A small parish in the poor neighborhood of Alagados in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, has become the first in the world to be named after St. John Paul II, after the late pontiff’s canonization April 27. Sara Gomes, spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Salvador, told AFP that the “small church of Notre Dame of Alagados will now be called 'Notre Dame of Alagados and of St. John Paul II.' It is the first in the world to be named after the new saint.” The official name change took place the morning of April 27 after Mass at the parish. Pope John Paul II was declared a saint alongside Pope John XXIII at a Vatican Mass earlier that day. Archbishop Murilo Krieger signed a decree authorizing the new title for the parish, which was inaugurated in 1980 by John Paul II during the first of three trips he made to Brazil. Capuchin Father Jorge Rocha recalled meeting St. John Paul II at the parish three decades ago. “The saints live among us,” he told the Globo website. “The Church does not invent them, she recognizes what already exists.”
The spiritual climax of the Gospel of John, as Father John Waiss points out, occurs at the foot of the Cross, where Jesus utters his parting words: “Woman, behold, your son!” and “Behold your mother!” (John 19:26-27). While these words were addressed to the Apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, the Church has long understood this moment as a universal adoption. To truly image Christ, we must share in His parentage; if we embrace God as our spiritual Father but reject Mary as our mother, we treat Christ as a half-brother rather than our "firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). As Origen noted as early as the third century, the profound depths of the Gospel are only accessible to those who, like John, rest their heads on Jesus’ breast and receive Mary into their own homes. This maternal role is deeply rooted in biblical typology, positioning Mary as the fulfillment of the great mothers of the Old Covenant. She is the New Eve , the mother of all the living according ...