The report triggered questions about whether John Paul was rushed through the saint-making process, and whether the author of contemporary Catholic teaching on human sexuality didn't understand the complex nature of the topic.

The 450-page report released Tuesday is an unprecedented effort by the church at full transparency, a rare window on internal Vatican decision-making that showed that not only John Paul but also popes Benedict and Francis knew McCarrick had faced multiple accusations.

Each pontiff was aware of different aspects of the accusations against McCarrick, but the initial years of the case came under John Paul's 27-year reign.

John Paul, who died in 2005 and was made a saint in 2014, elevated McCarrick to archbishop of Washington and summarily to cardinal despite the allegations.

Under Benedict, McCarrick was asked to step down as archbishop of Washington when he reached the standard retirement age of 75 and told to keep a lower profile.

Francis assumed his predecessors had already vetted the allegations against McCarrick, but took action once a credible accusation surfaced involving a minor. McCarrick was laicized in 2019.

Reactions to the revelations about John Paul have been emotional and divided.

Some saw a man perhaps naively believing a scheming friend.

The report's authors raised the possibility that John Paul's judgment was heavily coloured by his experience in the Eastern Bloc, where negative propaganda about priests was used to weaken religious organizations. Others felt his decisions were potentially disqualifying for the high moral honour of sainthood.

Vatican's McCarrick report says Pope John Paul II knew of misconduct allegations nearly two decades before cardinal's removal
"Saints are holy, not perfect. There's no chance his canonization would be reversed," said Kathleen Sprows Cummings, head of a centre on U.S. Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame, who has written extensively about saints.

She added that if the report had come out before his canonization was complete, it would have mattered. "We canonize people for [Catholics], not for the person themselves. But what we know about sex abuse, this is not the kind of person — a person who failed on this level — he's not to be imitated."

Others felt the report made the case against John Paul's canonization.

"It's almost a bill of particulars against his sainthood," said Jason Berry, an investigative journalist who wrote a book in 2004 about John Paul's failure to address the sexual abuse scandal of Marcial Maciel, a Mexican church leader who abused youth and adults.

"He was unwilling to confront the phenomenon of priests involved in sex crimes. I don't think he thought of it as criminal. He thought of it as a sin, a failing of celibacy," said Berry.

The report showed that John Paul was among many Catholic clerics in the United States and Rome who had heard different pieces of the McCarrick sexual scandal that critics believe should have triggered further investigation. Instead, time after time, church officials, including John Paul, were often reluctant to probe deeper.

The report showed there was a range of allegations swirling around McCarrick starting in the 1980s, but they primarily remained in the United States, with letters sent to various bishops and priests.

By 1999, New York Cardinal John O'Connor wrote a lengthy letter to the Vatican's ambassador to the United States, Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, describing "grave fears" about what might happen if McCarrick, then the archbishop of Newark, were to receive a promotion.

By the time McCarrick was appointed to lead the D.C. archdiocese, John Paul's assistants had told him that McCarrick would share a bed with seminarians, that anonymous letters accused him of paedophilia with young relatives and that a priest accused him of "attempting to engage in sexual activity," the report said.

The priest was later diagnosed with psychological trauma.

To some readers, those allegations, while serious, didn't add up to a "smoking gun" against McCarrick, who swore on his office to John Paul that the reports were untrue and that he'd never abused or hurt another person. John Paul was guilty only of being too trusting of a man who fooled and charmed Catholics around the globe. Continue reading

The small piece of blood-soaked cloth, taken from from Pope John II's cassock after he was shot by an assassin in 1981, had been kept in a reliquary in the Church of San Pietro della Ienca in the region of Abruzzo.

The theft of the relic and a small cross, was discovered on Monday morning. Three men in their 20s, reported to be drug addicts, were arrested in connection with the incident. The cross and reliquary were recovered first. Then the cloth was found, in a garage belonging to one of the men. A police source said the men at first did realise the importance of the relic.

Auxiliary Bishop Giovanni D'Ercole of L'Aquila told a press conference: "I think John Paul has forgiven them. I think we have to do the same."

Source: Independent Catholic News

Ortega made the statements in a rare state TV address, granted to him by Cuban authorities.

"There was great interest in this pilgrimage because the pope is determined to revive the faith in countries that were Christianized before but need a new evangelization, and he saw in this mission a true example of what it is to revive the faith of a people," said Ortega.

"The pope feels that he comes to confirm us in this faith," said Ortega.

The Church in Cuba was more or less shut down following the 1959 revolution led by communist dictator, Fidel Castro.

The state closed schools and harassed priests, and people were prevented from practising their faith.

Relations thawed in the 1990's, particularly after the historic 1998 visit of Pope John Paul II, and intensified in 2010 when the Church brokered a deal with Castro to release political prisoners.

Today Masses and Christmas celebrations are sometimes televised.

As CathNews reported, there are rumours circulating that Castro may be preparing to be readmitted to the Church when Pope Benedict visits later this month. Benedict has said he is keen to visit with Castro.

Sources

• Vatican News
• Washington Post
• Reuters
• Reuters
• CathNews
• Image: USA Today

The miraculous healing was reported in Italy's Panorama weekly yesterday, citing documents sent to the Vatican.

It occurred just weeks after John Paul II's grandiose beatification on May 1 last year, which put him on the path to sainthood just six years after his death and was attended by over a million people.

The second miracle, about which no details were reported, was chosen from among four reported miracles and documented by the promoter of Karol Wojtyla's canonisation, Bishop Slowomir Oder, Panorama said.

Predictions of upward of 1 million people pouring into Rome for the May1 event has seen the price of accommodation skyrocket. Rev Gregory Apparcel, rector of the Santa Susanna church, home to many U.S. expat Catholics in Rome says, "At this point, if you don't have a hotel room, don't come".

Compounding the accommodation issue is there are no visitor tickets to the event as the Vatican decided it will be on a first come, first served basis. Mayor Gianni Alemanno has asked Rome to show its best side for three days.

The ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica will also be shown on giant screens in churches around Rome and along the River Tiber running through the city center.

Last week the remains of Pope Innocent XI were moved from the altar in the Chapel of St. Sebastian to make way for the soon-to-be beatified Pope John Paul II, reports the Catholic News Agency.

Pope John Paul II is presently buried in the crypt below the basilica's high altar. His body will be transferred following his beatification on May 1.

"This is the place where Blessed John Paul II will go because it is a particularly suitable chapel," said Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi. "It's quite near to the entrance of the basilica and just next to (Michelangelo's) Pieta."

Cardinal Angelo Comastri, the senior Italian cleric in charge of St Peter's, presided over the brief ceremony on Friday to move the body of Pope Innocent. The service included a candle-lit procession during which the names of all the popes who've become saints were intoned.

The remains of the 17th century pope were transferred to the basilica's Altar of the Transfiguration. The altar sits to the left of the high altar, which is overshadowed by a marble statue of St Andrew the Apostle.

The translation of Pope John Paul's coffin will also take place in private. The public, however, will be able to venerate the newly beatified Pope beginning from the afternoon of May 1 onwards.

In preparation for the beatification, the Vatican has paved the way for

• October 22 to be the day to celebrate the memorial of John Paul II
• a church to be named Blessed John Paul II
• special prayers and readings to honour the celebration of his beatification

Sources

• CathNews USA
• Daily Herald
• Zenit

"Clearly his cause was put on the fast track, but the process was done carefully and meticulously, following the rules Pope John Paul himself issued in 1983," the cardinal said April 1, during a conference at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome.

The cardinal said the church wanted to respond positively to many Catholics' hopes to have Pope John Paul beatified quickly, but it also wanted to be certain that the pope, who died in 2005, is in heaven.

Cardinal Amato said the sainthood process is one of the areas of church life where the consensus of church members, technically the "sensus fidelium" ("sense of the faithful"), really counts.

"From the day of his death on April 2, 2005, the people of God began proclaiming his holiness," and hundreds, if not thousands, visit his tomb each day, the cardinal said. A further sign is the number of biographies published about him and the number of his writings that are translated and re-published.

"In the course of a beatification cause, there is the vox populi," he said, which must be "accompanied by the vox dei (voice of God) — the miracles — and the vox ecclesiae (voice of the church)," which is the official judgment issued after interviewing eyewitnesses and consulting with historians, physicians, theologians and church leaders to verify the candidate's holiness.

Beatification and canonization are not recognitions of someone's superior understanding of theology, nor of the great works he or she accomplished, he said. Declaring someone a saint, the church attests to the fact that he or she lived the Christian virtues in a truly extraordinary way and is a model to be imitated by others, the cardinal said.

The candidate, he said, must be perceived "as an image of Christ."

Continue reading John Paul II being beatified for holiness, not his papacy

Image source: Catholic Mom

John Paul's holiness and accomplishments aren't much in dispute: the second-longest living pope helped bring down communism, steered the Catholic Church through the tumultuous decades after the Second Vatican Council, and seemingly made being Catholic hip for a generation of young faithful who flocked to his Masses around the globe.

Those attributes and more are being highlighted in the runup to the May 1 beatification, which organizers estimate will bring as many as a million pilgrims to Rome. It's the last formal step before being canonized as a saint. A prayer vigil on the Circus Maximus, an all-night prayer session in downtown Rome churches and the beatification Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI top the agenda for the three-day event.

Perhaps it's inevitable that the record speed of the process has raised questions about whether the Vatican is rushing to judgment and merely ceding to the calls for "Santo Subito!" or "Sainthood Immediately!" that erupted during his 2005 funeral Mass.

Some point out many of the crimes and coverups of the clerical sex abuse scandal occurred during his 27-year watch—a scandal that has convulsed the church for the past decade and done seemingly irreparable harm to the faith in Ireland, in particular.

As his beatification nears, read more about the criticism of John Paul II's papacy.

The first miracle, allowing for John Paul's beatification on May 1, was the cure of a French nun with Parkinson's Disease, the disease John Paul died from. A second miracle is required in order that he is canonised a saint.

The story of a possible second miracle surrounds the cure of a Spanish man, Carlos Vazquez who was suffering from Crohn's disease.

Contact with John Paul II's white papal Zucchetto is said to have miraculously cured him in 2006, author Randall Meissen relates in Living Miracles: The Spiritual Sons of John Paul the Great.

Carlos Vazquez experienced constant pain and severe weight loss during his struggle with Crohn's disease, a supposedly incurable autoimmune disorder causing inflammation of the digestive tract. By September of 2006, after dropping to eighty-four pounds, his situation was life threatening. Nonetheless, Vazquez was repeatedly turned away by Spain's public health system due to bureaucratic technicalities.

A friend of Carlos Vazquez's family lent him a relic of John Paul II, one of the pope's white papal skull caps, and suggested he pray to the pope for a miracle. The cap, properly called a zucchetto, was placed in the Vazquez living room; thereafter, Vazquez and his wife recited each day a prayer for John Paul II's intercession.

These Catholics often refer to him as John Paul the Great, and point to his witness when they speak of their vocations — to the priesthood, to religious life, to marriage — and to the universal call to sanctity, wherever God places them.

A survey of this generation brings to mind the variety of gifts about which St. Paul speaks: different kinds of service but the same Spirit and Lord, and "the same God who produces all of them in everyone." They might be serving in the Vatican or serving in the kitchen and the laundry, but they find in John Paul the Great a model to follow.

ZENIT spoke to a handful of JPII generation Catholics — from a variety of walks of life, but drawn together by their experience of World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto with the largest pilgrim group from the United States: the delegation from Erie, Pennsylvania. They all speak of the gratitude they feel for the Polish Pontiff.

Read more of what the JPII generation of Catholics had to say.

"With the beatification, priests now want a statue in their church with a reliquary at the base so parishioners can practice the cult of devotion of John Paul II," Dzwigaj said.

Elsewhere in Poland, Poles have so far expressed little interest in packaged trips to the Vatican to attend the May 1 beatification.

"We have been advertising since January, and nobody has called. I have no clients for this trip," Artur Krowiak of travel operator Barthur told the German Press Agency dpa. Barthur doesn't know why there is little interest. He says travel package including food, accommodation and travel is attractively priced.

A parish in Lublin, eastern Poland, has reported having only half the people it needed to fill a bus on a six-day trip for the beatification.

Meanwhile Church and local government organisers are planning to accommodate at least 300,000 in St Peter's Square for the occasion.

America's Catholic News service reports that Msgr. Liberio Andreatta, head of Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi, the Vatican-related pilgrimage agency, told reporters on March 29, "Rome is ready to welcome every pilgrim who wants to come. Earlier, newspapers published megalithic numbers and said every hotel is booked. That's not true."

According to Father Cesare Atuire of Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi, the announcement of the beatification meant travel agents were quick to buy up blocks of hotel rooms, but now they know how many they need, they are freeing up some accommodation space.

Sources

• Polskie Radio
• China Post