I was nine years old on a camping trip with my family when
Karol Wojtyla of Poland became, out of the blue it seemed, John Paul II.
Simple things oftentimes being the most powerful expressions of deep underlying realities...the choice of name alone was significant...Pope John Paul was dead...and Wojtyla chose to become John Paul II in his honor and in honor of reform the name stood for.
I remember hearing news that the smoke from the Vatican was no longer black...that a new Pope had been chosen, and that he was Polish....something that my father, a history professor, made clear to me was very significant...and hopeful.
Significance is an important word for this Pope. Hopeful is a word to consider as the Cardinals, a group exclusively made up of men, begin to assemble to choose his successor. Karol Wojtyla, with his life, has given us all something to think about.
Something that might give perspective to the meaning of this Pope is that there are a very few spiritual leaders in the world...some of them known...like the Dalai Lama...and most of them unknown, whether by choice or fate, who interpret their own lives as being true "intercessors" or mediators between the divine and us mortals.
Agree or disagree with this Pope. Love him or not. John Paul II deeply believed that he had a mission. He was a sincere man. And on some level, whether he suceeded or failed, he sought to embody divine love on earth. He sought to be "there for us."
There are many ways to interpret his travels. There are many ways to interpret his outreach to other religions and traditions. Simple things can be complex at the same time as they are simple. If John Paul truly believed that he was chosen by God to reach out to every person on this planet...that he was, in fact, the Pope of every person, of all humanity whether they knew it or not...well, then his ecumenism was also a form of proselytising.
Regardless, John Paul II did much more outreach than anyone could have expected or known in 1978. He travelled more, visited more people and places, and perhaps was seen by more other human beings...than all the previous Popes in the 2000 year history of the Catholic Church combined.
Like very few human beings, and he definitely was human, with failings and blind spots if not deliberate obstinances and grave faults...John Paul II took up his calling and never once looked back or faltered in his grand scheme. It is the mark of how powerful a figure he is, someone we knew who will perhaps merit the moniker "great", who will be most certainly canonized as a saint...that everything in his life:
- the wide travels to remote and neglected places, to the "Third World"
- surviving his assassination attempt, not backing or slowing down, and then meeting his would be assassin in person and in private
- the kissing of the ground on his visit to Poland and his tacit role in laying the groundwork for the largely peaceful Velvet Revolution of 1989
- his visit to the Wailing Wall and to the Synagogue of Rome and to the Orthodox communities and the world of Islam.
- his perseverance, in the face of Parkinson's and physical ailments and in presenting to the world an example of the power of spirit and mind present in even the most weakened of bodies.
All these instances seem natural, pre-ordained in a way...and yet all of them are the singular byproduct of John Paul's initial vision and life force, of his true core...and all of them essentially relate to how Karol Wojtyla saw himself and his calling. He didn't
have to do any of these things, he chose to do them...at his own risk. There is, of course, another side.
For myself, a child of the Catholic tradition who finds himself estranged from that very tradition in no small part due to the policies and "blind spots" of Karol Wojtyla:
- priestly celibacy
- the ordination and equal rights of women
- birth control and condoms, especially in the face of AIDS
- the reality and richness of human sexuality, including homosexuality, versus its denial and denigration
- his complicity in the priest abuse scandals and coverups
- the indulgence of "right wing" political/spiritual Catholics and politicians
- the shutting out of liberation theology and "left wing" spiritual/political Catholics and people
- a sense that John Paul's outreach was, in some sense, indeed, proselytising
- and, at the end of the day, when the choice was to be made between pressing the rear-guard "devotion" button versus the "reform" and "openess" button, this Pope, at almost every instance, chose to lead his flock away from further reform and, in my view, some of the realities of our modern world.
All that being said....I think there is something powerful that we are witnessing right now in the passing of this man.
He loved us...both in the particular sense of how he cared enough to "show up" and in the general sense that he was a man who saw his mission as embracing the good of everyone. He saw humanity as a whole. Worthy, imperfect, but essentially, one. That is, to put it bluntly, not a particularly common worldview, and it is a viewpoint whose message was not lost on millions of people. On some level, though it was through his Christianity that he arrived at that vantage point, there is something powerful in it, nevertheless.
I am convinced that the challenge of the 21st century is to build a sense of our human community. That is the challenge posed to us by our history and by the defining event that opened this century....9/11. As a living embodiment of the 20th Century, its struggles and nightmares...as a man who grew up in Nazi occupied Poland, and found his vocation under Soviet domination...Karol Wojtyla had a powerful lesson to teach the world...implicitly, simply, in his actions and words.
We are one. Our future is intermeshed with that of our brothers and sisters. We are equal. That is the start point.
I think this is true. Perhaps not in the way this Pope would have us all accept...or affirm. But in a way that his life force and mission was truly oriented towards....and in a way that all the great paths, the spiritual and philosophical traditions of humankind, aspire to illuminate on some level.
Our oneness, equality and interdependency is something we are left with in this new era. In this new century. It is something that binds us and highlights the powerful question of what, if any, legacy we will leave for our children on this planet. John Paul's absence, like that of the Dalai Lama when he dies, will make his presence, a presence we have long since taken for granted, all the more significant. It is no small fact that a man who was celibate, who never had children of his own, became in the end more of a father than he might ever have expected.
He was, at the end of the day, a "great" man, someone who lived a significant life, whether one agreed with him or not. He tried to be a force for good. He tried to embody love as best any of us can, ie. through his own limitations. When one sees beyond some of the outer trappings...the robes and the ceremonies...this becomes more clear. John Paul was certainly not unique in his vision, but he did sustain, for his lifetime, the core of his message...a message of humanity and love.
There are many other great men and women among us. Some of them known, some of them unknown. The challenges we face....all of us, together, are just as profound...and the terrain does not avail us of easy answers or unifying creeds. Now it's their turn. Our turn. With our feet squarely planted on the ground.
It is time to say goodbye...and thank you...to Karol Wojtyla.