obituary
Pope John Paul II: A Symbol of
Faith and Freedom Dies
By John Waage
CBN News Sr. Analyst
CBN.com –
(CBN News) - The world's youngest generation remembers
Pope John Paul II as a kindly, frail man who blessed the nations
from his balcony. But those who were around to see him elected
27 years ago saw a dynamic archbishop from Poland change the world.
The pontiff died today at the age of 84.
Born Karol Wotyla in 1920 near the city of Krakow, he was the
first non-Italian pope in more than 400 years, the first ever
from Poland. And from the moment he took office, he became a powerful
symbol of faith and freedom for his homeland, which was caught
in the grip of communism.
Both as archbishop and as pope, his courage and his faith in
the power of prayer sparked the solidarity movement that helped
bring down the iron curtain.
The pope had a quiet ally in U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who
also saw the evil of communism. And, like Reagan, the pope survived
a 1981 assassination attempt.
The Pope's attacker was a Muslim from Turkey. But he failed to
end his life or his outreach.
John Paul was the first truly global pope, the most widely traveled
in history, visiting more than 120 countries, and holding audiences
with more than 17 million people. He served the third longest
time of any pontiff. He was the first to visit a synagogue and
the first to visit a mosque.
His 2000 trip to the Holy Land and Jerusalem made history. No
pontiff has done more to try to mend relations between Catholics
and Jews.
His quest to return to the church to its traditional moral roots
sometimes put him at odds with Catholics in America and parts
of Europe. His encyclical in 1993, called the "Gospel of
Life," condemned the culture of death, including abortion,
euthanasia and experimentation on human embryos.
He resisted efforts to secularize the church, and he was hurt
in later years by the revelations of child sex abuse by some U.S.
Catholic priests.
But his stand for traditional morality and his call for social
justice endeared him to Africans, where Catholics now number 100
million.
John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter, said, “There
are a lot of people who believe that John Paul II will be remembered
as John Paul the Great. And there are very few popes who have
received that appellation. We are talking about Gregory the Great,
Leo the Great. It's not a very long list.”
The College of Cardinals now prepares to choose a new pope, aware
that the legacy left by John Paul II is monumental.
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