THE PING!Posted on 03/06/2005 9:32:16 AM PST by Murtyo
TIME is running out. A remarkable life is drawing to a close. Soon the journalists will congregate on St Peter’s Square. Vatican accreditation is being organised. Hotels and studios are being booked.
Clergy deemed to be ‘in the know’ are being assiduously courted.
Over the coming months you will hear a lot about Karol Wojtyla, the man and his legacy. The good stuff will come from those who, whether they are believers or not, have made it their business to understand the Catholic Church, its faith, its institutions and its personalities. They will be especially familiar with the large body of thought and writing produced by this Pope, and they will have tried to understand the internal dynamics of the man.
But there will be others, sadly. The worst of them will charge around trying to catch up in days with the work they should have been doing over years. They will divide the Church into conspiracies and cabals, and produce simplistic sentences to meet their evening deadlines. Accurate analysis doesn’t interest them nearly so much as a good story.
Some will accuse the Pope of over-centralising the Church and of frustrating the work of the Second Vatican Council. They will manage to do this without having a clue what Vatican II was all about, or how decentralised the Catholic Church actually is.
They will charge JPII with having ‘conservative’ views on sexuality and womanhood without bothering to read any of the Pope’s published thoughts on sexual love or the role of women in society. Some journalists will be very well-intentioned but will manage only a superficial take on the man. They will count up his trips abroad and marvel at how energetic he was.
They will recall his great public appearances, such as the various World Youth Days, the trip to Israel in 2000 and the events of the Jubilee Year, and say he was a great communicator. They will recount his role in the fall of communism, his championing of peace and human rights and pay tribute to a great politician. What a pity. There are far more significant things about Karol Wojtyla that the world really ought to know. Preferably before he dies. The first and most significant thing is that this is not a Pope from Poland at all. “He is a Pope from Galilee.” Such were the words wired by a French journalist, André Froissard, to his newspaper in 1978, shortly after John Paul was elected.
Froissard’s words were borne out as John Paul’s pontificate unfolded, but never more than in recent years and recent days. As the Pope approaches the culmination of his suffering, it is easier to see the thematic significance of what was going on all along. John Paul II has been trying to live in imitation of Christ. From the beginning of his papacy, he determined to be a teaching Pope. Yet, to imitate Christ, he knew he must also accept suffering. The case history is as well known to us as that of a well-loved relative. We remember his shooting in 1981 because we saw it on television. We learned of the tumour in his colon, the dislocated shoulder, the broken leg and, finally, the Parkinson’s disease. We have seen a person stripped gradually but relentlessly of all those faculties which made him so remarkable to the world’s eyes. The man who loved to travel could no longer walk. The actor who loved to gesture could no longer smile. And now the Pope who loved to communicate can no longer speak.
There are two ways to misunderstand this drama. The sentimental way - in which you pity an old man and compliment his bravery. Or the suspicious way, which accuses the Pope of being power-hungry or wilful in his struggle to hold the reins.
Both are equally far from the truth. The Pope carries on for many reasons, but I don’t think it is about showing guts or seeking power. Nor is it about his fears that a resignation could create problems for his successors by making future Popes vulnerable to outside pressures to resign, or setting up the possibility for future division between those who don’t accept the authority of a new Pope and those who do.
John Paul continues to serve because that’s what he believes he promised to Christ and the Church when he accepted election on October 26, 1978.
EVEN now, when he is unable to give his Wednesday audiences, meet foreign diplomats or travel, he is still on active service. Having spent so much of his pontificate encouraging the world to respect life, he is pursuing another agenda in his last days. It has to do with the central human problem of pain and suffering. This Pope is teaching us how to die.
Perhaps it’s a message that the world needs to hear. We want to deny ageing, sickness and death more than we ever did before. It’s not just that many of us botox our bodies out of their natural state. Sick and elderly people are made to believe they are a burden on society or their relatives and are encouraged to despise their condition. In Holland, what started out as ‘mercy killing’ soon became voluntary euthanasia. Before long, it wasn’t even the elderly person’s call any more. Now relatives and friends are the ones to determine a sick person’s ‘best interests’. Involuntary euthanasia is widespread and some old people in Holland prefer to attend doctors over the border in Germany because they are apprehensive about what might happen locally. Meanwhile, Britain’s best-known bioethicist, Baroness Warnock, who was feted by the Irish Commission for Assisted Human Reproduction at a recent conference here, has suggested that elderly people should request euthanasia rather than linger on as a burden on their families.
That is the culture which JPII is determined to counter. As a young man in Nazi-occupied Poland he immersed himself in the writings of the suffering Carmelite mystics, St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila. Today, a not-so-naïve old man clings to the image of the crucified Christ abandoning himself utterly to the will of the Father and being vindicated in that self-sacrifice by the resurrection. As his physical burdens intensify, his life becomes more unmistakably a prayer of self-sacrifice, spending himself in service to the truths on which he has staked his life.
That is the Pope from Galilee. The point of it all is to embrace the human condition fully. As a young man, a lover of sport and deep friendship, he could get ready and go where he wanted. Now, bound up in old age, he enters deep into the world of suffering where, like any human being, he would rather not go. Yet by witnessing to the dignity of human life in the midst of pain and suffering, JPII is doing what he always did: leading by example.
In a world grown suspicious of the idea of heroes, here surely is a man who stands out. Get to know him while he’s still with us. Something tells me you’ll be talking to your grandchildren about him.
Don’t be caught sleepwalking while history is in the making.
Perspicacious, Pontif, Ping!!
I've been in awe of him since 78.
Pretty much everything said from here on in (Press) will be trite, hackneyed, cliches and hollow assuagements.(or worse)
That article was great.
Thanks.
He's not dying. He got the flu, which at his age is dangerous and leads to dramatic episodes. My in-laws end up in the hospital every Winter due to flu like symptoms. The media is just salivating over the prospect of JPII's death because they think the next Pope will be more to their liking.
What a model of humility and strength.
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Ping along for the Pope!
Bah, he'll live to be 100. :P
Go Pope!
I'm going to have to turn off my TV.
I actually have had online conversations with people (Christians, no less) who insist that the pope ought to retire now because the Catholic Church ought to have someone who is "young and healthy" running it. *sigh*
I keep trying to point out that this is a very WORLDLY way of looking at John Paul II; God cares not for physical health as much as spiritual health. In the latter, JPII is VERY strong.
Personally, I pray for God's will with our beloved pope. I was a little girl when JPII was selected as pope, and don't clearly remember any other. I love him dearly, and wish to meet him someday. I'd love for him to stay, but if God wills that JPII should go home, then far be it from me to argue with Him!! ;)
I am truly surprised, though, how many Christians and Pro Lifers feel that the pope should step down because of his illnesses. It's very disheartening.
The world has never seen such a statesman as this Pope. He belongs to the ages.
Tears in my eyes as I read this article. I have tremendous respect for Pope John Paul II.
THE PING!Thanks for posting. This man is a constant inspiration.
Ping
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