« Tired of Karaoke? | Main | Hezbollah Protest Turns Out Hundreds of Thousands »

March 07, 2005

The Pope Still Teaches

There is yet more to learn from John Paul II, and Mr. Vanderleun is attentive to the lesson:

We live more and more, but more and more we do not know how to die.

To teach us this thing the Pope will now enact the lesson, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear. His is the ancient church that, teaching First Things in ways many now no longer care to hear, teaches us now about Last Things in ways that many fear to learn. And it is the leader of that Church who, as he has in all things for decades, again leads in this teaching. If you are, as am I, late to the study of this man and his life, it would be best to pay attention now. This lesson of the Stoic will not be repeated...

The different, more difficult answer from the Pope is that his Church does not side with death but always with life; even life made intolerable. It does not side with elected death at the beginning nor at the end, and that the Shepherd of the Church promises this as he assumes the Papacy. He cannot and, it seems to me clear, does not wish it otherwise. When Karol Wojtyla the man became Pope John Paul II it did not mean that he could or would become Karol Wojtyla the man again when life became difficult. It meant a promise kept beyond death. A promise that would, in word and deed, and in long measure, enact a life in imitation of Christ. One need not be a Catholic or even a Christian to learn from this lesson.

The Passion of the Pope is a living lesson that will teach many things to many millions of the faithful and the atheist alike in the days to come, not the least of which will be that the value of life in all conditions and all stages is not something that can be casually discarded or medicated or made easy simply because we can elect to end it.

Posted by bubba138 at March 7, 2005 04:34 PM