A Celebrity Pope

Hundreds of millions of people around the world kept a daily vigil as the pope lay on his deathbed. Even more tuned in by television to watch his funeral. No funeral in the history of the world was seen by so many people. What does this mean for the Catholic Church and the rest of the world?

by Melvin Rhodes

It's been 70 years since the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin contemptuously asked French Foreign Secretary Pierre Laval: "How many divisions does the pope have?"

If the answer wasn't clear when communism fell 15 years ago, it should be now following the funeral of Pope John Paul II on April 8. No funeral in history has been watched by so many people, made possible by television. But even on the ground, record numbers of people descended on Rome to be present at what they considered one of history's most significant events.

The deceased himself had inadvertently made it possible by triggering the events that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the iron curtain, thereby enabling hundreds of thousands of his fellow Poles to travel to Rome. This would have been impossible 261/2 years ago.

The pope, it turned out, had more divisions than the communists!

Pope John Paul II, President Ronald Reagan, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the last Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, all played a role in bringing down the communist system that divided Europe for over four decades. Tributes to the pope by world leaders made it clear that the division of Europe likely would still be a reality if John Paul had not been elected pope in 1978.

But it wasn't just his political achievements that were remembered at his funeral. The man himself was greatly loved and respected by hundreds of millions of people around the world, by non-Catholics as well as members of his own church. Even the irreligious had respect for the man and his firm refusal to compromise on his beliefs. There's a lesson there for churches that have watered down their traditional beliefs and values.

Many of those in Rome to mourn the pope commented on how he was a very loving man. Having started out as a parish priest in his native Poland, the pope learned the importance of serving people. Not all popes have been this way. A famous predecessor, Pope Pius XII (1939-58) was famously aloof and arrogant. Catholic historian John Cornwell noted in his book on Pius XII, Hitler's Pope, that popes who rose up through the pastoral priesthood were the best popes throughout history; while those whose career was in the Vatican bureaucracy were the bad popes, the most political, the most self-serving. Serving as a priest or pastor in a parish, working with the lay members of the church in their daily struggles, is a humbling experience. Perhaps there's another lesson there for all churches.

Read the full article at www.wnponline.org/wnp/wnp0505/celebritypope.htm

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