When The Saints Go Marching In

It was somewhat surreal to see a double canonization of recently deceased popes at the Vatican, but it made sense, as Pope Francis sought to reconcile the reformers and the conservatives by honoring both John XXIII and John Paul II, respectively, at the same time.

Miracles aside - both popes were found to have been involved in the miraculous cures of women - both have compelling cases for canonizations.  Pope John XXIII - thought by many to be a pope as a pope ought to be - brought a personal touch to and an intimate reverence for the papacy, and it allowed him to call the Second Vatican Council to bring the Roman Catholic Church.  He's a slam dunk for the honor.

John Paul II's case is more complex, given his inability to handle the sex abuse cases that surfaced late in his papacy, as well as his own doctrinaire, somewhat extremely conservative attitudes toward women and the priesthood.  but his devotion to a "culture of life," respecting life from conception to mortality - he was as much opposed to capital punishment as he was to abortion, unlike certain American reactionaries in Washington - certainly made him an important voice for nearly 27 years on the world stage, as did his call for a spiritual foundation in a world of rampant capitalism championed by others (I'll cite the American right again).  His greatest miracle remains his principal role in undoing Communism in Eastern Europe and bringing about the fall of the Soviet Union.  When you go to Europe and travel through a free and vibrant Poland, when you visit the Hill of Crosses in Lithuania, or when you notice on a map of a united Germany a town named Chemnitz and not Karl-Marx-Stadt, or on a map of Russia a city called St. Petersburg and not Leningrad, you're seeing John Paul's work.

So now we can pray to Good Pope John for strength, and male Catholics can take the name "John Paul" (no longer limited to one name or the other) for their confirmations.  Whatever.  If I ever get confirmed, I'll stick with Linus.  That St. Linus was able to assume the mantle directly from Peter and, against the odds, somehow perpetuate Peter's mission into a future lasting nearly two millennia and counting was a miracle all by itself.