THE DEATH OF THE POPE: THE EDITORS
THE DEATH OF THE POPE It was the moment he had predicted often--even five days before-over the past several years, a moment for which he, as well as any man alive, was indeed prepared. Sunday...
...He embodied the best of the Catholic Action movement which flourished after World War II and struggled to bring Europe social and economic justice through Christian Democracy...
...Second, in his absolute opposition to birth control, married priests and women priests, he failed to cornprehend the world's and even the church's new and more positive understanding of married love and the dignity of women...
...Indeed it was this exaggerated notion of the papacy's authority that made higa cling to the job years after the age he required other bishops to resign and after he could no longer give the vigorous leadership the church needs...
...We say "in the long run" not just because any great man's life demands perspective to be understood, nor because the Vatican as a not-very-open society is slow to let historians know the full truth, but also because the areas in which he lost the support of so many Christians--those dealing with sexDare so personal and so powerful that it may be a little while before we can best say what kind of a leader and shepherd he has been...
...But if some of his central insights in Humanae Vitae --the value of each human life and the need to link sexual expression and procreationmwere valid, this unfortunate cyclical condemning all forms of contraception also represents his two greatest failures in understanding...
...Someone, consequently, educated outside the narrow Roman canon law training most bishops receive...
...But he worried too much, remained too isolated from the ordinary experiences, and seemed too willing to hear the curial tale-bearers who warned him that everything was falling apart...
...If Paul VI was a transitional pope who held the institution together and consolidated the moderate reforms of the Council, today the church needs a strong prophetic leader who will really bring the church into the modern world, someone who will once and for all escape the bonds that in modem times have keFt the first figure of the universal Church a "prisoner of .the Vatican"--the spiritual and cultural bonds that have constrained as thoroughly as the physical isolation and refusal to.travel which Paul did at least overcome...
...Thus, ironically, one of the holiest and most loving of Popes may also be remembered as one of the saddest...
...First he acted, against the advice of his own theological commission and against the consensus of the faithful about how love is best fostered in marriage, because he was trying to maintain the authority of the papacy...
...someone who, by his simple, open lifestyle, devotion to personal and intellectual freedom, justice and human rights, can help a non-believing world and a half-believing church look to Rome--or to wherevec the Pope may be--and see the face of Christ shining bright again...
...The afternoon's radio announced that he was dead...
...Historians, in the long run, will most likely speak well of Pope Paul...
...someone confident enough in the Spirit's presence not to he threatened by change...
...Intellectually brilliant--~though perhaps too committed to one French theological traditionwhis heart and mind reached out to the whole world...
...Indeed, the picture of Paul with his arms outstretched is an apt symbol of man---offering the embrace of peace to Christians and Jews, believers and unb~elievers, especially the poor and oppressed, and to Children...
...Sunday morning's paper said his doctor had ordered complete rest...
...In the tradition of the Commonweal: 515 great social encyclicals he taughtmto a compromised church and a capitalistic, gluttonous, secular society that the earth's resources were destined for the use of all and that thr hoarding of land, wealth and food and the unbridled arms race went against reason and the laws of God...
...It is both a symbolic hint of the true natural glory hidden within every human life and a promise of eternal life to those who suffer for the Kingdom...
...Then, when the ideal of Christian Democracy failed to materialize, he was also tolerant of the new ac~ oommodations with the Le~t...
...But at his best, though physically frail and personally withdrawn, he was a big man...
...And the day Giovanni Battista Montini--for 15 years Pope Paul VIw passed from this life, Catholics celebrated the feast of the Transfiguration and heard the gospel where, on the mountain top, the apostles Peter, James and John suddenly see the face of Jesus shine bright as the sun and his clothes as white as light...
...18 August 1978:516...
...Personally, though he seemed aloof, he was extremely sensitive and emotional...
Vol. 105 • August 1978 • No. 16
