Eclectic Amateur

I am sure I don’t have anything profound to offer on the death of His Holiness John Paul II, other than my profound sorrow and sense of loss. I have known intellectually that he too, is but mortal flesh, and wouldn’t be with us forever, it still hurts to see him go.

Like so many others, John Paul II is the only Pope I’ve really “known.” I don’t remember if I even knew there was such a thing as a “Pope” until the media coverage of the death of Paul VI and the election of John Paul I.

Things John Paul II has done for me:

• That whole “downfall of communism” business is pretty big — I am forgetting what it was like to live under the threat of The Bomb™ and total annihilation at the hands of the Soviets. My children will never know, in their bones, what that feels like, praise God.
• He made me rethink the ordination of women (along with many other things) with Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. What struck me most was the humility of this letter; the gentle insistance that “Jesus did it this way, He surely had His reasons and the Church and I don’t really have the authority to go changing around things that He and the Apostles set up.” A far cry from the “Popes just get to make up whatever doctrines they want” caricature of Papal Infallibility that I had been fed. Also, a refreshing change from the ECUSA false prophets of “God is doing a new thing.”
• In his entire life as Pontiff — his travels, his preaching, his actions — he made Catholicism … thinkable. Something which would have been, well, unthinkable in my teens (and still is, to most of my family).

God bless you and keep you, Holy Father. Rest well after your labors. And keep praying for us.