Even though Pope St John Paul II had been a “truly great Pope”, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn said his episcopal nominations had been very personal decisions and had sometimes gone badly wrong.
Interviewed for the centenary of John Paul II’s birth by the Vienna church paper Der Sonntag, Schönborn said that John Paul II had often decided to abandon the usual procedure, namely of choosing one of the three names on the terna put forward to him by the nuncio of the country concerned, and appointed a man of his own choice.
“That was something that he often did again and again – and it was of course his right – he decided vertically so to speak, and that frequently led to very formative and often suspense-packed episcopal nominations. One has only to think of the great Jesuit Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini who John Paul II appointed Archbishop of Milan and who certainly became one of the truly great European bishops. He was one of John Paul II’s direct nominations.
And it had been the same in Paris, Schönborn recalled. The Jewish Cardinal Jean Marie Lustiger had “quite clearly” been one of John Paul II’s personal nominations. “Lustiger was not a member of the establishment or ‘apparat’. It was a charismatic decision by the Pope himself.”
That had also been the case with Schönborn’s predecessor, Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, Schönborn said. John Paul II had promised Cardinal Franz König, who was Archbishop of Vienna from 1965-85 and played an influential part in getting John Paul II elected, that he would consult König when it came to appointing his successor. At the last moment he had personally chosen Hans Hermann Groer OSB.
Groer was later found guilty of having abused a minor. “It was an unfortunate choice as were several of John Paul II’s episcopal nominations in the second half of the 1980s. There is no doubt that John Paul II had weaknesses. But then who has none? His weaknesses were part of a very great personality”, Schönborn concluded.
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