Topic: worthy read
My favorite paragraph has got to be:
"In an age that at times seems on the verge of collapsing into its own mush of moral relativism, self-idolatry and existential vacuity, his leadership is a constant, inspiring reminder that Man is still capable of reaching beyond his animal instincts and his selfish gene to something genuinely divine."
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Gerard Baker
February 11, 2005
May John Paul II live on
Gerard Baker
His enemies want him out, but we need the Pope's example of courage and dignity more than ever
A SIZEABLE component of the world’s media, and parts of the broader public, have been on a rather unseemly papal death watch for some time now. In scenes reminiscent of the last chaotic days of the Soviet Union, when Communist Party leaders were croaking with the frequency of laryngitic frogs, the world’s broadcasters, newspaper editors and commentators have been readying their battle plans.
Teams of journalists stand ready to pack their bags for Rome at a moment’s notice. In every university in Christendom, theologians have been dredged up to pronounce with great solemnity on the “legacy” of this Pope. While they are at it, of course, they will also be duped into playing the world’s most exciting but futile guessing game: who will be the next Pope? Designers will have been primed to produce imaginative graphics for the conclave — expect 3-D images of the Sistine Chapel and lots of little red hats.
Given the hair-trigger nature of the preparations for this massive media event, the first papal succession of the CNN-internet era, you can imagine the excitement a couple of weeks ago when the Pope was admitted suddenly to the Gemelli hospital in Rome. The balloon was going up.
Around the world, canon law edicts and obscure cardinals’ biographies were consulted as feverishly as Alitalia timetables. One of my local news stations in Washington, its spirit willing but its resources regrettably weak, headlined the story with a live broadcast to camera from outside a local Catholic church. Urbi et Orbi, I suppose they were thinking.
There is, therefore, a palpable disappointment now that the man has left hospital and it appears that he is not going to die at any minute. But deprived of their evanescent moment of Vatican vanity, not to mention three pleasant weeks in Rome spent pontificating (you will rarely find the word used more aptly) about the state of a Church of which they know nothing, commentators have found something else to get their teeth into.
“Should the Pope resign?” they ask. “Is he not really dead in all but the most technical sense?” What a great wheeze! Those dredged-up theologians and church historians could still come in handy after all. Get them to talk about Celestine V and Gregory XII.
When Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, gave an apparently cryptic answer to a question about papal resignation this week, the speculation was suddenly given a kind of imprimatur of curial respectability. I say “apparently cryptic” for good reason. What the cardinal said was: “If there is a man who loves the Church more than anybody else, who is guided by the Holy Spirit, if there’s a man who has marvellous wisdom, that’s him. We must have great faith in the Pope. He knows what to do.” That does not sound to me like a call for the Pope to go, but then again, I am not a headline writer.
Ostensibly this little debate touches on some intriguing philosophical and neurophysiological questions. How sick can a pope be before it is determined that he cannot perform his functions? Can a pope who cannot speak, for example, still carry on his duties as head of the Church, the leader of his worldwide flock? But I would find this frenzy of scantily-informed speculation slightly comical if I did not suspect the motives of most of those who seem anxious to have it.
The truth is that, dead or alive, as someone might put it in another context, they want this Pope gone. Whether it is a choking fit or the Camerlengo’s signature, the Pope’s enemies, all those secularist pundits of omniscient modernity, want him out.
I will confess that I know little about the precise prognosis for Parkinson’s or the dogmatic deliberations at the curia, though I thought the Pope himself had spoken fairly clearly about his intentions when he was admitted for surgery on his hip a decade ago: “Doctor,” he said to a surgeon somewhat nervous about his onerous responsibility, “neither you nor I have any choice. You have to cure me because there is no room for a pope emeritus.”
I certainly do not have any special insight into his capacity to discharge his specific papal duties but I will say this: as long as John Paul II is Pope, the rest of us can count ourselves unusually privileged to be alive with him.
In an age that at times seems on the verge of collapsing into its own mush of moral relativism, self-idolatry and existential vacuity, his leadership is a constant, inspiring reminder that Man is still capable of reaching beyond his animal instincts and his selfish gene to something genuinely divine.
Pope John Paul’s life is a long and brave testament to the overwhelming power of human dignity in the face of evil. He saw his native land ravaged by one vile ideology in the 1940s. Improbably, and dramatically, installed in Rome 40 years later, he was the dominant figure in an astonishing triumph over another.
His papacy has borne further witness to his staggering courage — personal and moral; taking his message of hope, love and peace to more of humanity than anyone before him. He is accused by his enemies of a rigid conservatism. What they mean by that is an unstinting refusal to march with the popular will, to ratify through doctrinal approval a steady slide down the path of amorality.
Above all, in his own twilight of pain and suffering he reminds us of the insuperable force that is love for human life. His defence of the weakest — from the poorest souls in beleaguered corners of dark continents, to the discarded unborn, to the inconvenient elderly and disabled ripe for the final syringe — challenges all to think again about our obligation to our fellow man.
He is, and will remain, as long as he has breath in him, a beacon of hope for the lost and loveless. He is truly a pontiff, the bridge between God and his people, in Chesterton’s words “a landmark, walling in the plain”. I hope — and not just to confound the ghoulish pundits — that he lives to 100.
gerard.baker@thetimes.co.uk
