Let's face it: The Pope really is great

By MARCUS GEE, The Globe and Mail
Saturday, July 27, 2002

What makes hundreds of thousands of young people scream and weep over a sick old man? To some, the fuss over the Pope in Toronto this week is just a cult of personality, no more profound than the mass adoration of totalitarian dictators or overpaid rock stars.

But that's obviously nonsense. No coercive state is forcing young people to worship the Pope. Nor are they drawn by simple stage presence. Whatever skill the Pope had as a performer has been sadly eroded by his ailments.

No, the outpouring of affection is spontaneous, and wholly remarkable. No political leader, no musician or sports hero, can command such attention.

Just look at the faces of those kids who flocked to see him. As the Pope spoke to them for the first time this week, struggling through his illness to get the words out, they were absolutely rapt, straining to absorb every word. Some faces were wet with tears, others split by broad smiles. Only the sourest cynic would dismiss their feelings as childish celebrity worship.

Everyone is drawn to true greatness, and John Paul II is quite simply the greatest man alive. Even if you don't share their religious conviction, it's not hard to understand what they see in him. Long before he came to Canada, he had established himself as a figure of surpassing courage, vision and humanity.

His critics see him as a reactionary who opposes abortion, artificial conception and the ordination of women as priests. But those views are scarcely surprising in a leader of the Roman Catholic Church, and they are only part of his world-view.

John Paul is also the Repenting Pope. He has apologized on behalf of Catholics for taking part in the slave trade, killing Czech Protestants in the 15th century, persecuting Galileo in the 17th century and persecuting Jews through the ages.

He is the Healing Pope. He has made it a mission to mend fences with other Christian denominations and other faiths. He is the first pope to enter a synagogue and the first to visit an Islamic country.

He is the Pacifist Pope. He opposed the Persian Gulf war, condemns the death penalty and deplores the arms trade.

He is the Human Rights Pope. He helped bring down the Communist dictatorship in his Polish homeland and undermine right-wing dictators in Chile, Haiti and the Philippines.

He is the Social Democratic Pope, who has criticized the harshness of global capitalism and the "idolatry of the market."

And, of course, he is the Travelling Pope, visiting scores of countries in a tireless effort to reach out to people around the world.

All of this would have been enough to secure John Paul's special place in history. But, in the final act of his life, he has given us an even more remarkable incarnation: the Suffering Pope.

Arthritis, various operations and Parkinson's disease have transformed the vigorous man who visited Canada last in 1985 into a shuffling, quivering wreck. Parkinson's freezes the muscles, bends the back, stifles the voice and makes ordinary movements an exhausting battle. The strength of will it must take to travel all this way and then deliver an address to a throng in the summer heat is unimaginable.

Yet he does it, and with joy. His disease has made his face, once so expressive, into an impassive mask, but when he faced a roaring crowd of 300,000 on the Toronto waterfront this week, he smiled several times. Those smiles brought tears to many who saw them; he so plainly wanted to be there, spending the last measures of his failing strength to inspire others.

Instead of surrendering to his illness, he has turned it to his advantage, becoming a living example of everything he preaches. "Be not afraid!" he exhorted the faithful at the start of his papacy 24 years ago.

When he made his own courageous appearance this week, John Paul was not just stroking his adoring flock, he was throwing down a challenge. "Don't be afraid." Don't be afraid to speak out for what you believe. Don't be afraid of poverty. Don't be afraid of physical infirmity (it's only a body, after all).

Have the courage to do something with your life, to resist the lure of consumerism and fashion and money and see what is really important. "You are the salt of the earth," he told them. "You are the light of the world."

His spokesman, Joaquim Navarro-Valls, describes John Paul as "a body pulled by a soul," and what a soul! If those young people responded to him, it was not because they were succumbing to adolescent hero worship; it was because they sensed the presence of the great soul that still moves within that ruined body.

They cried, they laughed, they whooped, they cheered. Many of us cheered along with them.
mgee@globeandmail.ca