Rev., Daniel E. Doyle,O.S.A.

Assistant Professor of Theology

Villanova University

John Paul II may be the most recognized and beloved human being of all time. His pontificate has been extraordinary by any and all measures. The world he leaves behind is a very different world from the one he entered on the day of his election to the See of Peter on October 16, 1978 as the first non-Italian pope elected since Pope Hadrian VI, a Dutchman, 456 years earlier. He inherited a Europe split in two between the Soviet-satellite states whose hostile program toward religious belief sought to minimize the influence of Christianity and a free Europe fascinated with wealth, prosperity and freedom. His powerful support of Solidarity and the deep Catholic faith of his beloved Polish nation changed all of that. Who could have predicted the peaceful dismantling of the iron curtain?

He enchanted the Italian people from the moment he first greeted them on the main balcony of St. Peter’s in near flawless Italian but acknowledging he would need their help to correct his mistakes, From that moment, he has proven himself a powerful communicator who would use his towering presence and actor’s flair for the dramatic gesture (kissing the ground as he visited a country for the first time) to preach the Gospel of Christ in season and out of season. His first words “Be not afraid” have echoed throughout the twenty six years of his papacy, the second longest since the death of the fisherman Peter himself. To that end, he has journeyed to over 100 foreign countries, he has visited countless Italian cities, and has succeeded in conducting pastoral visits of the vast majority of parishes in his home diocese of Rome, the first modern pope to do so.

His accomplishments are far too many to enumerate but include: fourteen papal encyclicals (which represent the highest level of papal teaching), eight apostolic letters, six apostolic constitutions, eleven apostolic exhortations, and four motu proprio pronouncements representing an unprecedented body of authoritative writing for one pope. I will briefly mention only two: his first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis (Christ the Redeemer of Man), underscoring his evangelical commitment to Christ as the unique savior of humanity and Evangelium Vitae (the Gospel of Life) showing himself as the indefatigable supporter of the dignity of each and every human being from the moment of conception until one’s natural death.

The pope is a consummate teacher since his days as a university professor of philosophy at the Catholic University of Lublin but has confined his teaching by no means to such formal documents. He has taught on the world stage through his pastoral visits all over the world as he celebrates the Mass and preaches at times before an open air congregation of over one million people. His weekly Wednesday audiences in Rome are the highlight of every Catholic’s visit to the Eternal City and equally popular among non-Catholics where he has conducted an ongoing series of catechesis on the most important issues of the day. He has appointed all 117 of the cardinals who are eligible to elect his successor and the vast majority of bishops who lead Catholic dioceses all over the world. He has dramatically refashioned the shape of the papacy by undertaking a series of firsts: the first pope to preach in a synagogue, the first pope to travel to the Holy Land and pray at the wailing wall, the first pope to call together leaders from all the world’s religions to pray together for peace at Assisi, the first pope to publicly ask forgiveness for the sins committed by Christians in the name of the Church, the first pope to inaugurate World Youth Day, an extravaganza love-in that never ceases to amaze even the most cynical commentators as he magnetically draws hundreds of thousands of youth in a way that would put rock concert organizers to shame.

 He has beatified and canonized more Catholics during his pontificate than all of his predecessors together throughout 2,000 years of Church history..

The pope can be a stern teacher, however. He has scolded talented theologians and priests for their public dissent. Who can forget the public dressing down of Fr. Ernesto Cardenal, a close collaborator of Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas during the pope’s pastoral visit to Nicaragua in 1983? Doctrinally conservative while liberal on social causes, he has held the line on the Church’s teaching on sexual ethics. He successfully put the skids on the popular theologies of liberation which were making great advances in Latin America in the seventies and eighties. He has refused to allow ongoing dialogue on the possibility of ordaining women to the priesthood although ironically he has been an outspoken advocate of the genius of women as evident in his apostolic letter, Mulieris Dignitatem (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women) and his deep love and devotion to the mother of Jesus. He has alienated many Catholics who find his message overly rigid and authoritarian. Yet amazingly most love him. They simply tune out those teachings which seem overly burdensome and out of touch.

His greatest failures have been his inability to turn the tide on a decline of religious practice in the industrialized countries of the world resulting in a decline in marriage and family life and an unprecedented shortage of vocations to the priesthood and religious life. He was unsuccessful in his campaign to interject the legacy of Christianity into the constitution being drafted for the European Union. His saddest legacy may be the outbreak in cases of clerical abuse not only in the United States but elsewhere during his watch which some attribute to the clerical culture fostered by the very bishops he appointed. No one dare question, however, his condemnation of this sacred betrayal of trust.

Pope John Paul II has been a champion of human rights. He has committed the Catholic Church irrevocably to ecumenical dialogue so powerfully manifest in his gestures toward the Orthodox in the East and the various communities of the reformation in the West.  He has taught us firsthand the central importance of forgiveness in his willing embrace of the very man, Ali Agca, who attempted to assassinate him in 1981. His final legacy may well be the lessons he has taught us on how to embrace suffering and the infirmity of old age with dignity, courage and grace.  Is it any wonder that many are eager to call him, John Paul the Great?

...reprinted from the Philadelphia Inquirer,  Sunday April 3, 2005