CNA Staff, Apr 27, 2021 / 08:05 am
The postulator of St. John Paul II’s canonization cause said Tuesday that the Polish pope remains a “prophetic voice” seven years after he was recognized as a saint.
Msgr. Sławomir Oder said that when St. John Paul II was canonized on April 27, 2014, he felt he had completed the task entrusted to him by Benedict XVI, who permitted the cause to open in 2005 without the customary five-year waiting period after a candidate’s death.
“At the beginning of this process, Pope Benedict XVI gave me a clear instruction: work fast but work well. On that day, I was conscious that I had not disappointed the expectations expressed in those words of the Holy Father,” he said.
Referring to recent criticisms of St. John Paul II in Poland and elsewhere, Oder said that devotion to the pope who led the Church from 1978 to 2005 would prove stronger than the attacks on him and his legacy.