Popage

So the Pope died. You know, in case you weren’t aware. My mom actually called me after the news broke “to see if [I was] okay”. I’m pretty sure it was just an excuse to call (not that she needs one), but it was kind of weird. Because, me? And the pope? Not so much.

A lot’s been made of the fact that he assumed his office around the same time that Reagan became president (and Thatcher became British PM), and indeed, my view of them is much the same: men--former actors, actually--who used their skills and considerable charm to obscure their rabidly conservative and anti-populist agendas. It’s interesting to note that, although Reagan left the world stage long before John Paul II, their deaths also came close together, and now the pope is being lionized in the same way that the president was. (Also interesting that, where Reagan was posthumously given sole credit for the “defeat” of communism in Europe, he’s now forced to share it with the pope.) I must say, though, that I didn’t feel the same antipathy toward JP2 that I did toward Reagan--it was more like disappointment eventually followed by indifference underlain by bitterness.

I still remember when his predecessor, John Paul I, was elected in 1978, and the hope that liberal Catholics (which at that point was every Catholic I knew, even the priests and nuns at my school) felt in the promise that he would continue in the spirit of reform begun by his predecessors, John XXIII and Paul VI. And I remember how crushed everyone was when he died only a month later, to be replaced by a deeply conservative man who would, seemingly, do all that he could to crush that spirit short of actually repudiating the Vatican II reforms. John Paul II arrived on the scene at a crucial point in the history of the Church, when he had the opportunity to further its transformation into a true progressive force for good on this planet--which, lest we forget, was a big part of Jesus’ whole deal--and instead he squandered it, and chose a retreat into medievalism. He was anti-woman and anti-gay, considering both feminism and homosexuality to be part of a greater “ideology of evil” with which he saw the Church at war. And despite the acclaim he’s received as a “strong leader”, such skills were nowhere in evidence as the Church in North America was devastated by the scandal of pedophile priests, a matter on which he chose to remain largely silent. Even if I’d never had any affection for him, and even if I’m not big on authority figures in general, I still always felt some measure of respect for him as the leader of my faith, but after that it was extremely difficult to do so.

The one thing about his papacy that I did find encouraging was his commitment to ecumenism, in both its narrow and broad senses. That was at least one plank of the Vatican II platform that he didn’t try to rip out. He reached out to Jewish and Muslim leaders, becoming the first pope ever to set foot inside both a synagogue and a mosque, praying at the Western Wall and bestowing a kiss upon the Qur’an. I thought of his particular devotion to the Virgin Mary as I read, recently, a book entitled The Miracle Detective, which gives an exhaustive account of the purported Marian apparitions at Medjugorje in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Among the Virgin’s many pronouncements there was that religion is a human invention and that “All religions are similar before God”. I wonder what JP2 thought of that. I know the local priests were duly shocked. I found it surprising but validating, since it well coincides with my own philosophy, most succinctly summed up by the aphorism “One truth, many paths”.

JP2 also built bridges within Christianity, reaching out to the Orthodox Churches of the East, to the Anglican Communion, and to the Lutheran Church. I have to admit I admired him for that. (On the other hand, by strengthening conservative Catholicism in the US, he also had the ominous [if inadvertent] effect of allying Catholics with Protestant Evangelicals, and I don’t think I have to point out what that alliance has wrought.) I think most Christians find the deep divisions among members of their faith distressing, especially considering that such rifts stand in direct contradiction to Jesus’ express wishes. Of course, it started with the Apostles immediately after his death, and it’s quite unlikely he didn’t see it coming. It’s human nature, I suppose. Still, we should at least aspire to an ideal, even if our achieving it is improbable, shouldn’t we?

Hmm. Okay, that’s a bigger question than I care to get into right now. I’d like to wrap this entry up with a fervent prayer for the cardinals to enter their conclave next week and choose a true visionary to lead the Church, someone who can bring it into the 21st century and make it the light to the world that it ought to be. I’d like to, but it sort of seems pointless.

Sigh. I’ll do it anyway.