Journalists habitually described the late Pope John Paul II as a “rock star” as a way of evoking his extraordinary charisma. But now some of the late pontiff’s devotees are hoping to make that description literally true.
The campaign to canonize John Paul has spawned a DVD entitled Santo Subito (“Sainthood Now”), after the phrase chanted by mourners in St. Peter’s Square around the time of the pope’s funeral. The video’s producers describe it this way:
The first music DVD to embody the voice and the images of John Paul II. This 60 minute film or series of clips (most very modern and radical, graphically and artistically) in which John Paul II’s speeches and in 2 instances him singing, have been set to music, most of it orchestral and incorporating original Gregorian recordings, though some is electronic (Trip Hop) or contemporary acoustic guitar.
The DVD’s composer claims to have received the Vatican’s blessing for his project, but it’s hard to imagine it could have appealed very much to John Paul’s buttoned-down successor, whose preference for classical music is well known.