John Paul II

The obituaries and eulogies for John Paul II will be written in superlatives. That is as it should be. A handful of men were responsible for the collapse of the Soviet regime, the evil empire that tyrannized millions and cast a shadow over the 20th century, and the Pope was one of that handful. George Weigel was not exaggerating when he wrote that the Pope?s visit to his native Poland in 1978 was the beginning of the end for that Soviet puppet state, and once Polish communism started crumbling, the rest of the Soviet bloc was not going to be far behind. One student remarked at the time: ?We might have to live and die under communism. But now what I want to do is to live without being a liar.?E Pope John Paul II exposed the lie, and taught believers and unbelievers in Eastern Europe to be unafraid. Without John Paul II, we might well have entered the third millennium still under the chill of that shadow.

Reading through Weigel?s massive biography of the Pope several years ago, two things struck me. First, John Paul II had an uncanny sense of symbolism. A playwright as well as a philosopher in his youth, he knew that the right gesture in the right circumstances could have massive repercussions, including political repercussions. Second was his deep humanity. Vigorous, fearless, highly cultured and educated, humble and warm by all accounts, he wrote poetry and plays, hiked and skied in the mountains of Europe and kayaked on its rivers, spoke fluently in a dozen or more languages. He lived, enough for several lives for regular mortals.

Protestants view John Paul II, as they view any pope, with ambivalence. The Roman Catholic church is still riddled with errors, and this Pope held to many of them with passion. Back in February, when Lucia dos Santos died, Jody Bottum reminded us in the Weekly Standard just how central to John Paul?s life were the visions of the Virgin Mary that Lucia saw in Portugal as a 10-year-old child. This Pope devoted the world to the care of Mary. I once heard Richard Land say, in admiration, ?This Pope really knows how to pope.?E He did, but knowing how to pope is not normally recognized by Protestants as a spiritual gift.

Flawed though his theology was, he remains far and away the greatest Christian leader of the past century. No Protestant comes anywhere close. Billy Graham may have preached more (maybe!), but Graham had nowhere near the political weight or the theological depth of Pope John Paul II. John Paul II’s life is not only testimony to the wonders that God can perform through imperfect instruments but an inspiration for all Christians, whether or not we aspire to pope.