Doubts hang over John Paul II’s legacy, sainthood

March 30, 2010|Associated Press

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI hailed the legacy of John Paul II yesterday five years after his death, while questions swirl over the late pontiff’s record in combating pedophile priests and whether a miracle needed for his sainthood really happened.

During an evening Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, Benedict told pilgrims from John Paul’s homeland of Poland that his predecessor had “without interruption taught us to be faithful witnesses to faith, hope, and love.’’

Krakow’s Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, for decades John Paul’s personal secretary, was among the prelates at the commemoration. Also attending was Cardinal Bernard Law, who, after resigning as Boston archbishop in the sex abuse scandal that rocked his diocese, was put in charge of a prestigious Rome basilica by the late pope.

John Paul, who had Parkinson’s disease, died April 2, 2005, at age 84. Immediately after his death, calls began for his sainthood, and Benedict in December signed a decree proclaiming his predecessor “venerable’’ for his holy virtues.

At first, the healing of a young French nun with Parkinson’s disease had seemed like the miracle required for swift approval for beatification, the last formal step before canonization. The nun, who had prayed to John Paul for years, woke up one morning two months after his death, seemingly cured of the progressively degenerative neurological disorder. But a respected Polish newspaper, Rzeczpospolita, recently reported that doubts had been cast about whether the nun had Parkinson’s at all.