Karol Wojtyla was my father's age. This son of a Polish soldier who
lost his mother at only 8 years old touched our world so deeply. Who has
heard of Wadowice where he was born? At 19 his hands were already
callused from construction work.
In the German occupation of his native
Poland he felt a calling to the priesthood.
Recently I gazed upon a
picture of the Nazis executing priests in a small eastern European town.
Karol understood even then the dangers of opposing tyrants.
It takes courage.
He was ordained just after the war, studied in Rome and returned to
find that Poland had exchanged slavery to Germany for servitude to the
USSR. Stalin's militant atheism was a great threat to young idealistic
priests. Despite intimidation from the secret police Wojtyla encouraged
young people to attend church.
He comforted the empty eyed aged with hope
of a new Poland. He rallied the despairing priesthood to believe that one
day the hammer & sickle would be a rejected symbol of oppression. At the
Vatican II Council he helped formulate the Declaration on Religious
Freedom. I can see why.
Karol's low-key struggle with the Soviets lasted 20 years before
the pope made him a cardinal. Now his name was known and despised in
Moscow and Warsaw alike. Some of his pamphlets were smuggled among the
members of the anti communist Solidarity movement. Under his leadership
the church drew together a few million workers. They eventually forced
Dictator General Wojciech Jaruzelski to accept the demise of his police
state. Had Stalin lived he'd see today "how many divisions the Pope has"
In October 1978 he was elected the 264th pope. The first
non-Italian in 455 years. Western presidents and prime ministers found an
immediate ally. Pope John Paul II made no secret of his desire for
liberty to come to those under the Soviet's heel.
On the other hand it
didn't take the new pope long to comment on the moral laxity of many
western nations. The French church was so decrepit that he sent
missionaries to France. In his autobiography Gift and Mystery he observes
the battle for human dignity is a tough fight. "Consumerism threatens to
undermine it in a way Communism never could." He challenged the church to
be the answer to the corrosive philosophies of the modern world.
Americans are slow to condemn consumerism.
Ali Agca was among the crowds in St Peter's Square as the pope's
car drew nearer. The pistol in his hand coughed and the pope was struck.
It was May 13, 1981. Two years later I saw a moving photograph of the
pope visiting his would be assassin in jail in Rome. He came to forgive.
Make forgiveness your style too! The 1980s closed with the world-shaking
visit of Kremlin leader Mikhail Gorbachev to the Vatican. The threatening
Bear came to the Holy See to make peace.
Do you remember the Pope speaking at Camden Yards Baltimore on
October 8, 1995? It was one of his many trips. In fact he spent about 3
years away from Rome on papal journeys. In the process he traveled a
distance equal to 30 times around the earth. He drew large crowds. In the
2002 Krakow gathering he addressed 2 million 700 thousand people. Now
that's influence!
In an age of compromise he has held the line on the biblical norm
for marriage and the rights of the unborn child. Amidst shocking
revelations of clergy child abuse he insisted that guilty priests be
exposed and punished.
Pope John Paul II was a leader who understood how
weak and broken the church could be. In an unprecedented step he rocked
the church world in 2000 with a papal apology for church sins over 2
centuries. Among his many efforts to rebuild broken relationships was a
visit to the synagogue in Rome.
His book The Splendor of Truth confronts the threat of moral
disintegration. He upheld traditional moral teaching, and condemned
relativism, skepticism, and egoistic individualism.
We evangelical preachers struggle with some of John Paul's
theological writings and I leave that for another debate. Today I hold up
to you the many efforts he made to remind warring ideologies that the way
of peace calls for the attitude of humility. No wonder President Bush
said: "The world has lost a champion of peace and freedom"
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