The Catholic Standard and Times

Cardinal Justin Rigali has probably spent more time with Pope John Paul II than almost anyone in the world. He was there from the moment the Pope was elected — and he traveled with him to almost every country in the world.

What was John Paul II like? What did he struggle with? How did he deal with his enemies? Why did he have such a profound impact on youth?

These are just a few of the questions the Cardinal discussed in an extraordinarily touching interview conducted before he boarded a plane to Rome for the Pope’s funeral.

A different kind of Pope
The fact that Karol Wojtyla was going to be a different kind of Pope, more accessible, more well-traveled than any Pope in history, should have been obvious from the start.

Within 24 hours of his election, Cardinal Rigali said, the new Pope drove out of the Arch of the Bells entrance to the Vatican in an open car to visit Cardinal Andrzej Deskur in the hospital.

Cardinal Deskur, who was then the Vatican’s President of Social Communication, was a close friend of the Pope’s from his years in Poland, and had just had a stroke. It mattered not to Karol Wojtyla that he had just been elected Pope. He would be there for his friend. In fact, Cardinal Deskur survived, and is now retired.

Cardinal Rigali also had the opportunity to view personally the Pope’s impact on the world’s youth. In 1979, the Pope celebrated a Mass for more than 400,000 young people at Galway Bay, Ireland. During his address, the Pontiff was applauded 42 times.

The 41st time the youth applauded, something exceptional happened. Cardinal Rigali said he timed the applause. It lasted between 12 and 13 minutes.

What was it the Pope had said that caused such a reaction?
It was: “Young people of Ireland, I love you.”

But the story doesn’t end there. Many of those young people later came to Rome to visit the Pope. Cardinal Rigali said one young man approached him, saying he had something he wanted to say to the Pope. The Cardinal told him that the Pope would be passing by rapidly, but that he would try to help him.

The Pope did stop, and he even put his arm around the shoulders of the young man, who said to him: “Do you know what you did for the young people of Ireland?”

The Pope smiled and moved on. “The young man was disappointed,” the Cardinal said. “He had a speech prepared. The Pope moved on to one person, and then a second, and then he came back, put his hand on the young man’s shoulder, and said, ‘And do you know what the young people of Ireland did for the Pope?’”

The Cardinal said that incident demonstrated how deeply the young understood that the Pope truly loved them, which is why they appreciated him “as someone greater than any rock star — even when he talked about the demands of chastity.”

Cardinal Rigali was with the Pope when he met with young people in India, Canada, the United States, and in Thailand.

“There, he told them that, to meet the challenges in the world today, they would have to take up weapons because they had to be in a position to win,” Cardinal Rigali said. “But he was not talking about weapons of force. He was talking about the weapons of St. Paul — the sword of the Spirit and the helmet of salvation.‘With these weapons,’ he said, ‘you are invincible.’ He yelled, ‘Invincible!’”

His biggest struggle
The Cardinal did not hesitate when asked what he thought was the Pope’s biggest struggle.

“The abuse of human rights, the violation of the human person, the terrible systems of totalitarianism that he knew in his life, mainly Nazism and Communism. These things he found repugnant to human dignity. Therefore, he set himself against them.”

Cardinal Rigali was able to watch the Pope as he addressed various heads of state, especially those with whom he had differences. He was there when the Pope spoke to the former dictator, President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines. “The Pope spoke with freedom, energy and force,” he said.

He was there when the Pope spoke in Nicaragua, when Marxists in the gathered crowd began to yell to drown out his voice. The Pope famously thundered, “Silencio!” And the crowd, indeed, quieted down.

Said the Cardinal: “He was willing to work with any type of political system except those that deny human rights and, even more, the rights of God.”

Even as Archbishop of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla was fearless.
Cardinal Rigali said when the former Archbishop discovered that the communists wanted to construct the “ideal” communist community — which, of course, would have included no church — he went to that town with many of the faithful. They fought, and they won.

Cardinal Rigali saw the power of this Pope demonstrated yet again when he accompanied him on a return trip to Poland during the presidency of Wojciech Jaruzelski, the communist who directly preceded Lech Walesa. He said Jaruzelski trembled when he met the Pope. Why?

“It was a cordial meeting, but he was welcoming a Pope who was going to give a message contradictory to everything his party stood for. He was a communist, but he was also a Pole. There was this tension between what the Pope was — a promoter of human rights — and what his country had fallen into — totalitarianism. That is why he trembled.”

Cardinal Rigali said the Pope held those systems up to the light, so the whole world could see them for what they really are.

He said there is no question that Pope John Paul II was largely responsible for the fall of the Berlin Wall: “He proclaimed freedom and human dignity, and all the inconsistencies of these political systems. His proclamation was so effective that he got over to the world that these systems were intolerable. They had to go — and they did.”

The secret to his pontificate
The Cardinal said the secret to the Pope’s pontificate can be found in his first encylical, Redemptor Hominis, in which he talked about the dignity of the human person.

“It is Jesus Christ, true God and true man, who gives the explanation to man of the dignity of humanity. The Pope lived this. He saw all these abuses — so he was resolute in his opposition to anything that wounds, weakens or destroys human life and human dignity.”

Cardinal Rigali said Redemptor Hominis is an encyclical on solidarity — devoted to the idea that we’re all in this together; to the idea that the needs of the world are our responsibility and also our fulfillment.

“He would insist that, no matter if people harm you, you remember always that the human dignity in them cannot be obliterated. They always share humanity with the Son of God. Therefore, we must love our enemies.”

How did the Pope deal with his own enemies?

“The Pope didn’t have enemies,” the Cardinal said. “There were many people he disagreed with — forces of evil, anti-life forces — but the Pope was not against people. It was his job to proclaim the dignity of everyone.”

The world clearly saw that when Pope John Paul visited the man who shot him, in his prison cell, in order to forgive him.

“All of his teaching was preceded and supported by his example on the salvific value of suffering,” the Cardinal said.

“I was there when he was shot. I was the one who had to make the announcement. I visited him in the hospital. I was there the time he fractured his shoulder. He’s been telling people for years about the value of suffering.”

The Pope’s legacy
The Cardinal was eloquent about the legacy of Pope John Paul II:
“He taught us the meaning of redeemed humanity; he taught us the dignity of humanity that has been uplifted by Christ in redemption; he taught us the value, as Jesus did, of loving one another, of constructing a society where people live together in justice, peace, freedom and love.

“He taught us all about the greatest attribute of God — mercy. God’s love in the face of our need, of our sinfulness, of our weaknesses. He taught us about the Holy Spirit and the Eucharist. He echoed the teaching of the Second Vatican Council. He taught us about our Blessed Mother, how she is involved in the mystery of the Incarnation.

“He spoke out all the time. He was very, very clear. He called evil, evil. He showed that it was evil. He showed the consequences of evil on human beings — how they suffer because of it. In his speeches, his teaching, in the prayer of the Church, he found other people to proclaim freedom and justice. He was the leader of the world.”

Contact Michelle Johnson at mjohnson@adphila.org or (215) 587-3698