The fast track that needs to slow down

The best way to honour John Paul II is through a seemly and rigorous beatification process. But the Polish Church has not always maintained these standards, and the late Pope's cause may suffer

When the diocesan process for Pope John Paul II's beatification ended in Rome's Lateran basilica on Monday, the second anniversary of his death, it was an occasion of pageantry and poignancy. Yet there are anxieties about the record-breaking haste with which the process has been conducted. Though canonical procedures have doubtless been followed, right down to the requisite miracle confirmed last week in France, its foregone conclusions are obvious. Those who loved the late pontiff will already be sure about his sanctity and praying for its formal acknowledgement. But loyalty should encourage serious scrutiny of a campaign that has shown signs of descending to mass hysteria.

It was perhaps natural that banners calling for John Paul II to be proclaimed a saint should have appeared at his St Peter's Square funeral Mass two years ago, especially among fellow Poles who flocked to Rome in their hundreds of thousands. Since then, however, the Polish Church has pushed for his beatification using every form of pressure. When the tribunal was inaugurated on 29 June 2005 by Rome's vicar general, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, less than three months after John Paul II's death, the whole ceremony was covered live on Poland's state television.

Polish clergy have featured prominently in the process, led by its chief postulator, Mgr Slawomir Oder, and vice postulator, Mgr Zdzislaw Kijas. They make up four of the six members of the tribunal's historical team, whose Polish chairman, Fr Michal Jagosz, was exposed last October by the Rzeczpospolita daily as a former secret police collaborator.

Meanwhile, Polish clergy also work in the Vatican's Congregation for Causes of Saints, whose Prefect, Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, is assisted by a Polish Congregation secretary, Archbishop Edward Nowak. They will be helping evaluate and approve material collected by the Rome tribunal.

"The tribunal is guided by church law, which demands the collection and verification of numerous documents. It must find proofs of his saintliness of life and study testimonies of miracles conducted by him," Mgr Oder told Polish television in January. "But the expectations of the faithful are clear to everyone - they want his beatification as soon as possible."

In the Pope's Polish homeland, a church of "the Blessed John Paul II" is already being built at the Zakopane mountain resort, while a book was published within nine months of his death detailing hundreds of miracles achieved at his intercession. Few if any fellow Poles have had the inclination or courage to ask questions. This was already clear when a nine-member rogatory, or supplementary tribunal, was convened at the Pope's former Krakow See in November 2005 to collect material on the then Fr Karol Wojtyla's Polish life up to his 1978 election. Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, the late Pope's former secretary, who formally presided, assured Italy's L'Avvenire daily before the tribunal opened that he personally knew of "many miraculous healings" by John Paul II. The beatification awaited "only official confirmation" by Benedict XVI, Archbishop Dziwisz insisted.

"We recall on the day of his funeral the great appeal of those gathered in St Peter's Square - ‘Santo subito'," the archbishop told the tribunal's opening Mass. Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek, the tribunal chairman and another former Wojtyla assistant, told Poland's Catholic information agency (KAI) he also expected the work to be done quickly. "It's an exceptional case, especially since Benedict XVI has dispensed with the five-year period from the death of a beatification candidate," Bishop Pieronek added. "This has already speeded it up by at least five years."

Predictably, the Polish tribunal ended with a triumphant Krakow ceremony after just five months. There were doubts about its thoroughness. The priest responsible for collecting documents about the Pope's life, Professor Andrzej Szostek, a former Wojtyla pupil, said he had only submitted officially published material. In April 2006, a Polish newspaper, Zycie Warszawy, accused church researchers in a front-page story of deliberately withholding Wojtyla's more controversial writings.

The names of tribunal witnesses were leaked, and there were complaints that some had not abided by the secrecy rules. Amid politicised press speculation, there was anger when Poland's 83-year-old former strongman, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, was interviewed by the tribunal, along with President Aleksander Kwasniewski, with some Poles demanding to know how former Communists could testify to the Pope's heroic virtues.

Bishop Pieronek reminded the public that calls to give evidence should not be seen "in terms of rewards and punishments". "It's proof of the tribunal's objectivity that it has summoned people from various backgrounds," the tribunal chairman said.

But Bishop Pieronek himself has insisted the late Pope could be declared a saint immediately, without a preliminary beatification, in view of the reverence universally felt for him. In January, he went further, claiming Benedict XVI would personally conduct the ceremony on 2 April 2008. "Such dates are just speculation," Bishop Pieronek said. "But the third anniversary of the Pope's death seems realistic, since the Vatican needs a year to study the relevant material."

Pressure for John Paul II's immediate canonisation has since also been exerted by Cardinal Dziwisz. The cardinal told Italy's Corriere della Sera: "Of course we could skip beatification and go straight for a canonisation process." He has reacted furiously to any attempts to question his former superior's process. In December 2005, he rejected an open letter by Spanish and Italian theologians, criticising John Paul II's "negative policies" in areas from sex to church governance, and urging those with doubts to make them known to the Rome tribunal. Such initiatives "should be ignored in principle", he told KAI. They were "yet another proof" of the "false ideologies" the Pope had struggled against. Last month, when Polish newspapers published claims that several Vatican officials had informed for the secret police, the cardinal accused the researchers of trying to block the canonisation and doing "the work of Satan".

Cardinal Dziwisz's appointment to Krakow, while Poland was still in mourning for John Paul II, was clearly intended as a popular gesture, despite misgivings of local clergy. Cardinal Dziwisz has since invoked John Paul II's authority and sanctity in every speech and homily. As his executor, he controls access to the Pope's archive, including his personal notebooks, which were preserved in defiance of his final will. 

Polish church leaders can claim to be responding to the reverence felt for John Paul II in his homeland. Born at Wadowice in 1920, the Pope gave his name to 750 schools and a similar number of streets and squares. In a survey before his death by Warsaw's Public Opinion Research Centre, 58 per cent of Poles cited his 1978 election as the twentieth century's most important event, while three-quarters believed he had wielded greater "influence on the world's fate" than any other modern-day figure.

The leaders know their own power and prestige derive from adulation for John Paul II and are naturally concerned to keep this at fever pitch as long as possible. With no bishop or archbishop able to claim a stature remotely comparable, support for his beatification can thus be portrayed as a test of patriotism. It also provides a diversion from the problems which have proliferated in the Church since John Paul II's death.

In December, the buying and selling of John Paul II relics were condemned as sacrilege by Fr Marco Frisina, liturgy director of the Rome vicariate, after devotional shops around the Vatican began retailing pieces of a soutane allegedly taken from his grave in the St Peter's crypt. But papal memorabilia were already a booming business in Poland in John Paul II's last years, with signed letters, cards and books fetching high prices. This has since expanded into a search for more direct mementoes too. Clergy in Zakopane hope to obtain fragments of bone for their new "Blessed John Paul II church".

Many politicians have been content to let the bandwagon roll. The first "John Paul II Day", decreed by Poland's Parliament, was marked last October.

"Our generation had the exceptional privilege of being able to accompany His life and follow the example of His person, teaching and testimony," Polish parliamentarians declared in a resolution (their capitals). While such enthusiasm is understandable, it should be treated with caution. If errors and shortcuts are made in John Paul II's beatification process, this could backfire by sowing doubts about his future progression on the path of sainthood.

It should be hoped those responsible for assessing the tribunal's findings in Rome will be calm and professional, withstanding the pressure fuelled by the rising deluge of demands and petitions. The achievements of John Paul II stand for themselves and do not need to be cheapened by acts that would have made their own subject wince. This great modern Pope would have been the first to counsel a touch of Christian patience and restraint.