I thought making JPII a saint was a mistake. I thought it was too soon and that it, like the canonization of Cardinal John Newman would come back to bite us all one day. Well, now I think the canonization was sabotage and the bite has officially started. The McCarrick Report is out today. People who have read it say that it blames JPII and his right hand man, Cardinal Dziwisz.
The report is said to be somewhere between 400 to 600 pages which will be grim reading I'm sure. Blaming the dead rock star pope and an 81 year old man, who let's face it, is closer to the grave than the cradle, is a masterstroke.
You see, if Saint John Paul II, who apparently never listened to anybody who tried to tell him that Bishop So-and-So was bad news, gave McCarrick his power then it calls into question JPII's sanctity or at least, his wisdom. A seed of doubt has been sowed. Since JPII was wrong about McCarrick, what else was he wrong about? Many people see JPII as their linchpin. Catholics of my generation looked up to him as the holiest pope since Pope St. Pius X. Discredit JPII and those people are going to be shaken. If you've ever been exasperated after reading Hilary White's rage against JPII and Benedict XVI for not satisfying her father hunger then get ready for more of the same but from all kinds of people including some of your friends and family members.
The McCarrick Report allows Francis to say, "Hey it wasn't me. My holy predecessor trusted McCarrick so why shouldn't I have? I was misled." I think most people are going to react to the McCarrick Report the same way their parents and grandparents did when the Novus Ordo was forced on them in 1968-1970. They will sit in the pews for an hour on Sunday and that's it or they'll stop coming to Mass or they will conclude that we've all been misled and they will apostatize.