It shouldn’t come as a surprise that a Pope who has spent so much of his time in the Vatican would know how to control information when he really wants to. But I can’t remember a time in recent history (since, say, maybe Humanae Vitae) when self-styled Vatican watchers were caught more off-guard.
Today Pope Benedict promulgated, among others, the decrees of heroic virtue virtue for Pope John Paul II, which had been well-reported and expected, and to the great surprise of many, the joy of some and the irritation of others, that of Pope Pius XII. In greatly understated language we simply see these names in a list along with seven others and ten approved miracles, five of which clear the way for canonization and five of which for beatification. Announcing the heroic virtues of Pope Pius XII at the same time as that of Pope John Paul II was a very interesting way of managing the sure-to-come controversy.
It should be interesting to see now how those who made a great noise against Pope Pius XII, even in the face of continuing and growing evidence of his efforts to save as many Jewish people as possible in WWII, will address this rather ad intra issue. While I am no expert on Pope Pius XII what I do know tells me this is a well overdue recognition.
One would not, indeed, have thought that Pope John Paul II being named Venerable would be able to be overshadowed on the very day of the announcement. His was a life of which we are quite unlikely to see a corollary any time soon. Then again, these are increasingly interesting times in which we live, so who knows what God has in store for us.
