POPE JOHN PAUL II

   Standing off to the side and reflecting, or at least making every effort to do so, as an outside observer on the life and papacy of John Paul II, there is much to observe. I was never a part of the Roman Catholic Church during his long tenure as its leader, even though for the first half of my life I was. I disagree with some of his teachings and assert he was wrong in some of his actions; but as an outsider, I have always been a voice lost in the wind. And that is all right. Only insiders have a right to be heard.

   What I will remember about the man and about which should be his legacy are two facts. First, he was arguably the most significant person in the world in the overthrow of communism. He, more than any other person, helped bring down the Berlin Wall and bring freedom, however it has been and is still being configured, to the people of the old Soviet bloc. The world is a better place because of him.

   The second fact I will remember about John Paul II is his unfailing and unrelenting support of the poor and outcasts of this world. Even though his words seem to have fallen on the deaf ears of those who control the power and wealth of this world, that is almost beside the point. He made his point over and over again, whether or not anyone was willing to hear and, more importantly, do anything about it. The poor, as far as John Paul II was concerned, as he believed Jesus was concerned, always came first.

   And he had the Gospel to back him up on this one. While the Haves would like to erase the judgment scene in Matthew 25, act as if Jesus never spoke those words or certainly never meant for us to take them at face value, John Paul II and the Have-nots hold their feet to the fire. Jesus was deadly serious about the importance of tending to and alleviating the needs of the last, the least and the lost of this world. John Paul II expected the rest of us to be just as serious.

   Looking back on his papacy he was certainly an obvious success on the first and a seeming failure on the second. Communism is mostly a relic of the past even as the world is still suffering from the effects of this cruel and inhuman political system. There are still traces of it, but they will be gone in time because the oppressed will not stay oppressed forever. They will rise up in justifiable revolt.

   Yet, even though the poor of the world are not much, if any, better off than they were twenty-six years ago, it is not because John Paul II failed. The world failed. We failed to listen; and if we listened, we did not do much about it. I suspect a case can be made that the poor are even poorer and there are more of them per capita than ever before. Perhaps the Pope’s voice was one crying out in the wilderness, but cry out he did.

   There will be those who would accuse him of belaboring the point. But a point is only belabored once it has been heard and then acted upon. Until then the point still must be made. Perhaps this saintly man, as ill and as debilitated as he was, held on to life for so long because he did not want his voice of compassion to be stilled. To some it now may be. To the poor, and hopefully to us, it still speaks. Are we listening?    WJP