IT is impossible to adequately catalogue the achievements of Pope John Paul II during the past 25 years, Archbishop John Bathersby of Brisbane said in a commentary for the pontiff’s silver jubilee.
That was the case whether reflecting on his achievements ‘as theologian, world evangelist, advocate of peace, Church superstar, promoter of social justice, passionate ecumenist, protector of life, universal shepherd of souls, believer in young people, and in more recent years, wounded healer’.
‘Like the evangelists of old but on a much wider stage he proclaims his message endlessly and heroically,’ Archbishop Bathersby said.
‘A visit almost anywhere in the world will uncover evidence of the Pope’s presence recorded in its gathering places, but more importantly still, in the hearts and minds of the people who saw or listened to him.
‘Even our small nation Australia did not escape his impact. No one has proclaimed the dignity and importance of indigenous Australians more eloquently than he did at Alice Springs in 1986, so that his words are treasured and quoted frequently by indigenous people themselves.’
Archbishop Bathersby said Pope John Paul II’s manifesto was clearly articulated in his 1979 keynote encyclical Redemptor Hominis – ‘the redeemer of man’.
‘In it he proclaims the amazing good news ÔThat God is Love’, a love greater than sin, greater than alienation, greater than human frailty,’ he said.
This theme of his first encyclical had become a constant refrain of his pontificate.
‘Striking a responsive chord in the hearts of all people, especially those
behind the ‘Iron Curtain’, it was no surprise that the governments of these countries crumbled, not solely because of the Pope’s words, but neither independently of them,’ Archbishop Bathersby said.
He said the Pope defied simple definition.
‘Like all great people he has been attacked by what we loosely and inaccurately refer to as people of the right and left, whether within or outside the Church,’ the archbishop said.
‘To define him merely as conservative is too easy. While he is much too liberal for many conservatives, at other times he is even more liberal than the most liberal, especially in areas of social justice.
‘Perhaps a measure of the man can best be discovered in the humility of one of his truly great encyclicals Ut Unum Sint, where he urges the unity of all Christians. In it he asks Christians to pray for his conversion to Jesus Christ lest he become an obstacle to the very unity he seeks to encourage.
‘In the humility of that request we catch a glimpse of the Christian greatness of the man.’
Archbishop Bathersby said only time would tell what Pope John Paul II’s place in history would be.
