A Man for All Seasons - The very modern papacy of John Paul II.

WSJ -OPINION JOURNAL.COM ^ | APRIL 2, 2005 | Editor

[CHARLITE]

Saturday, April 2, 2005 3:00 p.m. EST

When the white smoke curled up from the Sistine Chapel on that October evening back in 1978, it signaled that a new Pope had been chosen. His name was Karol Wojtyla. He came, as he said, from a distant land, and as he looked upon the faithful who had gathered on St. Peter's Square he offered words that would sum up his pastoral mission: "Be not afraid."

Pope John Paul II died today. In the post-Berlin Wall world this man did so much to shape, it's difficult to recall the much different circumstances that obtained when he assumed the chair of St. Peter. Former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro had been kidnapped and executed by terrorists. In Iran bloody protests were brewing that would within months pull down the Shah and usher in the ayatollahs. In the Soviet Union the dissident Anatoly Shcharansky (now the Israeli Natan Sharansky) was dispatched to the gulag, while Afghanistan had already endured the leftist coup that would, in short order, lead to a full-fledged Soviet invasion.

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were still in the future, and so was a workers' strike called by an unknown Pole named Lech Walesa. Everywhere one looked, the truth of the Brezhnev Doctrine seemed brutally self-evident:

[maryz]

I read this in the print edition today -- I would have posted it but luckily searched first. My favorite from the piece:

We don't expect the secularists who dominate our intelligentsia ever to understand how a man rooted in orthodox Christianity could ever reconcile himself with modernity, much less establish himself on the vanguard of world history. But many years ago, when the same question was put to France's Cardinal Lustiger by a reporter, he gave the answer. "You're confusing a modern man with an American liberal," the cardinal replied. It was a confusion that Pope John Paul II, may he rest in peace, never made.

[Dumb_Ox]

Am I the only one who sees an adolescent bull masturbation cartoon below this article? That really doesn't fit. I hit the abuse button, which I have never done before, and sent the following off to the moderator.

Whoever is putting up those donation cartoons has one of a grinning bull standing in a line of cows being milked by the farmer. Jokes about bull masturbation are puerile anyway, and are even anathema to most forms of traditional conservatism. But they really don't belong a thread about the pope, whose theology outlined just how screwed up onanism really is. If I want jokes about masturbation, there are plenty of other places on the internet I may go.

[Siobhan]

DITTO.

[Siobhan]

We don't expect the secularists who dominate our intelligentsia ever to understand how a man rooted in orthodox Christianity could ever reconcile himself with modernity, much less establish himself on the vanguard of world history. But many years ago, when the same question was put to France's Cardinal Lustiger by a reporter, he gave the answer. "You're confusing a modern man with an American liberal," the cardinal replied. It was a confusion that Pope John Paul II, may he rest in peace, never made.

YES!

[Dutchgirl]

Your comments were appropriate but your screen name made them--personal--somehow...

[american colleen]

"You're confusing a modern man with an American liberal,"

That's it! Something I couldn't formulate in my own mind.

I do wonder though, how so many especially Catholics look at the pope and marvel at his holiness and feel that they can never attain even a measure of it. All they would have to do is to see what he believed in without compromise and find out why. The Truth will set you free.