'Dignitas infinita': John Paul Returns?

The Catholic Thing

By Fr. Raymond J. de Souza On Divine Mercy Sunday in 2014 (April 27th), Pope Francis canonized two of his predecessors, John XXIII and John Paul II. Ten years later, has the Holy Father turned to John Paul in his time of need? Many devotees of St. John Paul the Great - the title of one of Pope Francis' interview books, by the way - were terribly disappointed at the rather low-key approach the Holy Father took at the canonization, briefly mentioning the two popes only in reference to his Synod on the Family. The canonization date was also the 75th birthday of Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, John Paul's longtime secretary, just sitting yards away. Pope Francis took no note of it. It was a mistake to read too much into the underwhelming homily. In the years since, it has become evident that taking little note of the saints is typical for the Holy Father. In 2019, he canonized the "Mother Teresa of Brazil," Sister Dulce Lopes Pontes, without even mentioning her name. So famous was she that John Paul visited her in the hospital during a trip to Brazil. The odd relationship of Francis to John Paul was evident early on. One would expect hurrahs and hosannas from the former about the latter, given that it was the latter who rescued the former from his Jesuit exile in Córdoba. By 1990, the Argentinian Jesuits, tired of Father Jorge Bergoglio's divisiveness in the community, sent him 500 miles north of Buenos Aires to tend to elderly Jesuits and hear confessions in Córdoba. Had it been up to his Jesuit confreres, Fr. Bergoglio would likely have spent the next ten years teaching high school chemistry somewhere. Instead, John Paul ended the exile and returned him to Buenos Aires as the auxiliary bishop. Six years later, he was the archbishop. Exile and estrangement from the Jesuits were likely counted as good references in Rome. Yet Pope Francis took an odd distance upon his election as pope. When it came time to announce the miracle necessary for the canonization of John Paul, it was done on the same day as the encyclical Lumen fidei was released. And that Francis and Benedict XVI appeared together for the first time at a Vatican event. Francis stepped on the John Paul story with a pile driver. Moreover, in waiving the miracle requirement for John XXIII so that he could be canonized alongside John Paul II, Pope Francis invited the supposition that he desired to dilute the focus on John Paul alone. Symbols would soon give way to a seeming desire to set aside some of John Paul's signature achievements. The landmark encyclical Veritatis splendor - one of the most consequential in the last century - became the document that didn't bark under Francis. Amoris laetitia, among the longest papal documents in history, included not a single reference to Veritatis splendor in its 400+ citations. Despite Chapter 8 of Amoris laetitia being in apparent contradiction with the principles of Veritatis splendor, the latter was simply treated as if it did not exist. If, as widely reported, Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández - one of the first episcopal appointments Pope Francis made in Argentina - was the principal drafter of Amoris laetitia, that, logically, would follow. Fernández had publicly been at odds with the teaching of Veritatis splendor, so much so that when Cardinal Bergoglio proposed him as rector of the Catholic University of Argentina, the Vatican refused approval. Bergoglio dug in, a standoff ensued, and Fernández was eventually installed. He was elevated to be archbishop of La Plata within months of Francis' election. In due course, John Paul's principal academic foundation, the JP Two Institute, devoted to theological studies on marriage and the family, was reconfigured so as to reflect the approach of Amoris laetitia. It was effectively abolished. That was a particularly painful blow for those John Paul inspired, as the Institute was born from his heart and bathed in his blood. He was scheduled to announce it at the general audience of May...