UNITED STATES
Fox News Latino
By Andrew O’Reilly
Published April 25, 2014
To some Latinos, he is the most beloved pontiff of the 20th century because he used his powerful pulpit to support immigrants and oppressed war-torn nations.
But others take a darker view, criticizing him for his failure to respond aggressively to one of the worst crisis in the recent history of the church – the sexual abuse scandal – and for failing to back grass roots movements in Latin America fighting repression.
The canonization on Sunday of Pope John Paul II, the magnetic Catholic leader who sparked impassioned feelings, has stirred an array of reactions among Catholics in the United States.
Elected to the papacy in 1978, Pope John Paul II was the longest serving leader of the Roman Catholic Church in the 20th century and earned a canonization quicker than any other pontiff, leading many in the church to ardently defend him against attacks by some scholars and critics.
“That is going to be the judgment of history looking at his papacy with a longer lens,” the Rev. David Garcia, the director of the Old Spanish Missions at the Archdiocese of San Antonio told Fox News Latino of the late pope’s legacy. “We’re still too close to this issue.”
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