martha and who strongly criticized
Pius IX's ban on Catholic involvement in politics.
Guillaume-Joseph Chaminade,
a French priest who in 1800 founded the Marianist family; and Joseph-Aloysius,
an Irish monk who, as Columba Marmion, served as abbot of the Benedictine
Maredsous abbey in Belgium in the early 20th century.
Beatification is the
last formal step before possible sainthood. John Paul has beatified
and canonized more people than all of his predecessors combined, believing
firmly in presenting diverse role models for the world's faithful.
