Honoring Pope John Paul II

HONORING POPE JOHN PAUL II

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I rise today with a heavy heart to express my sorrow on the passing of his Holiness, Pope John Paul II.

Karol Jozef Wojtyla, born in the village of Wadowice, Poland, grew up in a poor family, and was an orphan by the age of 21. But by the end of his long, energetic life, he had overseen a new outpouring of faith in the Catholic Church and a renewal of freedom around the world.

With his election in 1978, John Paul became the first non-Italian pope in over 450 years. How fitting that of all the countries to produce the next pope, he came from Poland. In 1978, Poland, like most of Eastern Europe, was straining under the yoke of Soviet domination. The Soviet Communists had dubbed religion ``the opiate of the masses,'' and purposefully destroyed churches, detained or murdered priests, and terrorized worshippers.

The last thing they wanted was a native son of Poland returning there to remind his people of the power of faith.

Despite the Polish Communist government's attempts to prevent his visit, John Paul journeyed to Poland in June 1979. When he arrived he knelt down and kissed the Earth. He made over three dozen public appearances, in Warsaw, in Krakow, even in Auschwitz, and millions of Polish Catholics defined their government to see him. John Paul reminded the world that the power of faith was stronger than tanks. He told his listeners that Christ could not be removed from human history. He urged them, ``be not afraid.''

With his visit, John Paul reminded Eastern Europeans that no economic system was more powerful than the human spirit. Within months, the Polish solidarity movement began, and was the first crack in the Iron Curtain. Thanks to continuous pressure by the Pope and other Western leaders, the Soviet empire finally crumbled 12 years later.

John Paul knew something about the power of faith over totalitarianism. In 1944, while studying for the priesthood in Krakow, Poland, the Nazis began rounding up men to forestall an uprising against their brutal regime. They captured 8,000 in Krakow. But they missed 24-year-old Karol, by failing to look in the basement of the house he was staying in. He was down there praying.

John Paul was not a political leader, but a religious one. He was a champion of human freedom because he believed that freedom was a right granted by God. And he wanted to share that message with others. Through his travels, John Paul took the Christian faith to more people in more places than anyone else has ever done. In his 27 years as Pope, he made 104 foreign trips, the most in papal history. Fluent in seven languages, he spoke directly to people the world over.

More than any Pope before him, John Paul championed a brotherhood of faith between Christians, Jews and Muslims. He was the first pope to visit both a synagogue and a mosque. he referred to the Jewish people as `our elder brothers.'' His goal was to establish trust and peace between the world's great religions.

In 1994, he established full diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Israel. And in the closing years of the 20th century, he issued the historic document, ``We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah.'' In it he apologized for the Church's failure to stop the Nazi holocaust.

John Paul made history when, after so many years of working towards reconciliation, he became the first Pope to officially visit the Holy Land in 2000. He visited the sites of Jesus' birth, the Last Supper, crucifixion, burial and resurrection. In Jerusalem, he prayed at the Western Wall. Still in Jerusalem, he visited the al-Aqsa mosque, where Muslims hold that Muhammad ascended to Heaven.

John Paul recognized that worshipers of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, who all too often clash with raised fists, also share the same holy ground. By visiting these sites he reminded us that they belong to none, yet are holy to all.

John Paul was wonderful at delivering his message of love, hope and peace to millions at a time. He holds the record for having been seen, with the naked eye, by more people over his lifetime than anyone else in the world. As shepherd of the Catholic Church, he increased its number from 750 million to one billion over the globe. But he could also speak directly to just one man.

Take a man named Mehmet Ali Agca. On May 13, 1981, Agca shot the pope as he rode in a jeep driving through St. Peter's Square, and wounded him in the abdomen, right arm and left hand. John Paul was rushed to surgery and remained there for 5 hours. Part of his intestines had to be removed, and this man, a former skier, hiker and mountain climber, never fully recovered from this murderous attack.

But 2 years after the shooting, John Paul went to visit Agca in an Italian prison. The apostle and the assassin spoke face to face, and John Paul forgave Agca for attempting to kill him. In 1999, the Vatican endorsed clemency, and the Italian Government pardoned Agca a year later.

Right up until the end of his life, John Paul continued to teach us moral lessons. By continuing his duties through his ill health, he reminded us that all life has value and there is no such thing as a disposable human being.

We have lost a great moral leader, whose counsel will be missed as we continue to fight for freedom against the forces of violence, intolerance and hatred. it will be hard to fill the vacuum John Paul has left. His wisdom and fearlessness spoke not just to Catholics, but also to all Christians, Jews, Muslims, and the religions of the world. As we face a future without him, we must go forward as he did, with confidence in the human soul to find meaning amidst the chaos. And we must ``be not afraid.''

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