Vatican City, 27 April 2014 (VIS) –
Half a million people attended the ceremony held this morning in St.
Peter's Square for the canonisation of the “two Pope saints”:
John XXIII and John Paul II. Since it was opened to the public at 5
a.m., the square and its environs were filled with faithful from all
over the world; Polish pilgrims, however, constituted one of the
largest groups. The event was also attended by delegations from over
a hundred countries, more than twenty Heads of State and many figures
from the world of politics and culture, including the King Juan
Carlos and Queen Sofia of Spain, King Albert II and Queen Paola of
Belgium, Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein, Grand Duke Henri of
Luxembourg, the ex-president of the Republic of Poland Lech Walesa,
the president of the Argentine parliament Julian Dominguez and the
presidents of the European Union, Herman Van Rompuy, and the European
Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso. The celebration was also attended by
Floribeth Mora Diaz and Sister Adele Labianca, the carer of Caterina
Capitani – the two women who experienced the miracles attributed to
John Paul II.
Banners with portraits of the two
saints – the same ones used for their respective beatifications –
were displayed on the facade of the Basilica. In the square, adorned
with more than 30,000 roses from Ecuador, and in Via della
Conciliazione, hundreds of thousands of faithful prepared for the
celebration by reciting the chaplet of Divine Mercy, intercalated
with texts from the magisterium of both pontiffs and preceded by the
Hymn to Blessed John XXIII, “Good Shepherd of Christ's flock”.
The prayer ended with the Hymn to Blessed John Paul II, “Open the
doors to Christ”.
Under intermittent rain, and during
litanies invoking the protection of the saints, there began the
procession of concelebrating cardinals and bishops who, before taking
their places, greeted Pope emeritus Benedict XVI, who also
concelebrated alongside the Holy Father. A few minutes after 10 a.m.,
Pope Francis entered the square and, before proceeding with the rite
for the proclamation of the new saints, greeted and embraced the Pope
emeritus.
Moments later Cardinal Angelo Amato
S.D.B:, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints,
accompanied by the postulators, asked Pope Francis to inscribe the
names of the two Blessed Popes in the Book of Saints, and the Holy
Father pronounced the formula for canonisation:
“For the honour of the Blessed
Trinity, the exaltation of the Catholic faith and the increase of the
Christian life, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the
Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and own own, after due deliberation and
frequent prayer for divine assistance, and having sought the counsel
of many of our brother Bishops, we declare and define Blessed
John XXIII
John Paul II
be Saints and we enrol them among the
Saints, decreeing that they are to be venerated as such by the whole
Church.
In the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen”.
This was followed by the presentation
to the Pope of the relics of the two saints, which were displayed on
the altar throughout the ceremony; these were a phial of the blood of
John Paul II, which had been displayed on 1 May 2011, and a piece of
skin removed from the body of John XXIII when it was exhumed for his
beatification on 3 September 2000.
Following the Gospel reading, the Holy
Father pronounced a homily in which he defined St. John XXIII as “the
Pope of openness to the Holy Spirit”, and St. John Paul II as “the
Pope of the Family”, recalling that “at the heart of this Sunday,
which concludes the Octave of Easter and which John Paul II wished to
dedicate to Divine Mercy, are the glorious wounds of the risen
Jesus”.
“He had already shown those wounds
when he first appeared to the Apostles on the very evening of that
day following the Sabbath, the day of the resurrection”, he
continued. “But Thomas was not there that evening, and when the
others told him that they had seen the Lord, he replied that unless
he himself saw and touched those wounds, he would not believe. A week
later, Jesus appeared once more to the disciples gathered in the
Upper Room, and Thomas was present; Jesus turned to him and told him
to touch his wounds. Whereupon that man, so straightforward and
accustomed to testing everything personally, knelt before Jesus with
the words: 'My Lord and my God!'.
“The wounds of Jesus are a scandal, a
stumbling block for faith, yet they are also the test of faith. That
is why on the body of the risen Christ the wounds never pass away:
they remain, for those wounds are the enduring sign of God’s love
for us. They are essential for believing in God. Not for believing
that God exists, but for believing that God is love, mercy and
faithfulness. Saint Peter, quoting Isaiah, writes to Christians: 'by
his wounds you have been healed'.
“John XXIII and John Paul II were not
afraid to look upon the wounds of Jesus, to touch his torn hands and
his pierced side”, exclaimed Pope Francis. “They were not ashamed
of the flesh of Christ, they were not scandalised by him, by his
cross; they did not despise the flesh of their brother, because they
saw Jesus in every person who suffers and struggles. These were two
men of courage, filled with the parrhesia of the Holy Spirit, and
they bore witness before the Church and the world to God’s goodness
and mercy.
“They were priests, bishops and popes
of the twentieth century. They lived through the tragic events of
that century, but they were not overwhelmed by them. For them, God
was more powerful; faith was more powerful – faith in Jesus Christ
the Redeemer of man and the Lord of history; the mercy of God, shown
by those five wounds, was more powerful; and more powerful too was
the closeness of Mary our Mother.
“In these two men, who looked upon
the wounds of Christ and bore witness to his mercy, there dwelt a
living hope and an indescribable and glorious joy. The hope and the
joy which the risen Christ bestows on his disciples, the hope and the
joy which nothing and no one can take from them. The hope and joy of
Easter, forged in the crucible of self-denial, self-emptying, utter
identification with sinners, even to the point of disgust at the
bitterness of that chalice. Such were the hope and the joy which
these two holy popes had received as a gift from the risen Lord and
which they in turn bestowed in abundance upon the People of God,
meriting our eternal gratitude.
“This hope and this joy were palpable
in the earliest community of believers, in Jerusalem, as we read in
the Acts of the Apostles. It was a community which lived the heart of
the Gospel, love and mercy, in simplicity and fraternity.
“This is also the image of the Church
which the Second Vatican Council set before us. John XXIII and John
Paul II cooperated with the Holy Spirit in renewing and updating the
Church in keeping with her pristine features, those features which
the saints have given her throughout the centuries. Let us not forget
that it is the saints who give direction and growth to the Church. In
convening the Council, John XXIII showed an exquisite openness to the
Holy Spirit. He let himself be led and he was for the Church a
pastor, a servant-leader. This was his great service to the Church;
he was the pope of openness to the Spirit.
“In his own service to the People of
God, John Paul II was the pope of the family. He himself once said
that he wanted to be remembered as the pope of the family. I am
particularly happy to point this out as we are in the process of
journeying with families towards the Synod on the family. It is
surely a journey which, from his place in heaven, he guides and
sustains”.
The Holy Father concluded. “May these
two new saints and shepherds of God’s people intercede for the
Church, so that during this two-year journey toward the Synod she may
be open to the Holy Spirit in pastoral service to the family. May
both of them teach us not to be scandalised by the wounds of Christ
and to enter ever more deeply into the mystery of divine mercy, which
always hopes and always forgives, because it always loves”.
St. Peter's Basilica will remain open
today from 2 to 10 p.m., to enable pilgrims to venerate the bodies of
the two canonised Popes displayed in glass cases, to which the word
“Saint” has been added.