Remembering St. John Paul II

Richard A. Sokerka

On the 100th anniversary of the birth of St. Pope John Paul II on May 18, also the first day public Masses resumed throughout Italy, Pope Francis offered his morning Mass in the chapel of the saint’s tomb in St. Peter’s Basilica.

The legacy this Pope who became a saint left to us is undoubtedly unprecedented in the more than 2,000-year history of our Catholic Church.

He presided at 15 synods and authored 14 encyclicals, 15 apostolic exhortations, 11 apostolic constitutions, 44 apostolic letters and five books. And, in the third longest papacy in the Church’s history, he proclaimed 1,338 blesseds and canonized 482 saints, a record that will surely stand the test of time.

Like St. Peter, our Church’s first Pope (Acts 9:32), this modern day successor as head of the Church went from country to country, continent to continent bringing to all people the Gospel message and the teachings of the Church from its inception. In all, John Paul II made more than 100 pastoral visits outside the Vatican during his papacy.

But one visit among all the others he made is the most special to me because my wife and I were there during Pope John Paul II’s first visit to New Jersey in 1995. On Oct. 5, a day where a steady rain became a monsoon in the evening, Pope John Paul II processed into Giants Stadium in his popemobile to a tumultuous ovation as more than 83,000 of the faithful who filled every seat, cheered his presence, voices raised akin to the intensity of the Giants having just won the Super Bowl.

As the Pope celebrated Mass, the rain intensified so much that those who had seats on the field, including the then-executive editor of The Beacon, were ankle deep in water while we were thankful just to be among the faithful in our nosebleed seats for this once-in-a-lifetime event.

The Pope’s homily that night had us hanging on his every word. He focused on America’s top political issue that to this day still plagues our nation — abortion. Une­quiv­ocally he told us that respect for human life lay at the very heart of the U.S. Constitution — and that included the unborn child in a mother’s womb. “Sadly, today a new class of people is being excluded,” he said. “When the unborn child — the stranger in the womb — is declared to be beyond the protection of society, not only are America’s deepest traditions radically undermined and endangered, but a moral blight is brought upon society.”

For those of us who lived through his papacy, our memories and recollections of St. Pope John Paul II come as easily as mine do. His presence on that rain-soaked night in Giants Stadium brought me a sense of peace I had never experienced before and have not experienced since. Only a saint could do that!