Pope John Paul II : A tribute

With 26 years of his Papacy, he is the third longest reigning Pope. His Papacy will be remembered for a long time and by millions of people around the world. He was the spiritual head of one billion Catholics around the world. He could thus go to any country of the world and find Catholics and non Catholics alike flocking to him. He has traveled 30 times the circumference of the earth and has visited 129 countries. It has been rightly said that he went out to reach the world and at his death 'the world came to him'. The outpourings at the Vatican as he neared death has been permanently etched in human minds. The number of countries which have declared national mourning are many and flags have been lowered in many more countries to honour his memory.

The Pope was born and grew up in Krakow in Poland and as an adolescent has seen the full rigors of Hitler's Germany. He is being credited as having brought down Communism and triggered the fall of the Berlin Wall leading to the reunification of Germany.

The fall of Communism is not only because Pope John Paul II as newly elected Pope in 1978 went to Warsaw and held Mass. Indeed the Pope the first to be elected outside anybody from Italy after 455 years and the first one from Poland, had a profound impact on the deeply Catholic Poland. We must not forget the role of the 'Solidarity' leader Lech Walesa, who carried his banner of reviving the workers movement in Poland and thus sent a danger signal to Moscow. The fall of Communism is too vast a subject to be treated here. Suffice it to say that the fall of Communism is primarily due to the collapse of the vast economic system built within the Soviet Union and around the world. The Pope had a deep love for his birth place and visited his native country as Pope nine times.

In the day of global and instantaneous communication, Pope John Paul II used the media to perfection. He reached every nook and corner of the earth and had an earthy manner about him. He communicated with the young and the old, people of all walks of life, men and women, with perfect ease. He was the target of frequent assassinations. In 1981 one deranged Turk Mehmet Ali Agca shot at him and nearly killed him. Agca was caught and finally the Pope forgave him. He had to use what came to be known as Papamobil, a car with a glass top and the Pope was visible. As he crisscrossed the world his Papamobil traveled with him. There is no leader, political or spiritual, with a higher profile than the Pope. The Pope established diplomatic relations with Israel and Palestine and visited both. He is the first Pontiff to preach at a Protestant church, visit a synagogue and a mosque. He took moral positions and refused to support President George Bush's invasion of Iraq.

The Vatican has entered a 9-day mourning from 3 April. The 117 Cardinals will start arriving for the Conclave to select a successor for Pope John Paul II. The exercise is expected to last between 15 and 20 days. In the dark chambers of the Vatican, it has been rumoured that Pope John Paul II, in order to continue his legacy, had stacked the Cardinals, mainly of his own choice. The choice of a Pope is a difficult affair as there is no clear cut guide line for this. No doubt jockeying for this prestigious position has begun and in the end of it all people will crane their necks towards the chimney of the Sistine Chapel to find that the white smoke is at last visible. The white smoke is the signal that there is a new Pope. In the tradition bound Vatican this is unlikely to change.

The legacy of Pope John Paul II will undoubtedly be that he is the first Pope to take the hide bound Vatican in the truly modern age. Short of landing on the Moon the Pope went everywhere. Yet he will be remembered as a rather inflexible Pope. He held on firmly to the traditionalist view on contraception, abortion, married priests and women clergy. He has been severely chastised by a whole array of opinion around the world. He has been criticised that in Europe church going has greatly fallen due to his inflexible views. As a matter of fact Catholicism is flourishing in Latin America and Africa. And in Africa Christianity is competing with Islam although Islam does not have a religious hierarchy.

Pope John Paul, from an obscure beginning in Krakow, reached giddy heights thanks to the global media. The Vatican has changed forever. The successor of Pope John Paul II must bear this in mind. Pope John Paul II went out to the world and brought the world to him as the bells continued to chime throughout the world.

Arshad-uz Zaman is former Ambassador and Acting Secretary General, OIC