On Sunday, April 27, a week after Easter, Pope Easter will canonize two previous pope: John Paul II (1978-2005) and John XXIII (1958-1963), during a ceremony in St. Peter's Square.
Before the canonization next Sunday, for an entire week, different services will be offered at the Holy Seed to remember the two popes, considered to be the two most influential figures in the Vatican of the last century.
As reported by The New York Post, Rome officials said that they expect around 3 million visitors to the city between the Holy Week and the canonizations of the two popes.
It's worth noting that John Paul II's canonization process, one of the most popular modern popes, was accelerated by the express will of Benedict XVI, a fact that may not surprise many as uniting his canonization with John XXIII's.
According to the quoted source, the speeding of the double process, which overlook one of the two "miracles" needed to be canonized, has caused discontent in the church hierarchy and in many faithful, who consider that this decision responds to the need to mitigate the fervor created around John Paul II and at the same time to quiet the critics who point out that many of the sexual abuse against minors scandals happened during his papacy.
Controversy over sexual abuse cases
Many specialists consider that canonizing two popes might be questioned by thousands of faithful arround the world, who have seen how Francis' attempts to decrease the sexual abuse scandals have not worked.
According to a note published by The USA Today. canonizing two popes from the time in which there the most sexual abuses against children, and who operated in a very different Vatican than today's, in which these kinds of cases were hidden from the public opinion, could be one of Francis' first actions returning to the Church's traditional way of operating, and not the renovating model the Argentinian pope had tried to establish.
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