"John Paul The Great": An Uncommon Man of Steel, A Great Communicator and Survivor, An Uncommon Pope with a Mission

By

Dr. Wunmi Akintide

WUMIONE@aol.com

We are all going to be reading a lot on this Pope  from theologians and powerful writers and commentators around the globe, as he makes his transition to higher glory. I will be the first to admit that I am arguably the least qualified to write anything about him. I am going out of my way to do it, nonetheless, because I strongly believe that John Paul has shown by his life and mission that he truly belongs to all of mankind, regardless of faith, status and nationality.Here is a Pope who has  ears for what the rich, the privileged and the nobility has to say about his papacy, as well as how the downtrodden, the peasants, the under-privileged and even children view him and his papacy, and how they may have been touched by what he did or did not do. He is, in that context, a rare blessing to the whole world. Just like it is important to see him through the eyes of Catholics and Polish with whom he was very close in life, it is equally important to see him through the lenses of none Catholics, and even non-believers around the world whose lives he has touched, in very profound ways, from his world stage at the Vatican.......................................................................................................

In writing this piece I feel pretty much like the Ross Perot's  running mate in 1991 who introduced himself to the Nation in the first television Debate for Vice Presidents by asking "Who am I and why am I here"  I am here doing this piece because I truly idolize this Pope and I believe he will go down in history as one of the outstanding men of this century. As the Bishop of Rome and the successor to Peter, and the third longest surviving Pope in History, he has proved himself, in life as in death, to be an uncommon man of Steel, and a beacon of hope to both Jews and Gentiles, to the conservatives and the liberals alike. He was a Pope with a difference and decidedly one of a kind. "Habemus Papam"  Here was a Pope the whole world can truly relate to as a father because of what he means to us all.
    Yes, we are told in the Bible that Peter was figuratively described by Jesus Himself as the Rock despite the fact that Peter deference to the human flesh  in him once had cause to deny knowing Jesus three times before the cock crows With this Pope it is different. He has stood up for Jesus, and for both the weak and the strong, all day long, and all night long in all the corners of the Earth. He started doing it from his childhood by standing for up peace and freedom and social justice in his native Poland under the Nazi regime. Once he has made up his mind to serve the Lord, he has neither wavered nor looked back. He was truly cut out for greatness from the get go as a man of conviction, and as he progressively rose through the ranks to be named as the very first non-Italian Pope in more than four hundred years.

He knew first hand that Communism had to be confronted and Freedom propagated around the world. He had spent all his life doing that and lending his weight his tremendous leverage and moral authority to the Solidarity Movement in Poland which  had set in motion the dismemberment of the old Soviet Union and the eventual fall of Communism as we knew it. He did it by not pulling punches but by using his tremendous moral authority, his intellectual power and diplomacy to work with the Free World to get the job done. He was extraordinarily strong and goal driven.He was an achiever of no mean caliber.. 

He was a great communicator who not only spoke with authority  and clarity, he did it in 28 different languages beating the record of Abba Eban the former Permanent Rep of the State of Israel at the United Nations who was known to fluently speak nine languages. This Pope was able to converse and conduct homilies in 28 languages thereby proving himself as a citizen of the world. He struggled to do and complete the mission that God had given him and he figuratively refused, like his Lord and Savior, to be restricted by the limitations of time and space or by Geography and calendar, even in his life time. His passing unto higher glory any time from now should  prayerfully set him free from the constraints of moral flesh and from the constraints of that which is deemed impossible. He will be free for ever from the limitations imposed by human imperfections and inadequacies It is remarkable that a man who had fluently spoken twenty eight languages, had reached a point in his life that he could no longer muster the energy to say a word or even utter his famous two word statement "Totus Tuis" meaning "it's all left in your hands now". John Paul the Second had solemnly promised God that if God spared his life to survive the assassination attempt on his life, he would devote the rest of his life to serving Him, and he did with every fibre of his being to the very end.

   How about his character profiles as a survivor extra-ordinary right from childhood. As child he got knocked down by a moving truck, but lived to tell the story. At the age of nine he lost his mother. He suffered depravation under the Nazi regime in Poland, but all that did not stop him from going as far as he went in the Church hierarchy becoming a Cardinal in 1961 and the Pope in 1978. He suffered an assassination attempt, suffered from Parkinson Disease. But all that did not slow him down. He was a one man Battalion for what is good and decent. I speak of him in the past tense in this write-up because I strongly believe like the rest of the world that his current health problems would likely be his last. It is taking so long because he wanted to use his death as he has used his own life to teach and to empower, and to do it his own way.

   I would like to end this tribute with his profile as the uncommon Pope with a mission. Since there was a John Paul the First before him, there may well be another John Paul after him, and that is why the epithet John Paul the Great may well be the epithet to differentiate and honor him for ever. He came to the papacy with a determination to be his own man from beginning to the end always doing what the Holy Spirit directs him to do.

   You could call him a conservative or liberal Pope. He fits into all those pigeon holes because he is a man of conviction. He had spent his life traveling to no less than 133 countries, spreading the gospel far and wide, and more or less reclaiming or redeeming the reputation of the Catholic Church as the universal church, and the Pope as the father of all Faith on this Earth. And because of that he was welcomed by all faiths that believe in the one God, and he made efforts to reach out to them all in the true spirit of brotherhood and without being judgmental. He reached out to Islam, to Anglicanism, to Judaism, to Buddhism and to all other denominations around the world without compromising the Catholic teaching, values and doctrines. He stood up for Justice and the truth. The first Pope to ever enter a Synagogue or Mosque and the first to fully assume his role as a  dispassionate father figure to the entire Mankind   He was a precious jewel of inestimable value to the world. May his soul rest in perfect peace. Amen.

Dr. Wunmi Akintide