Contact the author: popcultureslut@hotmail.com

I first became conscious of Pope John Paul II in 1981, when at age six my mother told me that the Pope had been shot. I couldn't quite grasp the magnititude or understand the sinister, conspiratorial, and political climate of the event, but since then the Pope has recovered, forgiven his assailant and gone on to etch his legacy of preaching love, peace, and forgiveness within the confines of a strict doctrinal policy, on the face of history.

As a highly visible, well-travelled religious and political figure, John Paul II was an icon. As a man who upheld the seemingly antiquated policies of the Roman Catholic church he was a polemic figure. I once had a conversation with a Polish-born friend who spoke passionately about his love for the Pope, who was seen as being largely responsible for the collapse of Communism in Poland, if not the entire Soviet bloc. I also once stood in a parking lot for three and a half hours with an old, well-dressed and learned Italian-Croatian man, who, as a Communist-sympathizer, HATED the Pope, and kicked the pebbles in the pavement in disgust while calling him a "monster" and saying that he could kill him.

With the Vatican's views on women, homosexuality, and family-planning rolled into an infallible papal doctrine that is supposed to transcend critical analysis and intelligent debate, it is easy to take extreme positions on Christianity's relevance in today's world and its unacceptability towards attitudes it deems irrelevent. Surely, the failure to speak out against the genocide in Rwanda and the continuing mis-handling of the AIDS epidemic in Africa are atrocities in themselves.

Reagardless of what the consequences of some of the church's policies bring, no one can ever doubt that Pope John Paul II loved all people. He had an audience with, among others, Bill Clinton, Fidel Castro, Ronald Reagan, Nelson Mandela, and the Dalai Lama. Not too shabby. And his funeral, attended by a who's-who of religious and political statesmen and world leaders, was a collosal and astounding gathering of those who felt the impact of the Pope's pontificate (if not an amusing and ridiculous cornucopia of some of the world's leading hypocrits).

In his 26-year reign, Karol Wojtyla, Pope John Paul II, grabbed the reins of church doctrine and guided it thorugh the turbulence of assasination attempts, regime changes, wars, natural disasters and child-abuse scandals. He was courageous, steadfast, and stoic in his beliefs.

Irrelevant? Maybe. Irreverent? Never.

© 2004 Aaron Bayley