Pope John Paul II, No Ordinary Pope

No Ordinary People

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Pope John Paul II

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Pope John Paul II, No Ordinary Pope

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Finally, let me suggest that there is a profound lesson for the members of this graduating class in John Paul IIs age, and indeed in his physical difficulties of recent years. This may sound peculiar.

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He, once a great sportsman a daredevil skier, a man who could hike for hours on end, a kayaker and hockey player now leads the Church from a wheelchair. The Pope often treats his infirmities with the medicine of humor. A few months after he had had his not-altogether-successful hip-replacement surgery, I asked him, "Holy Father, how are you feeling? But its not simply his ability to laugh at his difficulties that commends John Paul, in his old age, to you who are young.

In a culture that tempts us to think of people as disposable when they become burdensome, or troubling, or inconvenient, John Paul II is teaching us not just with words, but by a powerful example that there are no "disposable" people. Human beings are not problems to be solved or, in the case of the inconvenient unborn or the burdensome elderly, problems to be dismissed through the technological fixes of abortion or euthanasia.

Every human life is of consequence.

Every human life has inherent, built-in, inextinguishable dignity. Every human life has infinite value. Paul, in the Holy Land, in Damascus, in Greece. That is the truth he embodies when he returns insults with affection, when he acts on the belief that even those most filled with hate can become, once again, capable of decency. There are no "ordinary" people: You have never met, played, studied, or argued with a "mere mortal," C. Everyone you have met in your life everyone you will meet in the years ahead is someone with a dignity beyond measure.

Everyone you will ever meet is a someone with an eternal destiny. To live that truth is to live life at its most bracingly, engagingly, thrillingly, human.

To live that truth is to live life as the adventure that God intended it to be from the beginning. To live that truth is to become the kind of person who can be happy living with God forever. That is the kind of love for which Franciscan University of Steubenville has prepared you. For that is what Catholic higher education is for: That is the conviction on which this college can and must build its future.

In living out that conviction by preparing men and women whose competence is enhanced by their character, the Catholic colleges and universities of the United States perform an immense public service. For our freedom depends, in the final analysis, on the content of our character as a people. Only a people of character will be able to understand that freedom is not a matter of doing what we like, but of having the right to do what we ought.

Only a people of character will know how to deploy the explosion of knowledge in the life sciences so that the biotechnologies of the future serve the ends of genuine healing, rather than leading us into a brave new world of stunted humanity. Only a people of character will be able to defend freedom in the world by defending the human rights of all, especially the first human right of religious freedom.

By preparing those kinds of citizens, Catholic colleges and universities today are defending the truth that Thomas Jefferson inscribed in the birth-certificate of American independence: Congratulations on your graduation. Permit me a last suggestion: And in thanking them, make a quiet promise to yourself that you will be as generous with others as these men and women have been with you. In the years before you, think back sometimes, perhaps often, on what it meant to have earned your baccalaureate degree at a time when a Christian giant John Paul II walked the earth.

And learn from him the truth that he has preached: In fact, no fewer than nine had shorter reigns. The briefest was 13 days: Urban VII in Confusingly, until the record was three days. Pope-elect Stephen was a cardinal but not a bishop when he was chosen in But in it was assumed that a year-old man in apparently good health, and with world-class medical care, would be around for at least a decade.

The shock was tremendous. That was no ordinary smile. Losing him was heartbreaking and surreal. Canon Tony Churchill, then a young priest at Wonersh seminary, was shaving with the radio in the background. At school, the Irish Brothers were holding back tears. And then, of course, there was another conclave.

The outcome was thrilling. John Paul II set about restoring the morale and the political influence of the Church with such charisma that his predecessor was mentioned only in the context of speculation about his death. Perhaps such exercises in alternative history are always a waste of time. Try googling his name. The best sources are two books written many years ago: What do we know about Albino Luciani? He was a gentle north Italian with a sharp mind: He was a successful country bishop, close to his people, but seemed overwhelmed and depressed when, in , he was plunged into vicious post-conciliar infighting as Patriarch of Venice.

Luciani was patently holy and clever.

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