Curious onlookers filled the streets of the Vatican last week to see two popes get canonized. April 27 will be a date to remember—Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII were declared saints by the Catholic Church. “They were popes of the 20th century,” Pope Francis said in his homily in front of an audience of 800,000. Becoming a saint is not an easy task, according to Brendan Busse, S.J., who teaches theology. “To be a saint is to have lived a holy life,” he said. “A holy life is not necessarily perfect, and so many of the saints like St. Ignatius have history, where they have learned and made their own mistakes, they had their own faults but the people we hold up as saints are ones that took those experiences and somehow transformed them in a way we would call or think of as a model of Christian behavior. Saints are all those people in our lives who have done that.” Pope John Paul II is remembered for his efforts to try to bring people of various faiths together. His funeral was attended by millions and, for years, people hoped that he would be granted sainthood. However, the Catholic Church requires a pope to be beatified and the beatification itself requires proof of a miracle. Typically, the process begins five years after the person’s death. However, the Catholic Church waived this rule and began the beatification on May 9, 2005, A month after John Paul II’s death. The New York Post reported that a French nun was the first to experience a miracle: Sister Marie Simon-Pierre claimed in 2006 that prayers to Pope John Paul II had cured her of her Parkinson’s after she had visited with the man in 2005. The second miracle was the case of Floribeth Mora Diaz, a Costa Rican citizen who said that Pope John Paul II cured her of a brain aneurysm. However, she said, by the time she prayed to the Pope, he had already

died. Diaz came upon a picture of the Pope John Paul II on the cover of a magazine and prayed for healing. Pope John XXIII was known as the “good pope.” He was beatified in 2000. He’s known for several miracles that he performed in his lifetime. An Italian nun was diagnosed with gastric hemorrhaging and after undergoing 14 operations, she lay in bed dying. However, one of the members of the Daughters of Charity—of which she was also a part—brought her a relic that belonged to Pope John XXIII, and the nun experienced a recovery. The Catholic Church generally requires two miracles to be performed in order to be declared a saint, but Church officials made an exception in this case. “A lot of people are saying that the combination of these two men, John XXIII and John Paul II, is a very interesting choice…because one of those Popes is often claimed by people who consider themselves as more liberal in the church, and the other is claimed by people who consider themselves more conservative,” Busse said. “And I think one thing we can see is happening here is Francis is saying both these men are examples of what it means to be a generous human being and we need to stop tearing each other apart by dividing ourselves into opposite teams, especially within the Church.” Dawn McDonald, a student at Seattle U said, “It’s a great feeling to see these men become saints. They’ve done so much for mankind and they truly deserve it.”