Paul VI canonization has political overtones

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, in his Christmas card to me last December, informed me that the Congregation for the Causes of Saints had recognized a miracle attributed to Pope Paul VI, and wrote, “The road is now open for the canonization, possibly in October, of your good and admired friend.”.

Vaticanologists immediately hailed 2018 as the “Year of Paul VI.” At first glance, this looks like a propaganda victory for those who regard the beginning of the Second Vatican Council as the Church’s Year Zero, as if the nineteen centuries that preceded it were little more than an irrelevant costume drama. They hope that canonizing Paul will be interpreted as canonizing the council and, just as important, the new liturgy that followed in its wake.

This may indeed be Pope Francis’ intention. He presents himself as a post-Vatican II pope – not only the first who was ordained during the advent of the vernacular Mass, in 1969, but also one who is determined to resist the “reform of the reform,” an attempt by mainstream conservatives to introduce elements of pre-conciliar worship into parishes.

Last August he declared "with certainty and magisterial authority” that the liturgical changes promulgated by Vatican II were irreversible. In 2016 he was even more explicit. The changes to worship “must be carried forward as they are,” he said, insisting that “to speak of ‘the reform of the reform’ is an error.”

What better way to drive home his point than to canonize the pope who promulgated the reforms of the 1960s? Yet, as Catholics who were around in the 1970s will remember, Paul himself was visibly unhappy with the liturgical and theological experiments favored by the more extreme enthusiasts for “the spirit of Vatican II.” These liberals – some of whom are still alive and claim to have the ear of Pope Francis – may have been whom he had in mind when he said mysteriously in 1972 that “the smoke of Satan” had entered the Church.

We can be sure that we will hear little about the smoke of Satan if Paul is raised to the altar. Instead, progressive Catholics will portray the canonization as a corrective to reviving traditionalism in the Church, even a repudiation of Benedict XVI’s “hermeneutic of continuity,” about which Francis is less than enthusiastic. The fact that Benedict received his red hat from none other than Paul VI will be glossed over.

There will certainly be commentators who will portray the event as a papal slap in the face for conservative Catholics – and especially the young priests and seminarians who revere the Tridentine Mass. 

There is, however, one indisputable obstacle to the celebration of Paul’s canonization as a great liberal feat, for it was Paul, of course, who wrote the encyclical Humanae Vitae, which reaffirmed the ban on artificial contraception. This document shocked liberals more profoundly than anything in the pontificates of John Paul II or Benedict XVI.

By outlawing the contraceptive pill for Catholics, Paul VI went against the advice of the Pontifical Commission on Birth Control which had voted 64 to 5 in favour of allowing hormone-altering drugs that prevent insemination – i.e. “the Pill.”

Pope Francis will be canonizing his predecessor in the year that marks the 50^th anniversary of Paul’s momentous re-statement and clarification of traditional Catholic teaching on sexuality – arguably his greatest achievement and one which, at the time, overjoyed Catholics who were unhappy about the changes ushered in by the council.

Paul knew that by banning artificial birth control he was outraging popular opinion. He agonized over the decision long after he made it, but he had no intention of reversing it. The clarity of Paul VI’s thinking on such crucial matters is often forgotten. When he was Cardinal Giovanni Montini, John XXIII gave him the nickname Hamlet because he agonized over decision-making.

He was a pope of both continuity and change, of theological rectitude and aggiornamento, the compassionate “updating” announced by St. John XXIII when he convened the Second Vatican Council.

The Canadian episcopacy was also extremely divided, especially on Humanae Vitae. While the majority of bishops disagreed, Vancouver Archbishop James Carney (1969-1990) doggedly defended it. His fidelity to the Holy See was well known.

The current Holy Father, unlike John Paul II and Benedict XVI, appears to be relaxed about the finer points of doctrine. That could never be said of Paul VI who was more concerned with being right than with being popular. That is why he came down decisively against contraception, despite his encouragement of innovators at Vatican II. He was willing to rankle conservatives over the liturgy and progressives over moral theology if that was the price of following his conscience.

Pope Francis’ critics believe that his reign so far has been characterized, not by heterodoxy per se, but by a refusal to affirm orthodoxy. That may be too harsh a judgment overall, but it is certainly true of Amoris Laetitia.