Pope John Paul II died peacefully less than two weeks ago. Aides said that he suffered serenely in the last few days of his life. Did we expect anything else?
Karol Wojtyla was a man of faith. Born in Poland in 1920 and living under Nazi and communist rule, he was elected to the papacy in 1978. A French journalist was in St. Peter’s Square that day and wired back to his Parisian newspaper — prophetically — that the new pope was not a pope from Poland, but rather a pope from Galilee.
John Paul’s message, like that of the Master he served so faithfully, was always uplifting. His words were always filled with faith and hope, just as his demeanour was always full of love. Shot in 1981, the pope quickly recovered, not to bolt down the doors and windows of the Vatican, but to enter the cell of his would-be assassin to seek reconciliation and forgiveness. He was a man of love.
He was an actor of sorts before he entered the Catholic priesthood, and helped run an underground theatre as an act of defiance against Nazi occupation. But acting was not the secret to his success on the world stage. Rather, he was a witness. And what a witness he was in the last ten years of his pontificate!
I remember attending a Mass in St. Peter’s Square in the Year 2000. Physical collapse had taken over. Here was the pope bent over, dribbling from the mouth and shaking. He was a crucifix. It was a deeply moving experience.
I was given the privilege of studying his thought for four years in the USA at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family. The professors who explained his writings assured us of their depth and uniqueness. Certainly they were novel, even while being anchored in the tradition.
But what was more impressive was his life. He inspired me. Catholics call the Bishop of Rome the pope, which means, “father.” He was certainly that and more. He was faithful, loving, gracious, forgiving, confident and funny. He was another Christ. As we like to say, “It doesn’t get any better.” Even prominent Protestant preachers, like Billy Graham, have recognized that John Paul II was perhaps the greatest evangelist since St. Paul.
Over forty years ago now, an Italian pope — John XXIII — called the Church together. She had to take a different direction. She needed renewal. Extraordinary changes were enveloping the world. The status quo could not remain.
The changes that took place in the Church did not deal with essentials, as some people have imagined. As a consequence, some people thought that the pope was conservative. Might we not say — recalling the Master’s words that Christians are to be “salt to the world” — that John Paul II, in line with all previous popes, was preservative? The task is to guard the entrusted treasure and open it up for successive generations.
The changes, therefore, that Pope John XXIII instigated were of a relational nature. The question he posed was this: Could the Church find a language that would be at once faithful to Christ and faithful to the people she purported to serve? Could the Church speak to us about Christ in an intelligible way so that we could experience Christ as previous generations had?
The stakes were high. The renewal of Church life was perhaps more difficult than we might have originally thought. Pope John Paul II gave the Church confidence in this important task. He was a leader of extraordinary gifts. His impact on young people, in particular, was nothing short of miraculous. I attended two of his World Youth Days — one in Paris (1997) and the other in Toronto (2002). John Lennon once claimed that the Beatles were more popular than Christ. Arguably, John Paul II was more magnetic than Lennon et al. You had to see it to believe it.
What was the attraction? Last week, Jerzy Zubrzycki, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the Australian National University, hinted at one of the reasons. Zubrzycki was a contemporary of the pope. They were school classmates and sat the Polish matriculation exam together in 1938.
“The essence of our educational experience,” he writes, was the study of ancient civilizations, especially of Aristotle, and of Greek tragedy and its preoccupation with the language and practice of morality.
“We were taught,” he continues, “that the vital question of ancient debates and of the great tragedies of our times was: ‘What does it mean to live a good human life?’”
John Paul II was able to pose this question to us in a language that we could understand. He did it by word and example, but somehow he made the question come alive. He made it attractive to search for the “good” and to adhere to it. Somehow his witness of faith made pursuing the virtuous life a reasonable proposition. “In fact,” he seemed to be telling us with his life, “the virtuous life is at your finger tips. Give it a go and you won’t find it all that difficult.”
This might well be the greatest legacy he has bequeathed to the Church and to the world. Only time will tell. In the meantime, I give thanks to God for such a great witness. I won’t forget him.
© Copyright 2005 Catholic Exchange
Father Anthony Percy, STD is the Pastor of Mary, Queen of Apostles Parish in Goulburn, Australia. He was ordained in 1990. He obtained his doctorate in Sacred Theology from the John Paul II Institute for Studies in Marriage and Family in Washington, DC.
