'Everybody feels a personal link with him'
Kornelius Purba, The Jakarta Post
It was Saturday morning on Feb. 5, 2000 in the Vatican audience room. After receiving then president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid, Pope John Paul II blessed 11 Indonesian Catholic businessmen and journalists who were traveling with the president.
I was rather reluctant to kneel in front of him. I felt very disappointed after realizing that he presented rosaries only to women while men received medallions. This was my second failure to get a rosary from him after my first attempt during his visit to Jakarta on Oct. 9, 1989.
My facial expression probably drew his attention. He gently asked me, "Are you a Catholic?" I nodded and he blessed me.
To myself and to probably millions of others of the Catholic faith, his question sounded like a deep probing -- "Are you really a Catholic?" As I read the news of his death on Sunday morning, I remembered with discomfort that I had misplaced the medallion.
John Paul II has met millions of people across the globe since his election as pontiff in October 1978, and only very few of them he knew personally. But I do believe the touching way in which he asked that question -- with strong affection apparent in his eyes -- was a very effective personal approach.
One can understand how his strong opposition to the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq by U.S. President George W. Bush was unlikely to affect the President's respect for him.
Rosa Balumbo, among those who prayed in St. Peter's Square in Rome shortly after the Pope's death before dawn on Sunday, beautifully described the feeling of millions of people.
"Everybody loved him because everybody seemed to have a personal link with him. He blessed us once and he looked us in the eye with love, like a father to his children," she told Reuters.
During his 26-year papacy, he acted as the true "great communicator", brilliantly milking maximum benefit from the rapid development of communications and media technology, especially television, to deliver his message. The media often treated him as a pop superstar during his visits to more than 120 countries, where he always tried to use the local language when saying mass.
His background as a Polish Catholic leader when the country was under a communist regime and during the Cold War -- when the existence of the church was under great threat -- strongly influenced his conservative stance on major issues that he regarded as fundamental, such as birth control, same-sex marriage, and absolute celibacy for priests. He stubbornly opposed the idea of allowing women to become priests.
The supreme leader of the world's largest religion -- depending on who's making the claim -- is also very rigid on the church liturgy. In big cities in Indonesia, quite a lot of people have quietly abandoned the church and joined other churches that are able to offer "much more lively and down-to-earth rituals." Some friends complain, "attending mass in our church is very boring compared to other churches."
But perhaps the Pope had no choice but to tightly embrace the conservative stance, because the faithful need consistently strong moral guidance although they might not always agree with him. I disagree with him myself about the use of contraceptives.
Nevertheless, John Paul II, through his great example and deeds, has left a very strong legacy. Look at the fall of communism in eastern Europe -- and also his strong defense of Islam as a great and peaceful religion, amid Western countries suspicion of Islam after a series of barbaric terrorist attacks by those who claim to be Muslim warriors.
He was a great leader of his era. After him, the church and even the world will need the moral guidance of a new pope to face the future. Who will become the new leader? Theoretically, Jakarta's Archbishop, Cardinal Julius Darmaatmadja is eligible for the post. Whoever the next pope is, in this difficult world it is only natural that the faithful will expect that he will try to learn from his predecessor and be even better, if that is possible, than the late John Paul II.