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John Paul II

The beloved spiritual leader leaves an indelible imprint on history for his empathy and humanity, but he was resolute against liberalizing the church.

His unyielding moral view throughout a 26-year papacy - the second longest in history - was a greater force for change outside the Roman Catholic church than inside. John Paul II, who died Saturday at age 84, was a liberal in such areas as capital punishment, disarmament, poverty and human freedom. He could be as critical of capitalism as he was of communism. But he was an unbending conservative on matters of Catholic doctrine such as birth control, celibate clergy and the role of women in the church. Yet, even his critics acknowledge that John Paul gave the world's 1-billion Catholics something they needed - doctrinal clarity. He left no doubt about what the church stood for or what was expected of the faithful.

This extraordinary and beloved spiritual leader put his charisma to good use, traveling to 129 countries and touching millions of people in places where no pope had been before with the simple message that their lives had value. He focused world attention on child trafficking in Asia and the plight of children dying from hunger and disease in Africa. As a major player on the international stage, the first Polish pope will be remembered for his role in the collapse of Soviet and European communism. "Be not afraid!" he said in his first sermon as pope, and everyone understood.

His forgiveness of a would-be assassin who nearly killed him and left the pope with life-altering injuries was a moral example that transcended faith. He reached out to Jews and Muslims in a spirit of reconciliation, and in the waning years of his papacy he apologized for his church's sins over the centuries, including religious intolerance and historic injustices toward women and the poor.

Yet for all of his empathy, the pope brooked no dissent inside the church. He saw liberalization doing to the church what nihilism was doing to secular society. John Paul reaffirmed the church's traditional stance on social issues, and he surrounded himself with conservatives to enforce doctrinal loyalty. To him, the question of whether condemning contraception conflicted with the church's concern for the AIDS victims in Africa missed a fundamental point: the sanctity of life. This same mental rubric reinforced the pope's thinking that the child sex abuse scandal was a church issue, not a criminal one.

Despite his conservative values, John Paul was not out of touch with young people, America or critics of the church. His youth forums were astoundingly popular. He enjoyed rock-star celebrity, and he knew how to turn the media's light on the excesses of popular culture. He was a skier, a linguist, an actor, a writer - a well-rounded student of the world and a thoroughly modern man at odds with modern values more concerned with the quality of life than with the sanctity of life.

Even toward the end, when the pope was visibly suffering, he saw the need to maintain his public profile, to stand as a living witness that life, no matter how infirm, has something to contribute. This was the continuation of a journey Karol Wojtyla began as a young boy in Poland, where he witnessed the horrors of the Nazi occupation. At an early age, he suffered the loss of his family, friends and country, and at times his health and freedom. This need to be with the hurting is one he spoke of throughout his papacy. The brave way he confronted his own death capped a life of inspiration.

[Last modified April 4, 2005, 01:26:10]