The fervor that mourners showed during the viewing of the body of Pope John Paul II last week and the calls for his immediate sainthood are old hat in the history of the papacy.
Pope Clement IV, who died in 1268, is a case in point. As his body lay in state before an altar, “crowds of people, moved by his holiness and by his miracles, converged to see him, touch him and kiss him,” said an official Vatican account. Many considered him a saint.
The custom pertains not only to the particular virtues of a pope, but to the belief that every pontiff is the heir of St. Peter.
The public’s photographing of John Paul II’s body may have seemed like an innovation. But it was just an updating of the ancient practice of getting as close as possible to the body or appropriating part of its clothing or the coffin as a holy relic.
