John Paul II respected for person, not politics

“Sometimes, there’s a man,” the Scripture tells us. “And I’m talkin’ about The Dude here …… “Sometimes, there’s a man,” the Scripture tells us. “And I’m talkin’ about The Dude here … Sometimes, there’s a man, well, he’s the man for his time and place. He fits right in there.”

OK, so maybe that’s not so much a passage from the Bible as it is a line from “The Big Lebowski,” but it’s certainly just as applicable as the world continues its look back at the life and legacy of Pope John Paul II. The pope, formerly known as Karol Wojtyla, was the right man in the right place at the right time.

And while I’m the total antithesis of the man — I’ve been described as being “10 pounds of Jew in a 5-pound bag” — I’ve always had a healthy respect for the man, despite our differences in faith and views on various social issues.

One of the hallmarks of partisan politics in this country is that liberals favor legalized abortion and oppose the death penalty, while conservatives oppose abortion, yet are the main proponents of the death penalty. You can argue this any number of ways, but all four arguments have their holes.

John Paul II didn’t value life in some situations and condone its taking in others. He consistently took the position that life is a wonderful, divine thing that should be cherished, coming out against both abortion and the death penalty.

And while he praised George Bush for his efforts to enact reforms on which the two agreed, he was a strongly vocal opponent of the war in Iraq and did what he could to assure the Muslim world that Bush’s brand of conservatism was not to be confused with the Church’s.

This pope took unprecedented strides in the building of interfaith bridges and the uniting of people. He was the first head of the church to set foot in both a synagogue and a mosque. He negotiated peace treaties and ended wars.

He was a major factor in the fall of communism in Europe. And when the Soviet Union fell, he turned his efforts toward reaching out to people in China and Cuba. Through his efforts, John Paul II garnered the kind of respect that possessed Cuban president Fidel Castro — a manipulator of the news if ever there was one — to allow Cuban media to broadcast updates on his condition as he lay dying in the Vatican.

When one hears the phrase “compassionate conservative,” the first meaning that comes to mind is the cheesy, deceptive slogan that George Bush used in his first campaign for the presidency. He didn’t have any trouble delivering on the latter half of the term. But when it comes to compassion, Bush and conservatism in America fall woefully short. Meanwhile, John Paul II was never short on conservatism, nor was he ever lacking in compassion.

Wojtyla’s childhood in Poland had a lot to do with that. While anti-Semitism in Poland ran high during his childhood, he wasn’t afraid to have Jewish friends or play on a primarily Jewish soccer team. He was raised to be religiously tolerant, and I have to believe that when he returned home from the army at wars’ end to find that many of his Jewish friends had been exterminated, it really drove home the importance of religious tolerance and cooperation.

While backpacking through Italy last semester, I found myself in Rome on Halloween, searching for a bar that just might show the Steelers vs. Patriots game. My friend and I found such a place — of course it was filled with Americans — and I ended up spending most of the game’s first half conversing with the priest sitting next to me. He was from Boston, and a Patriots fan. During the course of our conversation, I asked if he’d ever met the pope.

“Yes,” he said, and proceeded to tell me the story.

“Did you have to do the whole kissing-of-the-ring thing?” I asked him.

“No,” the father replied. “This pope is the kind of guy who prefers a good handshake.”

Something about that struck a chord with me. Whatever it was, it’s certainly been re-affirmed in all of the stories that people who knew the Holy Father have been telling on the news the past few days. There seemed to be something refreshingly down-to-earth about the man.

I disagreed with most of John Paul II’s politics. His views on abortion and the rights of women and homosexuals were archaic. But in considering the organization he represented and the great, forward strides he took in the pursuit of peace, I find it near impossible not to have great respect for the man.

E-mail Matt Wein at mattwein@hotmail.com.