Pope John Paul II was the first pope to visit the Synagogue of Rome, and the first to publish a book which became a worldwide bestseller.
The Jewish religion is not ‘extrinsic’ to us, but in a certain way is ‘intrinsic’ to our own religion. With Judaism therefore we have a relationship which we do not have with any other religion. You are our dearly beloved brothers and, in a certain way, it could be said that you are our elder brothers.
With those heartfelt words, Pope John Paul II shook the hand of Rabbi Elio Toaff on his visit to the Synagogue of Rome. It was one of many milestone events that shaped the pontiff’s vision toward establishing a permanent dialogue and unity between Catholics and Jews.
When Pope John Paul II was elected in 1978, the first Polish pope ever, one could not envision the remarkable legacy he would leave 26 years later, especially with regard to the Jewish community. As a young man in 1944, Karol Joseph Wojtyla was blacklisted by the Nazis for activities in a Christian resistance group that helped save the lives of Jews. In 1979 he visited the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz to honor and remember the dead. On December 30, 1993, the pontiff traveled to Israel and signed an agreement establishing formal ties between Israel and the Vatican. On March 16, 1998 the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews issued “We Remember: Reflections on the Shoah.”
In 2000 the Pope visited Yad Vashem, delivered a speech in the Hall of Remembrance and prayed at the Wailing Wall, expressing sorrow and asking forgiveness regarding the inaction of some Christians during the Holocaust, and sins committed by the Church.
Undoubtedly, the Holy Father’s most important achievement was his strong stance on moral issues, and a steadfast refusal to accommodate modernists who sought to reform the Church on issues such as abortion, cloning, homosexual marriage and euthanasia. He was an outspoken critic of abortion. In 1995, he issued the encyclical “Gospel of Life” which condemned abortion, euthanasia and human embryo experimentation. The pontiff recognized the “culture of life” (he coined the term) with roots in Catholic doctrine and upheld in Church teachings. Pro-lifers will always admire this pope and remember that he refused to bend to the whims of so-called “progressives.”
Pope John Paul II spoke eight languages fluently and was a man of many firsts. He was the first pope to visit the Synagogue of Rome, and the first to publish a book which became a worldwide bestseller. Mikhail Gorbachev’s visit at the Vatican marked the first time a pope ever met with a Soviet leader. Pope John Paul II made an unprecedented number of foreign trips — 104 in all — for the purpose of spreading democracy and freedom around the world. Recently, he published “Memory and Identity,” an account of the attempted assassination on his life in 1981. During his many trips to Poland he told the people not to be afraid; this encouraged them to rise up against the Communist regime, triggering the onset of the Solidarity movement.
Prayer, piousness and a lifetime of devotion bring us closer to G-d, but we cannot negotiate with our Creator how many days we will live. In Judaism, there are no accidents; there is a hidden meaning to all events that occur. The Catholic Church opposes euthanasia and the right-to-die movement. It was Pope John Paul II who issued a statement condemning the judicial homicide of Terri Schindler-Schiavo, who was Catholic. The unlikely convergence of these two deaths in such close proximity, the senseless and undignified execution of Terri in Florida last week and the subsequent natural dignified death of the Pope is no coincidence. It’s also downright eerie. It is not by chance that the Pope was, in his last days, temporarily on a feeding tube. A spiritual message is being written, a lesson is taught. I see it as a warning that we’ve veered too far off course from a moral compass toward hedonism, and it’s time to turn back before it’s too late to turn back. Terri and the pontiff are in a better place. Will we continue to ignore the message or let their departure set an example for us to revere and uphold the sanctity of life?
bcr1954@hotmail.com
Read more articles by Bonnie Chernin Rogoff
