John Paul II

24 hours after it was first reported, it is being reported again, and apparently it is true. Karol Wojtyla, Pope John Paul II, has died.

"Our Holy Father John Paul has returned to the house of the Father."
- Archbishop Leonardo Sandri

I am not a Catholic. At the time of his ascendancy to the Papacy, I was 15 years old and, frankly, not a particularly good Christian. (Which is not to say that I am now, but I am far more aware of what it means and what my shortcomings are as a 41 year-old man than I was as a boy of 15.) It meant nothing to me then. I knew that the Pope was the head of the Roman Catholic Church, I knew that a Pope had died, been replaced, and then another had died. I was aware that the new Pope was Polish, and that that was a first. I did not realize that he was the first non-Italian Pope. I had no cognizance of the depth of affection that people had for the holder of that office, nor of the number of people that held that affection.

When I met my wife, she was providing the music at one Sunday mass every week, and I frequently went with her. As we talked, I learned many things that I hadn't known, and was disabused of some of my negative feelings about the Catholic Church (though not all of them). We were married in a large Catholic church, the church where she had attended, where she'd gone to high school, though I haven't been in a Catholic church for other than weddings, funerals and baptisms since. She still considers herself a Catholic, but our family church is a congregational church, where we attend with our children.

But regardless of one's feelings about the church, indeed, regardless of one's feelings about religion in general, it is impossible not to recognize that this Pope was one of the towering figures of the 20th century. This was a great man. The history of the 20th century is the struggle between human freedom and totalitarianism, from gulag to concentration camp, fascim to nazism to communism. The first half of the century fought hot wars and millions of people died - the 2nd half fought cold, and millions more died, put down by their governments, and dying in hot proxy flare-ups in Korea and Vietnam and Central America.

No one man, no small group of men, were responsible for the destruction of the Soviet Union. It took the actions and attitudes, the work and prayers of millions of people, a global movement. But there were key actors on the global stage, and we've now lost two of them in the last 10 months. Ronald Reagan stood up and made it clear for the world the strength of his vision, and committed the United States to that vision of freedom. And John Paul II worked tirelessly as a spiritual leader. He saw the evil that communism had wrought in his native Poland, and was willing to stand up and talk about it, to lead his people. His visit home in 1979 had tremendous repercussions, as the people heard him stand up for the freedom of man, and the power of the Gospel. The Soviets understood that, which is why the KGB tried to assassinate him in 1981.*

This was a great man. And, while the world is poorer for his loss, it's infinitely richer for having had his presence...





* - Stop and think about that for a moment. On March 30 of 1981, Ronald Reagan was seriously wounded and nearly died from an assassin's bullet. 44 days later, Pope John Paul II was also struck by assassin's bullets and seriously wounded. We nearly lost two of the key movers in the fall of the Soviet Union in the course of just over 6 weeks. How different would the world look today had those bullets taken slightly different paths?

George W. Bush's first inaugural address closed with a quote from a letter that John Page wrote to Thomas Jefferson after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. "We know the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?"

Looking back at that brief span in 1981, it's hard not to be struck with that same thought yet again...