The world’s first parish priest gives Church a vision of the way ahead

WHY is the congregation for the Pope’s funeral going to be so big? That is a key question for consideration in the coming weeks of the interregnum between his death and the emergence of his successor.

The closer we get to tomorrow’s funeral services, the larger it seems are the crowds who are thronging to Rome to pay their respects at his remains or just to be part of the congregation for the funeral Mass.

In fact, the crowds in Rome tomorrow will reflect only a portion of those who wanted to, and were prepared to make the effort to travel since many have been dissuaded by the fact that the city runs the risk of bursting at the seams. Hundreds of thousands - mainly from Europe, but also from other corners of the world - are making their way to be present in person for what will not only be the largest ever papal funeral but the largest single Catholic event in the Church’s 2,000-year history.

Why is it that at a time when Catholic religious observance in Europe is in decline, and our continent is more secular than ever, so many Europeans are on the move?

Some of the explanations for the outpouring of emotion is similar to what one might expect on the death of any high-profile figure.

It can be attributed in part to the fact that this Pope enjoyed a sort of celebrity status. After all, his face is arguably the most recognisable image in the world.

Of course this profile was itself a factor of the duration of his reign as Pope but it also reflected the global, televised nature of our world. However, it would be highly simplistic to compare the global outpouring of emotion on John Paul’s death to that which, for example, broke out in Britain on the death of Princess Diana.

Of course there are some who will go to Rome because it is the venue for the biggest news story of our lifetime, but they will represent only a tiny fraction of those gathering for the occasion. There is something more going on.

The response to his death can be explained in considerable part by the fact that this Pope not only lived and died in very different times, but also by the fact that he himself, as a person and as a pastor, was different - very different.

He was a different type of spiritual leader of the Catholic Church.

Like so many of his predecessors, he was of course a deeply spiritual man, but, unlike most of them, he saw his role as requiring him to be a pastor to, and to reach out to, his entire global parish. He did this from Rome through the power of media but he did more than that by actually travelling worldwide.

Thousands and thousands of those now returning the compliment by travelling to Rome for his funeral, including many of those travelling from Ireland, are doing so because they were touched particularly by meeting him, or at least seeing him in the flesh, when he visited their own country.

The impact of his life and death is also in large part because he was a more political Pope than many of his predecessors. For many, his passing is a moment which marks a phase of dramatic change in Europe in the last quarter of the century. There has been a dramatic reconfiguration of the European political map during his pontificate.

John Paul II’s contribution to that process was best summed up by one commentator on the lines that if there had been no John Paul II, there would have been no Solidarity movement in Poland; if there had their been no Solidarity, there would been no Gorbachev, and if there had been no Gorbachev, there would have been no collapse of the Berlin Wall and no implosion of the Soviet empire.

Now the populations of the new independent democracies stepping up to take their place in the European Union, and in particular the large Catholic populations thereof, want to mark John Paul II’s contribution to that achievement.

The fact that the late Pope himself was from that part of the world also explains why so many of those travelling to Rome are from Poland and the other former communist countries.

However, his temporal impact was wider than central and eastern Europe. This Pope has in many ways been a hero of counter-culture, a champion of causes which are popular among the people, and not necessarily the establishments of western society.

It has been interesting to note how many of those interviewed from St Peter’s Square in recent days, especially the young, have cited John Paul’s stances on world poverty, his opposition to rampant capitalism and to the war in Iraq as reasons why he was a hero of theirs.

JOHN PAUL II was a thorn in the side of many world leaders, including many of those now lining up to be VIPs at his funeral.

Although on doctrinaire themes, and in particular sexual morality, John Paul was conservative, when it came to the main social and economic issues he was very much left of centre, and was a vocal advocate and a troublesome priest demanding social and political rights for the oppressed.

However, there is something else going on. In part, John Paul’s attraction for many was precisely because of the certainty of his teaching.

Although an increasing number of Europeans, particularly in their private lives, have decided not to follow the late Pope’s teachings, he was admired by many of the same people precisely because he refused to bend or adjust the message to reflect their changing behaviour. In a world where so much changes, the Pope’s very consistency stood out.

In an age when so many public figures stampede after the public mood and follow poll trends, John Paul refused to flap in the wind and argued that the church’s requirements were God-given and didn’t change because the world had.

Much of the outpouring of emotion and reflection following his death was because, despite the growth in peripheral secularism, there is a need among people for something to believe in - for faith.

The rules governing what happens in the Catholic church for the next few weeks have been set down by the late Pope and his predecessors in intimate detail in various encyclicals and constitutional documents. They actually provide for three distinct phases to the interregnum between the death of one Pope and the emergence of his successor.

The first of these three phases is the one we are now in - that of mourning and burying the dead Pope.

The last will come in about 10 days when the conclave which will elect the new Pope opens.

In between these two phases, however, the rules provide for a phase of contemplation and reflection during which the cardinals and the church in general are asked to consider the state of the Church and the challenges it faces.

This middle phase is designed to better inform and equip the cardinals in the big decision they have to make and to clarify factors which should shape their choice of a new Pope. As the Church moves into that phase this weekend, it should consider not only the 26 years of John Paul II’s papacy, but it should also examine closely the response to his passing in the last week.