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Sainted too soon? Vatican report casts John Paul II in harsh new light

Now, after more than a decade of doubts, his reputation has fallen under its darkest cloud yet

International New York Times, NOV 14 2020, 23:58 IST UPDATED: NOV 14 2020, 23:59 IST

At the funeral of Pope John Paul II at St. Peter’s Square, banners rose from the sea of mourners reading “Santo Subito,” or “Saint at Once.” He was a giant of the church in the 20th century, spanning the globe — inspiring generations of believers with his youthful magnetism, then aged infirmity — and, as the Polish pope, he helped bring down Communism over his more than 26-year reign.

Days after his death in 2005, cardinals eager to uphold his conservative policies had already begun discussing putting him on a fast track to sainthood while devotees in Rome and beyond clamored for his immediate canonization, drowning out notes of caution from survivors of sexual abuse and historians that St. John Paul II had persistently turned a blind eye to the crimes in his church.

Now, after more than a decade of doubts, his reputation has fallen under its darkest cloud yet, after the very Vatican that rushed to canonize him released an extraordinary report last week that laid at the saint’s feet the blame for the advancement of the disgraced former prelate Theodore E. McCarrick.

The investigation, commissioned by Pope Francis, who canonized John Paul in 2014, revealed how John Paul chose not to believe long-standing accusations of sexual abuse against McCarrick, including pedophilia, allowing him to climb the hierarchy’s ladder.

The findings detailed decades of bureaucratic obfuscation and lack of accountability by a host of top prelates and threatened to sully the white robes of three popes. But most of all, critics say, it provides searing proof that the church moved with reckless speed to canonize John Paul and now it is caught in its own wreckage.

“He was canonized too fast,” said Kathleen Cummings, author of “A Saint of Our Own” and head of a center on U.S. Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame. She said that given the “really damning evidence” in the report, had the church waited at least five years and not mere days to begin the canonization process, “it would probably not begin for John Paul II because of his complicity in the clergy sex abuse scandal.”

The Vatican report shows that Pope Benedict XVI told McCarrick to keep a low profile when more allegations of abuse emerged in 2005. Francis, despite hearing rumors of the abuse from his top lieutenants, trusted that his predecessors had properly vetted the case and left it alone, the report found.

Francis has acknowledged his own failures in believing bishops over victims. He removed McCarrick from the priesthood and has in recent years instituted new church policies to increase accountability.