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It’s outrageous reporting by the AFP to presume strictly political motives for what the Catholic church has created a fantastically complex process for. John XXIII was beatified by Benedict XVI in 2011. Anyone familiar with the ACTUAL publications of Vatican II will quickly discover that he bears no resemblance to the liberal characature created by heretical Catholics; the radical in the papacy was his successor, Paul VI.

Pope John Paul II was hailed as Pope John Paul the Great by the crowds immediately after his death in 2003. Pope Benedict announced in 2006 that John Paul II was beatified, and that he would “hopefully be made a saint very soon.” If the use of a title reserved only for Pope saints wasn’t clear enough, the hundreds of thousands gathered chanted, “Sancto Subito!” (”Saint already!”) That a Pope should recognize popular acclamation is quite legitimate: Prior to modern times, this was how nearly all saints were proclaimed. Even after saints were made by papal investigation, several saints were made by their “cults,” such as Saint Joan d’Arc.

With his canonisation announcement in July 2013, Francis confirmed two miracles attributed to John Paul II in the traditional procedure for sainthood, but crucially skipped a step for John XXIII. Francis declared the Italian pope, who only had one supposed miraculous healing to his name, so widely venerated already that he did not need a second miracle -- a rare loophole under Catholic Church rules. "It highlights the fact that the devotion was not very widespread", said Marco Tosatti, a Vatican expert for the La Stampa daily, suggesting that fewer people praying to John XXIII meant less chance of miracles. "He wanted to make someone he really likes a saint."

These canonizations certainly appear to be politically motivated. Vatican II and its pastoral fruits (which clearly have been bad on many levels, a fact which is becoming widely apparent to faithful Catholics) will be effectively bracketed by two canonized popes, one who instigated the revolution in the Church and the other who enthusiastically interpreted and implemented it). The canonization of Pope JPII is unusually hasty by recent standards, and in light of the scandals (sex abuse cover-up, the protection of his friend, the perverted Marcial Maciel Degollado, his facilitation of the Assisi gatherings which on their face cannot be squared with "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them."). These disturbing details are being swept under the rug without explanation. To what end, if not for political reasons? If indeed he is a saint, fifty or a hundred years from now nothing will have changed in that regard, except that the particular biases of those promoting the canonization will no longer be as much of a factor. Ditto Pope John XXIII. Instead, as we are seeing, this rush to canonize is creating cynicism regarding the motives and vested interests of those who have fast-tracked this event, and is undermining the credibility of the process.

Thank you for your post. It is an honorable tradition of the church for one Pope to only open the door and allow a subsequent Pope, if he is moved by the Spirit, to pass through.

And, thank you also, for reminding us that B16 did indeed spontaneously utter “Are we not all saints?” when the crowd sought immediate canonization of JP2. Why, if he wasn’t so German, B16 might be a Baptist.