Popes and Sainthood - E.J. Dionne | Commonweal magazine

John Paul II

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by E.J. Dionne, Jr.

Pope John XXIII

The Vatican's decision to speed Pope John Paul II on the road to sainthood aroused great elation—and a backlash among Catholics who see the rush as unseemly. There is an obvious remedy that could bring contending Catholics together and send exactly the right message about the church's attitude toward the modern world: It's time to declare Pope John XXIII a saint.

Here's a prayer that Pope Benedict XVI uses this Sunday's beatification ceremonies for John Paul in Rome to announce that the Vatican is eager to complete the saint-making process for the good Pope John, the church's great modernizer who embraced democracy and religious freedom.And there is a natural link between the two papacies. When historians look back, John Paul's greatest achievements will inevitably be seen as liberal, in the broadest sense: his commitment to human rights and religious liberty, his calls for greater social justice, his embrace of workers' rights ("the priority of labor over capital"), and his strenuous opposition to religious prejudice. Recall that John Paul was the first pope—not counting St. Peter—to visit a synagogue, where he issued a ringing condemnation of anti-Semitism....

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