The Catholic Weekly 12 April 2020

catholicweekly.com.au 14 NEWS 12, April, 2020 FEATURE S t John Paul II, who died on 2 April 2005 at age 84, was a voice of con- science for the world and a modern-day apostle for his church. He had a philosopher’s intellect, a pilgrim’s spiritual intensity and an actor’s flair for the dramatic, making him one of the most forceful moral leaders of the modern age. An estimated 4million peo- ple paid their respects over several days to the pope who had led the universal church for more than 26 years. His fu- neral on 8 April was broadcast around the world and drew more than a million people, including kings, queens, pres- idents and prime ministers, and representatives of many faiths. Seeming to respond to the “Santo subito!” (“Sainthood now!”) banners that were held aloft during his funeral in St Peter’s Square, his successors – retired Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis – respec- tively beatified and canonised him, after waiving the normal five-year waiting period for the introduction of his saint- hood cause. The first non-Italian pope in 455 years, St John Paul be- came a spiritual protagonist in two global transitions: the fall of European communism, which began in his native Po- land in 1989, and the passage to the third millennium of Christianity. As pastor of the universal church, he jetted around the world, taking his message to 129 countries in 104 trips out- side Italy. Whether at home or on the road, he aimed to be the church’s most active evange- liser, trying to open every cor- ner of human society to Chris- tian values. In fact, he laid out his vi- sion of the church’s future and called for a “new sense of mis- sion’’ to bring Gospel values Modern day apostle a titan of faith When St John Paul II died 15 years ago, the world stopped. Something great had passed fromour midst into every area of social and economic life with a land- mark document, the apostolic letter Novo Millennio Ineunte (At the Beginning of the New Millennium’). His social justice encycli- cals also made a huge impact, addressing the moral dimen- sions of human labour, the widening gap between rich and poor and the shortcom- ings of the free-market sys- tem. At the pope’s request, the Vatican published an exhaus- tive compendium of social teachings in 2004. Within the church, the pope was just as vigorous and no less controversial. He disci- plined dissenting theologians, excommunicated self-styled “traditionalists,” and upheld church teaching against artifi- cial birth control. At the same time, he pushed Catholic social teach- ing into relatively new areas such as bioethics, interna- tional economics, racism and ecology. He led the church through soul-searching events during the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, fulfilling a dream of his pontificate. His long-awaited pilgrim- age to the Holy Land that year took him to the roots of the faith and dramatically illus- trated the church’s improved relations with Jews. He also presided over an unprecedented public apol- ogy for the sins of Christians during darker chapters of church history, such as the Inquisition and the Crusades. As a manager, he set direc- tions but often left policy de- tails to top aides. His reaction to the mushrooming clerical sex abuse scandal in the US underscored his governing style: He suffered deeply, prayed at length and made brief but forceful statements emphasising the gravity of such sins by priests. He convened a Vatican-US summit to address the prob- lem, but let his Vatican ad- visers and US church leaders work out the answers. In the end, he approved changes that made it easier to laicise abusive clergy. The pope approved a uni- versal catechism as one reme- dy for doctrinal ambiguity. He also pushed church positions further into the public forum. In the 1990s, he urged the world’s bishops to step up their fight against abortion and euthanasia, saying the practices amounted to a mod- ern-day “slaughter of the in- nocents.” His sharpened critique of these and other “anti-fami- ly” policies helped make him Time magazine’s choice for Man of the Year in 1994. The pope was a cautious ecumenist, insisting that real differences between religions and churches not be covered up. Yet he made several dra- matic gestures, including: launching a Catholic-Ortho- dox theological dialogue in 1979; visiting a Rome syna- He held upMary as a model of holi- ness for the whole church, updated the rosary with five new “Mysteries of Light” and named more than 450 new saints -- more than all his predecessors combined.” Pope John Paul II prays at the Hill of Crosses in Siauliai, Lithuania, in 1993. PHOTO: CNS PHOTO/ARTURO MARI, L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO