The Loss of the Pope....

This isn't a funny column.

I watched the funeral of Pope John Paul II on EWTN and Fox News this morning. It was very moving....4 million people came to pay their respects. They say it's the largest funeral in history.

I was thinking back to when he became Pope in 1978. How amazed the world was that the Church had elected a Polish Pope. I recall the crowd of millions people he drew in Mexico City just three months later. I think it's still the Guiness record for an audience.

I recall when he went to Communist Poland. I remember how amazed the news organizations were that he drew crowds of hundreds of thousands everywhere he went despite a government news blackout on his visit! The Poles saw that when they gathered in strength, the police couldn't stop them. I remember how John Paul told them to seek their freedom, all the while surrounded by communist officials. I recall feeling afraid for his safety. To speak against any communist government was an offense for which you could be imprisoned for as long as they felt like it...

Who can forget the crowds of Poles chanting "We want God" ? A country whose government had closed all but a few token churches. Despite communism's best efforts to squelch religion as the "opium of the people", the Poles kept the faith.

We didn't know it then, but that was the beginning of the end of communism in Poland and eventually the end of communism in eastern Europe. Because it was after the Pope's visit that the strikes in the Gdansk shipyards occured and Lech Walesa led the Pole to democracy. And once the Poles threw off the yoke of communist oppression, the other USSR countries followed in turn with John Paul II facilitating the fall of communism every chance he got. Until finally, on Christmas Eve 1991, the Berlin Wall fell without any violence, not a single shot fired.

Whether you're a Catholic, a recovering Catholic, maybe coming home Catholic, or a non-Catholic, you have to admire this remarkable man. Just like Mother Theresa, his humanity transcended all borders and boundaries.

God bless and keep you John Paul II. We didn't always agree, but you were part of my life.
I miss you already, Sally