The Pope at 83: One Day The E-Mail Will Be Right

A few days ago, an e-mail message from a priest in Rome said authoritatively that Pope John Paul II was very sick and very near the end and that we must pray for him with urgency.

It was wrong. Such messages are common fodder and have been for years. But one day, the e-mail message will be correct. The Pope will be dying. The Pope will be dead.

And that day will be one of the saddest days of our lives. But it will also be one of the most amazing, because this is what will happen.

You will be sitting at your desk; perhaps you will be in bed, out jogging or watching television. I mean this to, literally, every person in the world, or practically every one. The phone will ring or someone will run in or you will hear the radio go all strange and urgent. And then you will know. This great and holy man has died.

You will be stunned. Your head will swim. You will certainly stop what you are doing, whatever it is. And the thought of him will invade your mind and your heart. You will find yourself moving. Others will be moving with you. You will see the stunned look on the faces that pass you by. Car doors will be open with small crowds gathered listening to radio reports blaring out.

Perhaps you will whisper to someone who has not heard, “The Pope is dead.”

They will move along with you. You are going to church, to synagogue, to mosque. When you get there, the place will be jammed, no matter what time of day or night, for surely those in deepest night will know, too. Night will fall and sun will rise and those awake will talk about him and those asleep may dream.

What we will experience is a world historical moment. One of the great men of all time will have died. The whole world will know it in an instant. And, all at the same time, the world will be joined in prayer. This will be a moment you will not forget for the rest of your life.

The media scrum will be unimaginable, like nothing we have seen. For years, the major American television networks have been renting the tops of buildings near the Vatican, paying upward of $200,000 per year in order to get the best views during those coming dramatic days.

The pundits within and without the Church will have their day. Those of left and right will vent their particular grievances against John Paul, that he was too conservative, that he was too liberal. Ho-hum. But the great middle will grieve and celebrate.

Since this column is not an obituary — since the great man still breathes and celebrates his 83rd birthday May 18 — it will not relate the uncountable amazing moments of his life. Still, here is a man who bestrode the 20th century like a colossus.

No one is like him.

Like all men of genius, he can see beyond the horizon. Unlike most geniuses, he sees far, far beyond it. And don’t you get the impression that he is sprinting, like a thor-oughbred, toward the finish line that he knows is out there somewhere, maybe somewhere close?

He is an elderly man, a frail man, who can still surprise us.

He just gave us a new set of mysteries for the rosary and absolutely no one saw it coming. A few years ago he gave us new biblically based Stations of the Cross. On Holy Thursday he issued yet another in his long line of brilliant written works, this one on the Eucharist. Biographer George Weigel says it will take a century to unpack the deep meaning in all his writing. Let the unpacking begin, please.

But the best part of that horrible and wonderful day will be this: On that day, this man will meet Jesus. And we just know that Jesus will take him in his arms and love him like he loved the Apostle John. For this man was an apostle unlike any other. Can’t you see him walking as an equal with the originals? That is what will happen in heaven.

Here on earth John Paul will almost immediately come to be known as “John Paul the Great.” When was the last one called “The Great?" Fourteen hundred years ago? Now we will have another. What is more, the Catholic people will not wait for the Church to tell us he is a saint. We will not wait for the inevitable process of canonization. We will simply call him that.

For the first time since the Middle Ages, a saint will be made by acclamation of the people. We will begin praying for him, as all good Catholics should, but also to him, and then the graces will fall even faster from the hand of John Paul the Great's good God.

Austin Ruse is president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. He welcome coments at [email protected].