For the Sake of His Sorrowful Passion...     In Tribute to The Life and Times of Pope John Paul II By Philip D. Ropp April  10, 2005

Though a Protestant at the time, I remember taking more than a passing interest when Karol Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II in October of 1978.       I was fresh out of college with a degree in religion from a small, liberal Presbyterian school and fancied myself quite the scholar in those days.  I had, in fact, been quite intrigued at the selection of Albino Cardinal Luciani as Pope John Paul I, and was quite as shocked as everyone else when his pontificate ended  33 days later with his death on September 29, 1978.  The warm and personable Luciani seemed to be the ideal choice to replace the cold and distant Pope Paul VI, and to those of us on the outside looking in, he gave all the appearances of being someone who actually could "throw wide the doors and windows" (as Pope John XXIII had described it) and allow the fresh wind of Vatican II to blow through the musty halls of Roman Catholicism.      In 1984, David Yallop published his best selling book In God's Name: An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I in which he asserts that Pope John Paul I was murdered because of his intentions to "blow the lid off" of scandalous dealings that involved the Vatican Bank, the P2 Masonic Lodge and the Mafia, among others.  Yallop's book is well written and carries the ring of truth.  And while it was dismissed by the Vatican at the time, and, in fact, to be more accurate, it was ignored more than it was dismissed, it would be naive at this point in time to deny that there was no such thing as corruption in the hierarchy of the Church.  Numerous others have attested to this as well.  And while it is outside of the scope of this discussion to delve into the Luciani murder conspiracy, suffice it to say that history has a way of working these things out in time.  If there actually was a shooter on the grassy knoll we'll know that, too, one day.      It is not hard to make the point, however, that the Roman Catholic Curia that Karol Wojtyla took charge of in the fall of 1978 was a far cry from the one that he leaves behind in the spring of 2005.  The works of writers such as Malachi Martin, whose books The Vatican, Windswept House, The Final Conclave and others paint the bleak picture of a Roman Catholic Church infiltrated by evil and avarice and compromised in apocalyptic proportion, seem to read much more like the fiction they are than the revelation of the "terrible truth" that they were once purported to be.  The Church is indeed a human institution that has, since its inception, sought to reach beyond the earthly and grasp the divine.  There is no greater testimony to the truth of Christ than that it has managed to come as close to doing this as it has.  But it is, nonetheless, human and susceptible to human error, corruption and degradation and always has and will fall short. And there is no greater testimony to the truth of Christ than that it has failed as miserably as it has at times and yet still survives with the faith and mission that it started out with two millennia ago.  And the reason that this is so today is Pope John Paul II.  He has been called the "Millennial Pope," and this is not so much because he prepared us for the future as much as it is that he saved us from the past.      The twentieth century was the bloodiest in history.  The two greatest wars of all time and the rise of communism coupled with mind boggling advances in the technology of destruction had the world hurtling towards oblivion.  My children are incredulous that when I was in elementary school during the peak years of the cold war we actually had atomic attack drills (duck and cover!). They laugh at such a thing, not understanding that, at the time, this was serious business.  For those of us born into the so called "baby boom" generation and growing up as the last century and millennium began drawing to a close, it was hard not to harbor apocalyptic fears. In the 1960's, headlines screamed the death of God while the jungles of southeast Asia echoed with the screams of death. Faith in everything faltered, and the death of civilization loomed on the horizon like storm clouds on a hot summer day. It seemed that every institution that man had trusted to sustain life, be it any form of government, social system, or religious organization had been corrupted and compromised to betray humanity unto death. The older generation,  trusting blindly in these worldly institutions, proclaimed the younger, which believed in none of them, a lost generation. The younger degenerated into a celebration of the temporal in "sex, drugs and Rock 'N Roll," while the older demanded that the volume be turned down as they looked the other way in mock disgust.  In retrospect, it does seem that the palpable fear that the end was drawing near was justified.      Then God brought us a man that stood up and boldly told the world to "Have no fear."  Karol Wojtyla was the most unlikely of men from the most unlikely of places and was catapulted to the helm of the Roman Catholic Church by the most unlikely of circumstances.  He spoke not to one generation or another but eloquently restated the timeless truth of Christianity that was, after all, the foundation of western civilization. The entire Christian world, not just the Catholic, was told to trust in the ancient faith of our fathers' and believe that God would conquer godlessness and it would be so.  And not only did he tell us not to fear, he showed us, in no uncertain terms, what this meant.       When the Pope was nearly assassinated on May 13, 1981, the world began in earnest the journey down the road that brings us to today.  In the moment before the shots rang out at the Vatican that day,  Pope John Paul II 's eye had been caught by a young girl holding a piece of literature about the appearances of the Virgin Mary at Fatima, Portugal in 1917.  He reached out for her and by doing so positioned himself in such a way that the attack on him, while grim, would not prove to be fatal.  Later, as he hovered between life and death in the hospital, he remembers a near death experience in which he approaches the gates of heaven and is greeted by the Holy Mother herself.  She tells him that he must go back.  That he has much to accomplish.  And so he lived and over the next decade European communism and even the Soviet Union itself ceased to exist. An assassin's attack translated the great faith of Karol Wojtyla irreversibly into action, and the Church and the world that we take for granted today began to take shape.        The reign of Pope John Paul II was a miracle, and those of us that have lived through these past 26 years with him have witnessed  this miracle do no less than save the Church and the world  When it appeared that the gates of hell would prevail against the Church, Christ kept his promise and sent us exactly the man needed to restore the faith and, with the help of the Holy Mother of God, this was accomplished.  The Third Secret of Fatima was revealed and, contrary to the claims of some, has been satisfied.  In the months just passed, Sister Lucia, the last seer of Fatima and now the Holy Father himself have passed away and it is now official:  The twentieth century is over and we have survived. It is time to move on to new challenges. And so the rule of Pope John Paul II begins with the turning over of the money changers' tables within the Vatican Bank, proceeds to a great and largely bloodless political revolution that has saved untold millions of lives, and ends with the Catholic Faith alive and well and ready to face the challenges of a new century and a new millennium.      We do not know what the future holds.  But we do know that whatever it might be, our beloved Catholic Faith will survive. It is in the process of surviving a detestable sexual abuse scandal and overcoming a crisis in faith that finds a vocal liberal faction clamoring for the sins of abortion and birth control. Our problems are not solved now  but neither will they destroy us. Rest assured, the church the Holy Father has left to us is sound and the gates of hell will never prevail against it.  Have no fear.