On Pope John Paul II
Now that the conclave at the Vatican has begun, let me fulfill a promise I made to someone a couple of weeks ago. A person who reads this blog occasionally "gently rebuked" me, and I thanked him for it. He wondered why I had not commented on the passing of Pope John Paul II, saying that if Billy Graham had died, surely I would have paid tribute. Why not do the same for one of the great spiritual leaders of our time, whether I was Catholic or not?
Karol Wojtyla, known to us know as Pope John Paul II, was "one of us" a friend told me the other day. What he meant was that early in his life, Wojtyla, destined to lead the Catholic Church through the turbulent times of the second half of the 20th century, had a deep interest in poetry and literature, and ambitions to become a professional actor. Anyone who has read his 1999 "Letter to Artists" knows that he had a deep affinity for those craftsmen he saw creating new "epiphanies of beauty." For that piece of writing alone, and for far more, I wish I had known the man.
The outpouring of the world's affection and grief at John Paul's passing took me by surprise--the scale of it. Again, I did not know the man: he was not at the center, or even on the periphery of my consciousness. As a Protestant of some conviction, I can be forgiven, I suppose. As a man of the world, I'm not so sure. After he died, I listened to the television news and read the papers, all detailing his long years of travel, much of it on behalf of the poor and oppressed. He helped bring down the Soviet Communist rule in Poland, and indeed, across Eastern Europe. He spoke eight languages, he had personal charisma, he used technology and media with saavy. He was conservative, denying women the right to be ordained as priests, standing firm in opposition to abortion, contraception, and euthanasia. Over and over, the reporters reported that here was a man much beloved, much disagreed with (in this country), and much admired. Here was a man of prayer and integrity.
One story reported in a piece at CNN.com caught my eye. As a young boy, in his Polish hometown of Wadowice, the children would play team sports with Catholic teams going against Jewish teams. The CNN report has one of John Paul's childhood friends saying that young Karol was always willing to play for the Jews if they didn't have enough boys to field a team. Years later, that young boy would lead the Catholic world to Jerusalem, confessing the sins of the church against the Jews, calling for reconciliation and peace.
I hope to spend more time meditating on the kind of man John Paul turned out to be. The more I read, the more I am curiously drawn to him, I suppose by the notion that here is one of the most powerful men in the world, wielding that power for good, remaining in the eyes of the world, humble, godly, and because of his gracious acceptance of his own suffering, near saint-like. As Dan Brown alludes to in his best selling fiction, at the highest levels of leadership and government in both secular and religious arenas, Catholic, there may be mystery and intrigue that most of us will never know or need to know. But at the level of the human heart, where we must all forage for truth, humility, and patient long-suffering, John Paul has shown us what so many leaders fail to show--that even on the world stage, even with profound education and knowledge, with pressures and responsibilities few of us can imagine, a man can remain a simple, humble, forthright servant of the Christ, and be used to change things by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit of Jesus.
May we all be so...
12:20:08 PM
