When I was a lad of ten, I'd lived my whole life to that time under just one pope. Living in the hills of New Jersey, I was far enough removed from my own bishop let alone the pope, that I didn't yet understand the difference. One day, I was watching a rerun of Gilligan's Island on the television when they interrupted with the news: "The pope is dead." My mother and sister ran into the room in shock and asked, "What did they say?!" I responded, "Some pope died."
Within the span of two months, I'd see three different popes govern the Church. It was a very quick introduction to the papacy, High Mass, and papal elections. And before I could even get old enough to be accustomed to the idea of Italians always being pope, hundreds of years of precedent was thrown on its head by a charismatic young man (for a cardinal, at least) from Poland.
I won't bother going into a tale of his life - that's better done elsewhere. But I'll tell you a story about his death, long before it happened.
When I was at Seton Hall University, trying to complete my bachelor's degree, attending ROTC classes to earn my Army commission, and contemplating entrance into the priesthood, I was required to take a course in Catholic theology. Being Catholic, I not only thought this would be easy, but perhaps fun and informative. Catholic Theology turned out to be the only class I enjoyed going to, the only class I got an A in, and the only class where I made a friend of the professor.
Jaimie Vidal was an almost perfectly round Hispanic man in his 40s, with a bright, smiling face and a contagious laugh. I asked him a question at the end of the first class, and he invited me to his office so he could explain his in-depth answer to me. Two hours later, he left me stumbling out of the office on my own, because he was running as fast as his stubby little legs could carry him: our conversation was so much fun for each of us, he'd missed the start of his next lecture.
Jaimie was a liberal, I'm certain damn near a socialist. But his politics was a reflection of his almost naive view of the world through the prism of his Catholic faith. He taught me what it was like to see the world through liberal glasses, something that was completely foreign to me to that time. And he wanted to see the pope dead.
From the time of his election, I revered John Paul. I never understood the rock-star hold he had on many people, especially the young adults who frequently worked as youth counselors and the like, but then again I never understood that mentality even when those revered were really rock stars. But as an historian and a faithful Catholic, it was undeniable that he was both a genuinely loving and pious servant of God and an earthquake of change and reform in the Church and the world. The pope wasn't from socialist, modernist Italy, but from communist, orthodox Poland. His impact on the Cold War was immediate and undeniable, but his effect on dogma and church culture was a bit more subtle. He would continue some of the reforms of Vatican II, but also encourage us to a new orthodoxy. While some bishops wanted to tear out all ties to the old Latin Mass, John Paul slowly, quietly allowed Latin Mass to be a choice for those who still wanted the older form. He strongly defended Church teaching and unswervingly promoted the Gospel of Life over the Culture of Death, but refused to adopt policies that did more than quietly disagree with those holding opposing views, like pro-abortion politicians.
So when Jaimie Vidal said he hoped John Paul II would go to heaven as soon as possible, I was stunned. He explained, he wasn't fond of the pope's conservatism, and he wanted to get back to the reforms that John XXIII had begun and Paul VI had only halfway endorsed. Liberal Catholic theology suggests that anything not strictly dogma is still open to interpretation, but John Paul wanted to reduce the number of issues left up to such interpretation. Liberal theologians reasoned that when the pope died, they had a good shot getting a new liberal reformer elected pope who could give them the freedom to go where they wanted to go. Jaimie wished John Paul health and long life, but wouldn't be opposed to the notion of the saintly man from Wadowice going on to heaven, either.
I don't know if Jaimie is still around - last I heard he'd gotten a job at Notre Dame, and we sort of lost touch with one another. He wasn't too adept with computers, so I was not surprised to see very little reference to him on the Internet when I looked. But I'm certain of one thing: for almost twenty years since he expressed the idea to me, the man born as Karol Wojtyla has frustrated Jaimie Vidal's greatest wish in ways that the latter could scarcely have imagined at the time. And in disagreement with my mentor, I think that has yielded great things for the Church in many, many ways. Some, like his ecumenical outreach to Orthodox Christians and Jews, have made progress in a few years that were unsolvable for centuries. Many others turn away from some misconceptions of Vatican II and lead us forward in a better way - not the Latin church of old, but not the kind of liberal transformation Professor Vidal wanted to champion.
Soon, Jaimie will get his wish for a new pope, albeit later than he would have liked. I hope wherever the good professor is, he continues to be disappointed. He of all people should know I mean that only in a good way.
UPDATE: As the timestamp indicates, this was posted early in the day on Saturday, just before the Holy Father passed away. Dom Bettinelli - as usual - has some insightful things to say, including a post on the pope's detractors that mirrors what I have to say here.
It should also be noted that some people - including his own Secretary of State, Angelo Cardinal Sodano - are already beginning to refer to him by the title, "John Paul the Great". A most fitting tribute.
