The decision to canonise Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II at the same ceremony could be seen as a controversial one; so what might have inspired it? It is, of course, intended to appeal to two very different ways of thinking in the Catholic Church. However, there is almost certainly a deeper theological reason for the decision, namely, that it is an affirmation of the continuity of papal governance. The two men had very different attitudes to papal style and to the world at large, but they were both bishops of Rome and, in the eyes of traditionalists, their status demands an affirmation of seamless continuity.In a book-length interview with the distinguished Italian journalist Vittorio Messori in 1985, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger claimed that Vatican II was “in strictest