April 7, 2005 • Volume 13 Number 15

John Paul the Great

By Matthew S. Monnig, S.J. '97 MA'97

One of the most common story lines about John Paul II - that he was a man of contradictions, liberal in some things and conservative in others - misses the point entirely. The greatness of John Paul lies not in contradictions, but in the complete consistency of his life and message.

The basis of this consistency was simply his faith in and love for Jesus Christ. He was, to be sure, a world leader, but first he was a Catholic leader. His legacy will not be one of contradictions, but one of consistency its profound consequences. He had the courage to live out the natural demands of his faith in a radical and daring way. John Paul leaves the Catholic Church changed forever - a Church more in harmony with the Gospel and evangelically engaged with the world.

His faith in Jesus Christ had many implications, and his life can only be understood in the context of that faith. Faith was, for example, the starting point of his iron conviction of the dignity of every human person, which translated - in utter consistency - into his opposition to war, abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment. He also believed that the Church is the creation of Jesus Christ-and so it was not up to him to ordain women when Christ did not, or to allow divorce when Christ forbade it. He believed that Christ commissioned Peter to care for his flock, and to bring the Gospel to the corners of the earth, and so John Paul made that his mission and a hallmark of his papacy.

John Paul believed that Christ died for all people, and so he believed it was his Christian duty to love and respect all people. That meant loving and respecting Jewish people, whether helping refugees during the Holocaust as a young man or being the first modern Pope to visit a synagogue. It meant speaking with the highest respect of the Muslim faith and being the first Pope to visit a mosque. It meant promoting the dignity of women, campaigning against what truly oppresses them: poverty, exploitation, abuse, divorce. It meant advocating care for victims of AIDS. It meant apologizing for the sins and mistakes of the Church, most prominently for the Church's mistreatment of Galileo. It meant focusing his attention on the poor and forgotten, going to the U.N. to speak for them and keeping them ever before the eyes of the heads of state who came often to consult with him. It was not paradoxical, it was part of a package. And it was nothing new, he simply took the faith already there and applied it.

And his faith in Christ gave him the battle cry "Be not afraid!" that would echo through his Polish homeland and the rest of the Soviet Empire. John Paul did not invent that phrase, Christ uses it dozens of times in the Gospels. That simple phrase, and the hope he inspired by repeating the Gospel in the face of a regime that denied it, didn't just "defeat" Communism in Europe. A defeat suggests a battle, but there wasn't really one. In the end, the Soviet Empire whimpered away in three short years in a collapse that was almost entirely peaceful - one of the great unexpected events in history. John Paul's role in this is well - documented by historians and participants alike: without his message of hope, the peaceful movement that ended communism would not have arisen.

An oft-quoted and variously attributed evaluation of John Paul II was "this pope really knows how to pope!" Pope John Paul II was what a Pope is supposed to be: the vicar of Christ. He showed Christ's love to the world, and preached His message. Much is made of the novelty of his approach, and it is true that his approach was new and that it has permanently reshaped the papacy, but it is not original. It is recovered. The Pope is successor to the apostles, and John Paul simply did what the apostles did.

Those who cry for a future Pope to modernize the Church fail to recognize that that is precisely what John Paul did. He modernized it not by embracing modernity's criticisms of the Church, but by making the Church relevant in the modern world. He put the Gospel first, and engaged modernity not on its own terms, but in terms of the Christian faith. He recognized those elements of modernity, such as liberty, social concern, tolerance, that were manifestations of Christian love and promoted them. He then consistently identified those elements of modernity, such as materialism, relativism, and self-absorption, that are in conflict with the Gospel and human flourishing and opposed them. Central to this was the way he reasserted the Church's properly spiritual role in world affairs. History had put an end to the Church's secular power, but John Paul showed the truly effective power of naked spiritual force, stripped of all direct political control. John Paul II successfully deposed an evil emperor-the Soviet Union-far more effectively than many of his predecessors who wielded power in unified Church-States. The irony is that in the modern era, when religious liberty has been embraced and religion separated from state, John Paul was still able to exercise tremendous influence over world events and world leaders. The unprecedented gathering of kings, queens, presidents, and leaders of other faiths at his funeral is testimony to the stature he gave the papacy. One could argue that the international standing of the papacy of John Paul II is at the highest point of Catholic history. In that sense, John Paul dealt a stunning defeat to those who think modernity means a Church no longer relevant to human life.

But John Paul was profoundly relevant to the masses of people who heard him during his life. There will be but a few dignitaries at his funeral compared to the millions of ordinary people-Catholics, Christians, and non-Christians-who are thronging to Rome to return his love. The personal effect of John Paul on millions was immense. When you were in the presence of John Paul, even if it was with millions of other people, you knew that he loved you personally. It wasn't just charisma, it wasn't just stage presence, it was real love. And people loved him back. They would chant in various languages: "JP2, we love you!" or "Juan Pablo, Segundo, te quiere el todo mundo." To hear John Paul's response is to understand the man: "John Paul 2, he loves YOU!"

His appeal to youth was astonishing, especially to many who thought that religion had lost its appeal with the young. He routinely confounded the skeptics and drew millions of young people to World Youth Days-always transforming the media's doubt into reverent amazement in the face of hundreds of thousands of normal, happy, excited young people. In 1979, crowds in the midst of an atheistic Communist world chanted, "We want God! We want God!" during the Pope's Mass in Warsaw. That same desire brought millions of young people to John Paul II in the midst of a materialist and relativistic culture. He preached God to them. In a culture dominated by a subjectivist moral sense, the only virtue that seems to have universal appeal is integrity. Youth without moral guidance in a sea of superficial media stars and fallen heroes flocked to a man who was what he said. He preached a life of love, and lived a life of love. He told us how to live, and made us believe it was possible. Not only was it possible, but it was daring and exciting. It was urgent.

"JP2" was my hero and my mentor. I had the grace to see him several times-three World Youth Days, once in Central Park, and twice in Rome. Every time it changed my life. I've learned much from him, of course, by reading his writings and studying his life. So when I was in his presence personally, I never really heard anything I hadn't heard before. I just heard it differently. When he prayed, when he preached, it was real. It was demanding. It was compelling. And it was possible. Possible to love Christ, to give your life to Him, to be joyful, to be holy. I know for certain that were it not for him, I would not be a Jesuit today, studying for the priesthood. He inspired me to seek Christ and gave me the courage to do it even against the values and expectations of the world.

And I am not alone-I know many other young people who found their vocations through the ministry of John Paul. And when I heard a call from God to the priesthood, it was to the Jesuits that I looked, with their special bond of love and service to the Holy Father, and their vow of obedience to his missions. Our founding document calls for us to "serve the Lord alone and the Church, His spouse, under the Roman Pontiff, the vicar of Christ on earth." My desire to live this life comes first from God, but it was inspired by John Paul II. I will miss him greatly. I've lost my father and my friend.

There are dozens of reasons one could cite as to why he will be known as John Paul the Great. He would be only the third pope called "Great." The other two are doctors of the Church for their profound and important writings. John Paul's intellectual legacy will serve the Church for ages. The other two defeated foreign powers that threatened Western civilization. John Paul defeated communism that threatened the entire world. The other two reshaped the papacy and left it strong and vibrant. John Paul has adjusted the papacy to exercise powerful influence in the modern world and left it at a high point in its international standing. But for all these very good reasons, there actually several million even better reasons: the millions who came to say goodbye to the man they loved. The outpouring of love for this man is unprecedented in the history of the Church. In the early Church, before the process of canonization was formalized, saints were named by public acclamation: when people instinctively recognized a person's holiness and called for his sainthood. John Paul is clearly a saint by acclamationÖ and to these millions he is truly "the Great."

The legacy of Pope John Paul the Great will be love: his love for Christ and His people, a love matched by people's love for him. It was a love whose consistency dazzled the eyes of those unaccustomed to such consistency. There are no contradictions in the life of John Paul. The contradictions are in the world. The prophet Simeon foretold that the baby Jesus would be a "sign of contradiction" to the world. This Vicar of Christ was just that.

Matthew S. Monnig SJ '97 MA '97 currently is a Master of Divinity candidate at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, where he is studying theology in preparation for ordination. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1998, after a Fulbright Year in Poland, where he pursued research on "Karol Wojtyla and the Philosophical and Spiritual Roots of Solidarity." His MA thesis at BC was on "Karol Wojtyla's Philosophy of Human Freedom." The former Presidential Scholar at BC taught math and religion from 2001-04 at BC High. •