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Who is the world's most popular figure among today's youth? Some might say Michael Jordan, others think Tom Hanks, Britney Spears or maybe Julia Roberts.
I've got news for you. It's Pope John Paul II.
Many would be astonished to hear that the Holy Father is the most beloved person in the world among young people. After all, we're always told the Catholic Church's message is irrelevant, outmoded and, worst of all, square. Cynics charge it has nothing meaningful to say to today’s fun-loving, hedonistic youth.
According to the press, polls repeatedly show that the Pope's relentless opposition to contraception, abortion, homosexuality, pornography, pre-marital sex, easy divorce and other fruits of the sexual revolution is anathema to the modern and fashionable. (It goes without saying that no one knows the mind of the modern and fashionable like the popular media.) The Holy Father, they conclude, is out of step with the contemporary world.
If this is the case, then how do you explain nearly three million kids at the Pope's World Youth Day?
Most Americans probably aren’t even aware that millions of young people showed up in Rome last month. Those catching the news probably heard the event wrongly described as a “Catholic Woodstock.” In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth.
This was the least reported monumental event of our time. Traveling during Sunday's gigantic Papal Mass, I found almost no coverage in the mainstream media.
Apparently, nearly three million Catholic kids gathering in Rome on pilgrimage wasn't newsworthy. No wonder — in the entire six-day event, there was no violence, zero arrests and only two reported incidents of theft. Boring!
Yet there was plenty of media coverage of Nevada's recent “Burning Man” festival, where a crowd of 25,000 — about 1% of the World Youth Day turnout — spent days in a wild, desert orgy of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. Hundreds were treated for overdoses and exposure, dozens arrested, two hospitalized with head injuries — here were shades of the real Woodstock! And naturally, press watchdogs were brimming with interest.
Why this discrepancy in news attention? Perhaps it's because young people's love for the Holy Father is a direct rebuke of the modern age, and thus to its primary megaphone, the modern journalist. No institution has been a more powerful force for secularism, materialism or sexual freedom than the media.
Most reporters today are alienated from religion, looking at faith as little more than an ancient superstition. They don't understand it, so they don't cover it — unless a “religious” story involving titillation or human weakness pops up. That they comprehend.
In talking to World Youth Day participants as they return home, one is hard-pressed to miss their deep affection for the Holy Father. The same words keep popping up over and over to describe him — “radiant,” “energetic,” “world's role model,” “leader of youth,” “our rock,” “following in St. Peter's footsteps,” and “the person closest to Jesus.”
Thus, reasons for the Pope's youthful legions are quite simple: when young people see the weary, lined, rugged visage of the Holy Father, they see the face of love. Not love the way Hollywood loves them — as walking wallets, rear ends in theater seats, pairs of ears to listen to the latest CDs — but real affection, from someone who sees them rightfully as precious individuals with eternal souls. And when the Vicar of Christ's deep, aged, honeyed voice is intoned, it seems they're hearing the very words of God.
This, then, is the Papal appeal to the young — faith, as the steadfast leader of the Church, the eternal Bride of Christ; hope, offering refuge for the restless heart; and love, from a elderly man walking in persona Christi. Of these, as St. Paul says, the greatest is love.
These virtues were epitomized in an unforgettable moment during the all-night Papal Mass Vigil when a young man ran up from the crowd to the Holy Father upon his papal throne and buried his head in the Pontiff's lap. He poured his heart out at length as the Pope tenderly stroked his head and whispered gently to him, the personification of Cardinal Newman's great motto of “Heart Speaketh to Heart.” It's hard to imagine any other world leader reacting this way to the sudden presence of an unexpected young stranger — so fearless, so compassionate, so Christ-like.
No wonder kids love him.
Significantly, at the Roman Coliseum, the Pope called today's youth to be prepared for “a New Martyrdom,” taking a stand for Christ as the first Apostles did. Not necessarily asking them to lay down their lives or shed their blood (the word “martyr” comes from the Greek “to witness”), but to be willing to “go against the tide in order to follow the Divine Master” in living their daily lives. Far from discouraging the youthful crowd, the papal call for a “New Martyrdom” moved and inspired them. Those I talked to who experienced the event returned home with hearts burning with the Faith.
Catholicism may be known as the Old Faith. It's also the Young Faith, with a remarkable, time-tested ability to outlive every fad that mocks it as passé. Each generation discovers anew the richness and power of their ancient religion, finding within it an inexhaustible treasure of grace and beauty, boundless as the sea. Once that discovery is made, as more than two and a half million young pilgrims recently learned, no worldly interest can ever again quite satisfy.
With the Republican and Democratic conventions receiving what seemed like endless coverage, World Youth Day was hardly noticed by the American press. Neither Time nor Newsweek even mentioned it. Faced with what seemed an earth-shattering event, the mighty organs of the press stood mute, like baffled schoolboys stumped by their headmaster’s tough questions.
Truth is, the eloquent presence of nearly three million young Catholic pilgrims in Rome a few weeks ago speaks volumes about their devotion to the Holy Father, and thus to the Faith he represents. As it always will, this “stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Cor 1:23) may have left the secular world simply speechless.
