Double canonisation in Rome

John XXIII and John Paul II were canonised before a large audience gathering on Sunday in St. Peters Square in Rome.

Ştefan Stoica, 28.04.2014, 13:21

“We declare and define that Blessed John XXIII and John Paul II be saints, and we enroll them among the saints”, said Pope Francis before the huge portraits of the two former pontiffs Angelo Roncalli and Karol Wojtila during the ceremony held on Sunday in front of St. Paul’s Basilica in Rome.

Hundreds of thousands of believers poured into St Peter’s Square to attend the ceremony, the first in which two popes, both of them leading figures of the Catholic Church after WWll, were canonised. Pope XXIII called the second Vatican Council, which opened the church towards the modern world and other religions. Pope John Paul II, the first Polish Pope and a charismatic and tireless messenger of Christ’s love all over the world, is believed to have had a big contribution to the fall of communism in eastern Europe.

The festivities held on Sunday were also attended by the Metropolitan Archbishop of Bucharest Ioan Robu, numerous priests, monks and nuns as well as believers from all over Romania.

Both of the two canonised popes travelled to Romania in their day. Pope John Paul II paid a historic visit to Romania in May 1999, the first by a pontiff to a country with an Orthodox majority population. Before becoming pope John XXIIII, Angelo Roncalli visited Romania in 1930 and 1932, while he was serving in a diplomatic mission in Bulgaria. As an apostolic delegate to Turkey, in 1944, following a request from the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, he helped the Romanian Jews deported to Transdniester, today in the Republic of Moldova, by sending aid to concentration camps and issuing baptism certificates. Monsignor Roncalli also convinced the Turkish authorities to allow a ship carrying Romanian Jews bound for Jerusalem to cross Turkey’s national waters, thus helping 750 Romanian Jews, third of whom were children.

According to a communiqué issued by the Roman-Catholic Archbishopric in Bucharest, “Both John XXIII and John Paul II loved Romania. The connection that miraculously binds the two pontiffs to our country was a Capuchin friar called Jeremiah of Wallachia (1556-1625). Pope John XXIII was the first to recognise his heroic virtues in 1959 and later it was John Paul II who beatified him in 1983, describing him as a protector of the Romanians persecuted for their faith.”