John Paul II Leaves Large Shoes to Fill

Judging from the media reports, nothing happened on planet Earth after John Paul II died on Saturday, and very little that preceded his death mattered. This is The Big Story, and as usual, the press and the commentators are excessive in their zeal to cover the smallest detail. In doing so, they miss the big picture. The rather astonishing 26-year reign of this rock star of a Pope was the confluence of many different forces, but in the end, the success of John Paul II rested on the simple fact that he lived what he preached.

There is a rather useful forgetfulness in the media that ignores the trouble John Paul II had in his papacy. First and most enduring is the trouble with the American branch of the Catholic Church. There is a term "Cafeteria Catholic" that describes his opposition perfectly. Just selecting those parts of church dogma that appeal and rejecting the less libertarian (or is it less libertine?) matters involving personal, sexual behavior and the like, they seek to export American pluralism into a church that hasn't much of a democratic tradition. Moreover, he completely failed to deal with the sex abuse scandals in the American church (and perhaps those elsewhere). He stridently opposed female priests, and he rejected "liberation theology" in Central America.

Still, this pope genuinely liked people. Not all of his 256 predecessors had that trait. He was quite capable of hating the sin while loving the sinner. The best example of this was his forgiveness and meeting with Mehmet Ali Agca, the young man who shot him in 1979. This ability makes argument a search for truth rather than a fight between adversaries. In a world where the left questions the integrity of the right, and the right questions the patriotism of the left, his kind of debater is a dying breed.

And because he could do this, he could go to a synagogue one day and a Palestinian refugee camp the next, gaining credibility with each side rather than losing it. It is difficult to imagine a poll-driven president or prime minister having that kind of success. Although socially conservative, as American usage has it, he was an advocate for human rights. He once said that social organizations exist to further the dignity of people. When they can't do that, they are not legitimate. This was an attack on communism (which neither John Paul II nor Ronald Reagan slew with a single blow despite the revisionist historians of the 1990s giving them a greater role than catalysts for the inevitable). At the same time, it was also an attack on corporatism, and on other social and economic structures that live off the people rather than for them. Such a view in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries would have made the Reformation unnecessary. The Crusades would never have happened, and how much different the world would be today.

Above all, John Paul II understood the theatre, much as Mr. Reagan understood acting (although the late Pope was actually pretty good as a playwright, whereas Mr. Reagan wasn't ever an Oscar contender). He used to kiss the soil upon arriving in a country. He would address crowds in their own languages. And he would hold special masses with the kids -- he knew the Jesuits were right in trying to get them when they're young. Few teenagers had pictures of Paul VI on their bedroom walls, but John Paul's abounded (he didn't need George and Ringo). The Shoes of the Fisherman are going to be very hard to fill -- even a deist publication like this one stands to applaud the performance.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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