Tribute to John Paul II
- Category: Faith
- Date 10-04-2005
- 445 views
British Prime Minister, an Anglican, said on learning of the death of the immediate past Supreme Pontiff, “Even if you are not a Catholic, even if you are not a Christian, even if you have no religious faith at all, what people could see in Pope John Paul was a man of true and profound spiritual faith, …”
The Polish-born bishop of Rome did more to reach out to the entire world than any of his predecessors; becoming the first Pope to enter a Mosque, Synagogue, and preach in a Protestant church. He also severally went out of the walls of the Vatican and visited more countries than any other pontiff before him, therefore taking God’s message to the people whom it is rightly intended to nourish.
Born a citizen of a communist country, Poland, he is credited for destroying communism in Europe and the demise of the Soviet Union. In Cuba, a communist country, which the 1959 revolution turned into an atheist state and religious freedoms only, relaxed on John Paul’s visit in 1997, President Castro decreed three days of mourning for the passing of the Holy Father.
Even as his health seemed to fail him in his latter years, John Paul II demonstrated remarkable zeal to do a job, which he believed if he did not do, nobody was going to do it for him. He managed to cling to life for a while, perhaps to crystallise the most central and coherent message of his papacy about the sanctity of life whether it is threatened in the womb by abortion or in old age by euthanasia.
People close to Pope John Paul II could hardly read the thoughts behind the mask of sickness in his face; a man with a vital mind who loved life enormously, yet trapped into a body that brought him nothing but suffering. However, looking at him brought to mind the image of the Biblical Suffering Servant of God “… a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity”. (Isaiah 53:3)
John Paul II survived a near fatal assassination attempt in 1981 and, after recovering from the pistol shot, declared that suffering as one of the most powerful messages in Christianity evokes compassion and respect. Later when age and infirmity started to incapacitate him publicly, he is said to have observed, “I must lead the Church with suffering. The Pope must suffer … a higher gospel: the gospel of suffering with which one must prepare the future.”
There had been proposals for the Pope to resign when his declining health increasingly aroused concerns over his ability to administer to the Church, and to save him from hard demands his office was imposing on him. Christopher Dickey and Rod Nordland have quoted John Paul as having shot back, “Did Christ come down from the cross?” (Newsweek February 2005)
John Paul II has also been criticised for allowing the evangelical Christians to launch outrageous doctrinal attacks on the Church and make inroads into Catholic strongholds without the 1.2 billion strong Church putting up a fight. However, if the Holy Father managed to forgive Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish who shot and nearly killed him in 1981, but instead sent him annual gifts, he could not lead the Church into wars and insults as if that is how to do God’s work. Moreover, he always told world powers straight into their face that it was wrong to engage in needless military adventures; he was the leading churchman to condemn the most recent US invasion of Iraq.
Thus Peering Eye joins Christendom and the entire humanity in glorifying God for the well-spent life of Karol Wojtyla (1920 – 2005) who accomplished his mission as the Vicar of Christ on earth and joined his master Jesus in peace. On 2nd April, the eve of John Paul’s death, a commentator in Britain’s Daily Telegraph queried of the Pope, “If he is not going to heaven, then who is?”
By Venansio Ahabwe
Source: Peering Eye, Sunday Citizen