On Sunday Pope Paul VI was declared Blessed, the final step before sainthood, in St Peter’s Square. I was there. It was an occasion I had long looked forward to, and an appointment I was determined to keep.
I had last been at a Papal Mass nearly twenty years ago. Back then I had been less than leased by the behaviour of the crowd – the constant chatter, phone calls, even eating, had grated. This time, even before the Mass began, there was an atmosphere of calm recollection. We arrived at 8 am, and were admitted within thirty minutes to our enclosure; at half past nine there was the Rosary in Latin. Each seat had been given a copy of the Vatican’s newspaper, the Osservatore Romano. A cool but sunny morning was soon turning into an inferno, and placing the newspaper on one’s head seemed the very best idea. Rome had been hot all week – by the time the Mass began, it was 30 degrees. The first applause was for the appearance of Pope Benedict, shaded by a white umbrella: twenty minutes later, the Mass began with the procession of bishops, culminating with the entrance of Pope Francis, who was warmly applauded when he greeted Pope Benedict.
The actual act of beatification took place at the start of the Mass, with the Archbishop of Brescia, the new Beatus’s home town, petitioning the Pope for the declaration. A tapestry showing the Blessed Paul VI was unveiled on the façade of the Basilica. There was more applause. When the sermon came, there was renewed applause for Papa Montini, with every mention of his name. I was gratified and surprised by the warmth of applause that came with the mention of Blessed Pope Paul’s declaration of the Blessed Virgin Mary as “Mother of the Church”, a declaration that was much criticised by some at the time. There were three Popes present: but the crowd was reserving its fondest love, one felt, for Montini and Ratzinger.
I had asked several people why they were there, and the answer was simple and always the same: because Pope Paul was a man to whom the whole Church owed much. Then, at the end of Mass, as we were waiting for Pope Francis to come by in his Popemobile, I was vox popped for Vatican Radio, in Italian. The question I was asked was the perfect question: was the teaching of Pope Paul VI still “attuale”, that is, of topical interest. Indeed it was, I replied. Blessed Pope Paul is, I said, an example of the way that Truth does not come cheap. We have to suffer for it. And Truth trumps all other considerations. If it comes to a choice between popularity and Truth, we must choose Truth every time. As for why I was there, in that sweltering and unseasonable sunshine, the answer I gave was the same answer I had received when I had asked that question of others: because I owed much to Pope Paul. He was the Pope of my adolescence, I was inspired by his love of the Church, and to him I owed my vocation. I was there, quite simply, to say thankyou.
It is quite likely, though impossible to prove, that most of the people in the piazza that morning – it was well past noon by the time we were able to leave, exhausted but elated – were like myself ‘la gente di Paolo Sesto’, Paul VI’s people, a demographic that has hardly made its presence felt in the Church, but is still there, and which perhaps forms a significant part of both clergy and laity. There is naturally a danger in beatifying Popes, if you try to make their reign some sort of gold standard against which other reigns must be compared. But this is not the case with Blessed Paul VI: he is an example of personal holiness, of dedication, of tireless work in the Lord’s vineyard. This is what we need, not just in Popes, but in all of members of the Church. The beatification of Paul VI is not about the papacy – it’s about all of us, about the universal Christian vocation.
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