John Paul II: a death like no other
The death of any pope is a momentous event, and not only for the world's Catholics. To appreciate why this is so, it is worth recalling that one of the pope's official titles is Pontifex Maximus or Supreme Pontiff - the etymological origins of which are rooted in the Latin pontem facere ("to build a bridge"). In context, this title thus implies that the chief role of a pope is to build a bridge between humanity and God. Some people may reject the notion that any such bridge is possible or that a pope, alone among men, is charged with this awesome responsibility.
And yet, a 2000-year-old tradition held by a billion people across all cultures makes this claim impossible to ignore. If only as a remote possibility, then, the death of a pope signifies the temporary breaking of that cosmic bridge and the momentary abandonment of humanity to its own devices. In the case of Pope John Paul II, the chasm created by his death seems deeper - and in many ways darker - than ever.
John Paul II had been the supreme head of the worldwide Catholic Church for more than 26 years and over the course of his long pontificate had become one of the leading moral, intellectual and political leaders of the age. The impact of his moral leadership was, perhaps, best summed up by Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, who served as the Vatican's foreign minister for 10 years under John Paul II. Recalling the Pope's dogged opposition to violent solutions to human conflicts, and to the 2003 war in Iraq in particular, Silvestrini said that he did not recall "any epoch in which the pope had such attention from Christians of various confessions, from patriarchs to bishops. It was as if all had said, 'You are our spiritual guide in this reflection on peace'."
SIMILARLY, John Paul II's intellectual leadership was demonstrated in a host of encyclicals over the years in which he challenged the muddled logic of so much contemporary thinking and pointed to the deleterious impact such thinking had on respect for human life in everything from the treatment of the environment to the administration of justice to the outcome of economic policies and the treatment of the unborn and infirm. As a political statesman, John Paul II could take credit for having played a key role in the collapse of communism in Europe and for repositioning the church as an important player in world affairs.
For all these reasons, John Paul II will be remembered as one of the great popes of the modern era and his legacy will endure long after he has gone. But it serves no purpose to disguise in hagiography the painful truth that his will be a mixed legacy. On the one hand, Catholics in some respects are more confident now about their faith and its demands than they have been since the confusing aftermath of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. They are more committed - in practical, not just theoretical, ways - to ecumenical and inter-faith dialogue. They are better equipped to offer a sharp critique of the injustices they see around them. And they have a clearer sense that the mission of their church is a mission to the world and not just to that part of it which has its spiritual heart in Rome.
On the other hand, however, the resonance between Catholics as a community of believers and their church as an institution is weaker now than it has been in centuries. John Paul II did not deal adequately with the shame of clerical sex abuse in the church and he ignored the recommendations of many of the church's reports on the scandal which counselled the need to fundamentally rethink the nature of the priesthood and issues of authority and power in the relationship of priests and parishioners.
HE HAD little success in reconciling church teaching on sexual morality (and, in particular, the ban on Catholics having access to artificial forms of birth control) with the actual behaviour of many ordinary Catholics. On the question of gender more broadly, he arguably alienated a generation of women - and their male supporters - by not only affirming the ban on the priestly ordination of women but also banning further discussion on the matter under any circumstances. His appeals to Catholic orthodoxy fell largely on deaf ears in the Western church; his insistence on the universal applicability of a distinctly Roman style of Catholicism caused deep and still unreconciled anguish among Catholics in Asia and Africa.
Through his many travels and personal appearances, John Paul II made the papacy more accessible to Catholics and non-Catholics. But his style also invited a kind of celebrity status that had the effect of exaggerating the primacy of the pope with respect to his bishops and made it much more difficult for his successor to fill his shoes. His restoration of centralised decision-making in the Vatican put many local initiatives on hold and made it much more likely that the church will experience considerable difficulty controlling the centrifugal forces that necessarily arise from the variety of different Catholic cultural experiences around the world.
The Catholic Church, of course, has been through all this before. After all, John Paul II was the latest in a long line of popes stretching back to St Peter. Taking the long view, therefore, whatever sadness, uncertainty, even emptiness, Catholics now feel on news of the death of their Pope, there can be no doubt the church will move on. It will do so still digesting the enormous influence John Paul II had on it and holding him with pride among its many illustrious sons and daughters. But before long, it may need to do so in the form of a Third Vatican Council which answers in a frank, open and inclusive way the many questions left hanging by this pontificate.