Interfaith multitudes postulate Pope's cause - Global Acclaim for Saint John Paul the Great

With apologies to none, last Sunday at our ORCC St. Lucy's Cathedral in Brooklyn, I again took flak from some of my brother clergy for calling the late Pope John Paul II "SAINT JOHN PAUL THE GREAT". The assembled prelates and priests took umbrage and corrected me with the more familiar moniker of His Holiness.

There are those who would argue that it's a posthumous title formally conferred on a very rare and select few. There are even those modernists who think it's undeserved by him both now and ANYTIME in the future. To all of them, I say: TOUGH - get used to it, both now and later.

First off, I've been calling Saint Pope John Paul II "the Great" ever since the early 1980's after his first trip to Poland as Pope when he bolstered our Polish "Solidarnosc" ("Solidarity") movement. (I was a NJ/NY member since before the fall of Communism and a political anti-Communism crusader and activist since high school in the early 70's.) But that had less to do with my ethnicity than the tangible and immediate results he produced in conjunction with our late President. I personally think that the Pope was mostly responsible, spiritually and morally, for the internal fall of communism. And Pres. Ronald Reagan was both the philosophical and forceful impetus for the external collapse of those regimes.

And you might note that I've also been calling this Roman Pontiff (unlike the Coptic Pope or any other one) "His All Holiness" since before this blog was even incepted. That's what the Orthodox Christians call the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople (Patriarch Bartholomew the 1st) who is acceded as the ranking patriarch by them among the crew of five apostolic patriarchs - Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. The Roman Patriarch is granted a "primacy of honor" by them, but to me it's just not good enough. I met the Ecumenical Patriarch in 1997 at St. Irene's in Astoria, Queens and respectfully admire him too. However, +John Paul the Great outclassed and outranked them all in every respect. Besides, having been ordained an Orthodox priest and elevated a mitered archpriest, I'm now a "re-vert" from Orthodoxy back to Catholicism. If you're wondering why, your first guess was correct and the last two wrong. In a nutshell, it's about theology.

Then there are those "orthodox" Old Catholic malcontents who often retort, "If you admire and love the Pope so much then you ought to go back under his Roman Obedience." If only I had a buck for every time I was pummeled with that these past three decades. To them I try to explain that I NEVER left the Roman Catholic Church. I simply transferred rites -- from the Roman ultramontane tradition to the Old Roman Catholic ultrajectine tradition -- when I was in my youth almost 30 years ago. (I was in my third year seminary when +John Paul II was elected Pope.) It's not as though I'm an "Old Catholic" - one of those who "ordain" women, reject the indissolubility of marriage, deny Catholic Church doctrines and reject Papal Infallibility, etc.

I might be jumping the gate a bit, perhaps, but I'm NOT being "incorrect" nor "presumptuous". This explanation is NOT a jeremiad, screed or tirade. Fr. Steve is NOT "fulminating" again. (The first time someone pitched that one at me I thought it was something nasty.)

Already the interfaith multitudes are calling him by this well-deserved name. It was reported by many news services that he is now being dubbed "John Paul the Great" by many in the tearful crowd in St Peter's Square. It was earned, not granted. This is the Spirit animated vox populi (popular voice of the people) of The Universal Church! His Holiness has already been seen and heard by vast numbers of people around the world, gathering the largest single assembly of people in human history — over 5 million in the Philippines.

And yesterday even the Vatican's Secretary of State, Angelo Cardinal Sodano, almost "slipped up" by invoking him that way during his Mass homily on the steps of St. Peter's Basilica. His prepared text (most likely by the Holy Spirit) also called the late Pope "John Paul the Great." However, he caught himself in time and did not use the title when he delivered the homily -- for which there was no explanation. But written Vatican texts are considered official texts even if they are not pronounced. And the title itself infers sainthood.

The same honorific as that accorded to three of his distant predecessors (not just "two" as some recent publications ascribe), Pope Leo I, Pope Gregory I and Pope Nicholas I. They are universally celebrated as Pope Leo the Great (440-61 AD) Pope Gregory the Great (12 March 604) and Pope Nicholas the Great (13 November 867) the only popes to be so honored. +Leo in the fifth century, +Gregory in the sixth, and +Nicholas in the ninth. All battled heresies, and all triumphed. +John Paul the Great projected himself in a similar struggle, only updated: secularism rather than paganism, Western relativism rather than savagery.

PS: Another traditionalist clergyman worthy of being called "great" in my estimation is also my most favorite preacher: The Rev. Billy Graham, an extraordinary American titan and our nation's chief chaplain and Presidential spiritual advisor, who will also depart the scene soon. Parkinson's disease has struck him also. He is the "Pope" of Protestant America. Another plain speaking, fast acting, humble, down to earth guy. A contemporary and clergy buddy of our late Catholic Pope (not just the Coptic one), Rev. Billy Franklin Graham singly initiated the resurgence of evangelical Christianity in the post-World War II era. That spiritual attribute and characteristic has long been a hallmark of our TORC praxis. His detractors among fundamentalist Protestants accused the evangelist of fatal compromises with Catholics and liberals and warned that he had become the most "dangerous man" in Christianity. Protestant progressives accuse him of being a simpleton like the American President. So just like the Pope once was detracted that same way, he's in good company. It's a pity that he had to decline his participation at the Holy Father's funeral for health reasons.

And he's not alone there. Other priests are doing the same thing now. According to today's BBC, Bishop Terence Brain, the Bishop of Salford and Bishop Nigel McCulloch, Bishop of Manchester, England, are committing this same crime. As is also Archbishop Harry Flynn, head of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and Bishop Higi of the Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana. So is Cardinal Polycarp Pengo of Dar es Salaam in Africa and Australia's highest ranking Catholic, Sydney Archbishop George Cardinal Pell. You can now also count in 1.7 million members of the Roman Catholic Knights of Columbus when you consider the words of their Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson.

If I enumerate and explain all (or even most of) the reasons WHY then this would just become another obituary or memorial web site rather than a blog. Such attempts would be inadequate. There are enough good ones out their for your perusal. But I'm not averse to doing so. - So perhaps I'll try to do so in another blog before His All Holiness is committed to the earth.

Meanwhile, get off my back, guys. (Until you do, I'll rededicate this 1978 ditty to you while I can STILL chant it: "Hail Mary, full of grace. The Italians are in second place...") Besides, what pope ever had a US Pres. attend their funeral? This one will have the currently revered one and all of the viable previous ones in attendance. And our Flag is at half mast until he is buried. That's nine days, another record in itself. Besides that, over 200 world leaders will be in attendance -- not just their wives or 2nd in command.

Next, I expect, that many miraculous cures will be attributed to +John Paul's saintly intercession in the next few days and weeks -- which will be proven immediately and beyond any doubt. I would not be surprised if his Petrine successor formally canonizes Saint John Paul the Great without any of the usual protocols, as a consensus of spontaneous acclamation would make that moot and unnecessary.

So please, St. John Paul the Great, intercede for Peter Jennings, the anchorman of ABC News who was diagnosed with lung cancer today and ask Almighty God to grant him a miraculous healing.

Already, one million people have flocked to St. Peter's Square by the end of the first full day of public grieving. 200 world leaders are expected to attend Friday's Solemn Pontifical Requiem Mass. Nothing else in history will compare to this monumental event. It will even exceed the huge celebrations connected with the Catholic Church's Jubilee year in 2000, which attracted two million people. The Polish Foreign Ministry estimated that as many as two million Poles alone would travel to Rome.

At a news conference today, Cardinal Francis George, the RC Archbishop of Chicago, said he had no doubt that efforts for John Paul's Canonization will arise, particularly given how much John Paul had prayed. "If that's sanctity, and that's what it means, he was obviously a holy man," Cardinal George said.

Pope John Paul the Great wore his suffering like a badge of honor. He carried his cross like an evangelical witness for the elderly and sick. The effects afflicted on his wracked body were not hidden by an artist's handiwork. He was not colorized or made up. Even the stubble of his final beard shadow is evident. And the Pope was not embalmed. Rather he was "prepared" via some "secret cosmetic method" - waxed with formalin, most likely. (Therefore there is no need to juice him up periodically with formaldehyde as the embalmers often did to the leaky corpse of Pope John XXIII. My clericals were soaked with that stinking preservative after vesting the body of the late Abp. Francis Ryan in 1988.) However, don't fear the stench of death nor decomposition. This will become another miracle as when the body of this incorrupt saint was recently exhumed. (Read: " The Incorruptibles" by Joan Carroll Cruz, 1977)

Historically, organs were removed to make embalming more durable and body parts sliced and diced for doling out to clerics & churches. Relics of 22 popes - from Sisto V, who died in 1390, to Leo XIII, who died in 1903 - are kept in Rome's St. Anastasio and Vincent Church, near the Trevi fountain. Pope Pius X, who reigned from 1903 to 1914, abolished the custom of removing organs. So the goulash Poles in Krakow will NOT be getting his heart as they requested.

No papal slippers with matching hose nor fancy footwear with red tassels for this working man. He is being waked and buried in his same favorite Size 13 shoes that he wore out in over 122 countries. And no fancy sarcophagus or mausoleum for this humble mensch. Just like a religious, Pope John Paul opted for burial directly in the earth, BENEATH the former burial site of Pope John XXIII (which was recently excavated for his vertical transfer upstairs following his beatification in 2001. When he died June 3, 1963, the technicians of the Institute of Legal Medicine of Rome injected formaldehyde into his body, to allow the body´s exposition for the faithful, before its burial.) It will be topped by a simple cross. I also desire such a "green burial" (directly into the earth) and in similar Trappist fashion.

Today the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd. Rowan Williams, has accepted an official invitation to attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II in Rome on Friday. He will be the first serving Archbishop of Canterbury to attend a Pope's funeral and will be wearing a pectoral Cross given to him by Pope John Paul II -- in addition to the ring presented to his predecessor, Archbishop Michael Ramsey, by Pope Paul VI.

Another "novelty" about this particular funeral is actually an adoption of the Orthodox Eastern Rites for the Burial of a Bishop. Just before closing the first coffin (one of three) the Holy Father's face will be covered with a white silk veil just moments before the funeral begins. (However, Sacred Chrism will NOT be liberally poured all over his face and body as is always done for Orthodox metropolitans.) Did young "Lolek" ever even imagine that one day he would be buried this way as he entered the Orthodox style onion domed RC parish church in his hometown of Poland?

In another departure from ancient Catholic ritual, the announcement of a new pope - traditionally signaled by white smoke from the burning of ballots in a Sistine Chapel stove (NO MORE according to Archbishop Piero Marini, the master of papal liturgical ceremonies) - will now be accomplished only by the pealing of church bells instead. Previously, the muzzy colors had caused much confusion.

Aw, shucks, that was the best part... I'll miss that. Watching the suspenseful crowds craning their necks to discern any change in hues was part of the experience. Like watching a kid unwrap his presents, it gave animated closure to our grief of the past weeks. Must they take that away from us too? I hope it's not an omen of things to come.