In one of this Holy Year's most controversial ceremonies, two seemingly contrasting popes were beatified yesterday, along with the Dublin-born Benedictine monk, Dom Columba Marmion, and two other clerics.
On a bright but cloudy morning, more than 80,000 pilgrims attended the 2 1/2-hour open-air service in St Peter's Square, with many following the ceremony on giant TV screens. Looking frail and occasionally unsteady on his feet, 80-year-old Pope John Paul II none the less sounded sharp and alert during his multilingual homily on the virtues of the new "Blessed".
For Irish Catholics, the Benedictine monk, Dom Columba Marmion, was the focus of yesterday's ceremony. Born of an Irish father and Belgian mother in April 1858, Dom Columba studied at Belvedere College, Dublin, and the Holy Cross seminary in Clonliffe, as well as serving as a curate in Dundrum, before moving to Belgium, where he spent most of his adult life, dying in the monastery of Maredsous in 1923.
In his homily yesterday, the Pope said: "In his writings, Dom Marmion teaches the path of holiness, at once both simple and demanding . . . Throughout his life, Blessed Columba was an outstanding spiritual director, having particular care for the interior life of priests and religious . . . May a widespread rediscovery of the spiritual writings of Blessed Columba Marmion help priests, religious and laity to grow in union with Christ and bear faithful witness to him through ardent love of God and generous service of their brothers and sisters."
While Irish Catholics will take pride in the honour bestowed on Dom Columba, the rest of the Catholic (and non-Catholic) world was inevitably much more focused yesterday on the figures of Pope John XXIII and Pope Pius IX. Although his pontificate was short, running from October 1958 to June 1963, Pope John XXIII is fondly remembered as "il papa buono", the seemingly open-minded pope who instigated the epoch-changing reforms and inter-faith reconciliation of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).
In contrast, Pope Pius IX is recalled in non-Catholic quarters as actively anti-Semitic, fiercely opposed to the unification of Italy and a major stumbling-block in the path of ecumenical dialogue. He was the pope who locked both papal infallibility and the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary into Catholic doctrine.
Pius IX was pope for 32 years, from 1846 to 1878, during which time he not only witnessed the demise of the papal states and the end of the temporal power of the papacy but also convened and presided over the First Vatican Council (1869-1870). He also proclaimed the seemingly anti-modernist teaching of his Sylla- bus of Errors.
Italian Jews, in particular, recall Pius IX as the pope who, in 1858, prompted an international scandal when he abducted six-year-old Edgardo Mortara from his Jewish parents in Bologna. The boy was brought up as a Catholic and was eventually ordained a priest. Mr Leone Paserman, president of Rome's Jewish community, last week described the beatification of Pius IX as an act "that will reverse by a good many years the whole process of reconciliat ion between Jews and Catholics".
Furthermore, on Saturday evening, 300 people, including a distant relative of Edgardo Mortara, gathered in Rome's central Piazza Bocca della Verita to recall the deaths of two pro-unification patriots, Gaetano Tognetti and Giuseppe Monti, both beheaded on the orders of Pius IX. Perhaps in deference to the anger aroused by the memory of Pius IX, Italian State President Mr Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Prime Minister Mr Giuliano Amato and the Mayor of Rome, Mr Francesco Rutelli, unusually, chose not to attend yesterday's ceremony.
Even the Pope made reference to the controversy surrounding Pius IX, whom he described as "much loved, but also hated and slandered".
"Throughout the turbulent events of his time, he was an example of unconditional fidelity to the eternal patrimony of the revealed truths. His very long pontificate was certainly not easy and he had to struggle hard to adapt his mission to the service of the Gospel," the Pope said.
After describing John XXIII as someone who "radiated a singular goodness of the soul", the Pope went on to link him with Pius IX, saying: "Divine design has it that this beatification brings together two popes who lived in very different historical contexts but who, despite appearances to the contrary, are linked together by many similarities from the human and spiritual viewpoint."
Even the large crowd in St Peter's Square, however, tended to underline the contrasting reputations of the two popes, applauding warmly on three different occasions for John XXIII while limiting itself to one round of applause for Pius IX.
Representing the Irish Hierarchy at yesterday's ceremony were the Archbishop of Armagh, Dr Sean Brady, and the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Desmond Connell. The Government was represented by the Minister for Education, Science and Technology, Dr Woods.
A delegation of 450 Irish people, including members of the Marmion family, also attended yesterday, as did Mrs Pat Bitzan, from St Cloud, Minnesota, the woman believed to have been "miraculously" cured from cancer in 1966 thanks to the intervention of Dom Columba Marmion.
The two other clerics beatified yesterday were Bishop Tommaso Reggio (1818-1901), founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of St Martha, and Guillaume-Joseph Chaminade (1761-1850), founder of the Society of Mary.