Thoughts on the Life and Legacy of John Paul II

Why was there such an outpouring of love and respect for Pope John Paul II such as the world had never seen before? That’s a question I asked of my non-Catholic friends and relatives and for which I received little comment. Here are some of my thoughts. We are all packages of genes (our DNA), conditioned by our experience. The late Pope was no different. He inherited a high IQ. As for conditions, early life was important. He grew up in Poland during World War II in a city where a third of the inhabitants were Jewish. He saw the injustice and death dealt out by the Nazis, and before entering the priesthood was a factory worker.

The Pope’s early experiences had an important influence on his mind and thoughts and caused him to reach out to people whether they were Catholic or not. John Paul II was by far the most widely traveled pope in history. People tend to like friendly people who show an interest in them, and John Paul II got a friendly response even though some of them did not necessarily agree with him. People saw him as one of them.

Most people are always interested in sex, power, courage and death. Those whose popularity stems from sex lives and box office power, such as movie stars, attract only ephemeral interest. Throughout his career as a pope, he understood the power of the media right up to his death, and because of his power and charisma, the media was more than willing to cooperate. The combination of power, courage and impending death shown by John Paul II waving a hand to recognize the multitudes of faithful below, was not only a superlative but also a low budget media event.

From the time the Pope waved his hand from his window to after his funeral, the media even much exceeded the media feeding frenzy such as that of Terri Schiavo. Why does the media indulge in such a frenzy of regurgitated news? Is it because the media is in the business to make a profit and uses low budget programs when it thinks enough people will watch to compensate for those, like me, who protest with their remote controls? The media frenzy maintained its positive theme of the Pope’s life and deeds. His support for evolution, that might have offended some conservative Christians, was never mentioned. Protection of priests who molested young boys was not mentioned until after he was dead, buried, and the Pope media frenzy was over.

No doubt someday there will be volumes written about his deeds and legacy. I will deal only with a few. I find his deeds mixed. On the plus side, he reached out to people of other religions and disagreed with Catholic tradition that Jews killed Jesus. On the whole, he strictly followed Catholic doctrine. Even in 1996 when Pope John Paul II supported evolution by saying it was more than a theory, he was following the Catholic position “that the human body has evolved according to natural processes” (the quotation is from “Endless Forms Most Beautiful” by Sean B. Carroll).

When Cardinal Law was forced to resign by his outraged flock because he had protected priests who had molested boys by transferring them to a different diocese, Pope John Paul protected Cardinal Law by transferring him to the Vatican. Now Law’s former flock is outraged once more because he gave a mass for John Paul II after his death and was even one of the Cardinals to select the new pope. Moreover, priests have not always been celibate. Some have even fathered children. Why did not Pope John Paul II address the problems of his time such as celibacy and child molestation, and the role of women in the church?

Pope John Paul II’s opposition to stem cell research is an important part of his legacy. Many people believe in the sanctity of life and it is part of Catholic doctrine. But what life? The first step in artificial insemination is to fertilize eggs from the mother by the sperm from the father in a petri dish. To ensure enough fertilized eggs, more eggs are placed in the petri dish than are placed in the mother. Embryos not used are preserved by freezing and saved for future implantation in the mother. Eventually the extra embryos, if not used, are destroyed. It is those unwanted embryos that would have been destroyed anyway that will be used in stem cell research (if stem cell research is not prohibited). Why is the life of unwanted embryos resulting from artificial insemination not sacred, while embryos used in stem cell research, that might save lives, considered sacred? If a life will be lost in any case, why not use it while alive to save another life? §