VATICAN CITY — While Pope Francis thinks Blessed Paul VI wrote
"the greatest pastoral document that has ever been written," great
writing does not make a pope a saint.
A saint is a person who has lived a holy life to an extraordinary
degree. The Catholic Church officially has recognized thousands of women and
men as saints, and it honors millions more, unnamed and unnoticed, on All
Saints Day each November.
Blessed Paul VI is seen in an undated official portrait. Pope Francis often speaks of Blessed Paul VI's influence on him. FELICI | CATHOLIC PRESS PHOTO VIA CNS
Pope Francis said in mid-February that he would add Blessed Paul
VI to the host of formally proclaimed saints this year.
Particularly after the death of St. John Paul II, the pastoral
wisdom of canonizing popes has been the object of debate. After all, one reason
for so publicly and formally recognizing a person as a saint is to provide
modern Catholics with models to imitate in their own striving for holy living,
and the life of a pope is not exactly that of an average Catholic.
But the Catholic Church also canonizes certain women and men to
highlight specific Christian virtues at a specific time.
For example, while it obviously was not the only reason, the
canonization of St. John Paul II in 2014 — just nine years after his death —
could be seen as affirming before the world the dignity and value of human life
even when it is obviously fragile. And the canonization of St. Teresa of
Kolkata in 2016, during the Year of Mercy, highlighted how receiving God's
mercy should lead to sharing it with others, particularly in concrete works of
mercy.
That Pope Francis has a similar point to make about Pope Paul VI,
who led the church from 1963 to 1978, can be seen in comments he has made about
his predecessor throughout the five years of his own papacy.
The remarks go well beyond his repeated praise for "the
greatest pastoral document that has ever been written," a reference to "Evangelii Nuntiandi," the 1975 apostolic
exhortation on evangelization in the modern world. Pope Francis' own "Evangelii Gaudium" ("The Joy of the
Gospel") pays tribute to it, not just in its title, but in its whole focus
on the obligation of every Christian to "go out," joyfully sharing
the faith with others.
Asked about the commonalities between Pope Francis and Blessed
Paul, Father Carlos Maria Galli, dean of the faculty of theology at the
Catholic University of Argentina, sent a 29-page essay he wrote on the topic.
The central point of contact, he said, is "the communion of both with the
Good Shepherd and on the mission of communicating the joy of Christ."
Father Galli identified a long list of commonalities, including:
their devotion to the Scriptures and the Eucharist; sensitivity to modern
cultures; commitment to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council; "a
great ecumenical heart" and commitment to interreligious dialogue; and,
"above all, a life shaped by pastoral charity."
For both, he said, a bishop or priest must be "a shepherd
who goes before, beside and behind the flock entrusted to them."
Members of the flock, however, can and do disagree with their
shepherd. The very public criticism of both popes is another thing the two
share. For Pope Paul VI, the criticism honed in on the Second Vatican Council
and, especially, on "Humanae Vitae,"
his 1968 encyclical on married love that included a reaffirmation of church
teaching against artificial contraception. For Pope Francis, it's a pastoral
style that seems to downplay rules and regulations; that is particularly true
with the question of Communion for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics.
"After 'Humanae Vitae,' many
difficulties and misunderstandings emerged that were the result of all of the
tension accumulated in the first years after the council," said Msgr.
Gilfredo Marengo, a professor of theological anthropology at Rome's Pontifical
John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family and leader of a group
of scholars researching how and why Pope Paul wrote the encyclical.
Paul VI was well aware of the upheaval and "suffered greatly
because of it," Msgr. Marengo said. "'Evangelii
Nuntiandi' was his attempt to close a problematic season in the life of
the church — a season in which opposition to 'Humanae
Vitae' was just the most noticeable sign — and set the church again on
the path of mission and evangelization."
In "Amoris Laetitia," his
document on the family, Pope Francis cites "Humanae
Vitae" as Pope Paul VI's contribution to church teaching on
marriage and family life. The fact that Pope Francis quotes the document
"excludes any formal distancing by Francis from this part of the
magisterium of Paul VI," Msgr. Marengo said, apparently responding to
persistent rumors among a small group of Catholics that Pope Francis, with
Msgr. Marengo's help, was preparing to "lift the ban" on artificial
birth control.
Speaking to a group of pilgrims from Brescia, Italy, Pope Paul's
home diocese, Pope Francis said his predecessor had "experienced to the
full the church's travail after the Second Vatican Council: the lights, the
hopes, the tensions. He loved the church and expended himself for her, holding
nothing back."
And, beatifying Pope Paul in 2014, Pope Francis noted that even
in the face of "a secularized and hostile society," Pope Paul
"could hold fast, with farsightedness and wisdom — and at times alone — to
the helm of the barque of Peter while never losing his joy and his trust in the
Lord."
Pope Francis referred to him as "this great pope, this
courageous Christian, this tireless apostle," who demonstrated a
"humble and prophetic witness of love for Christ and his church."
Those are qualities that make a saint.