NEWS STORY: John Paul II’s Admirers Extend Well Beyond Catholic Circles

c. 2005 Religion News Service CLEVELAND _ John Paul II, not only Catholics love you. As the late pontiff lay in state at the Vatican and the world prepares for his funeral Friday (April 8), non-Catholics, too, are celebrating the life of a man whose legacy in large part was forged by reaching out to […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

CLEVELAND _ John Paul II, not only Catholics love you.

As the late pontiff lay in state at the Vatican and the world prepares for his funeral Friday (April 8), non-Catholics, too, are celebrating the life of a man whose legacy in large part was forged by reaching out to the world.


And if the reaction of interfaith leaders here in northeast Ohio is any indication, John Paul left a warm legacy with other faiths the world over.

“The death of Pope John Paul II evokes a sadness that extends far, far beyond the confines of the Catholic faith community,'' Rabbi Stanley Schachter of B'nai Jeshurun-Temple on the Heights said at an interfaith service Monday (April 4) at St. John Roman Catholic Cathedral here.

“If there are today growing numbers of nations that respond to the hungry and the ill in our world, it is in some very important way because of his voice and his constant prodding.''

In the opening procession at the cathedral service, Jewish, Muslim, Coptic Orthodox, Hindu and Sikh leaders joined local hierarchs such as the Episcopal and Lutheran bishops in a testimony to John Paul's commitment to interreligious dialogue.

In a world he saw as increasingly hostile to religion, the pontiff reached out to each of the major faiths in an appeal to work together for justice and peace. The Dalai Lama was among more than 60 leaders of 12 major religions who gathered at the pope's invitation for the World Day of Prayer and Fasting for Peace at Assisi, Italy, on Oct. 27, 1986.

Bishop J. Delano Ellis II of the Pentecostal Church of Christ in Cleveland met the late John Paul II four times. Ellis saw the pope when he was a vibrant hiker who stood upright, and he saw the pontiff in his last years, bent over from various illnesses.

No matter his physical condition, what John Paul exemplified for Ellis and others in the Protestant Pentecostal community was a passion for life.

“We look at him as one of the true heroes for the culture of life,'' said Ellis, president of the Joint College of African-American Pentecostal Bishops when he led 160 delegates to the Vatican on a pilgrimage in 2000 to promote closer ties with the Catholic Church.


“I hate that we're losing him,'' Ellis had said as the pope lay dying last weekend. “I know he's going to be in better hands when he goes to sleep.''

In advancing Jewish-Catholic relations, John Paul made the first papal visit inside the Rome synagogue, in 1986. Again and again, in papal documents and in a visit to the Yad Veshem memorial in Israel, John Paul II would evoke the memory of the Holocaust in declaring anti-Semitism a sin against God.

But what was particularly meaningful to Schachter occurred when the pope, during his historic visit to Israel in 2000, left a note for God in a crevice of the Western Wall stating, “We wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the covenant.''

“We share something,'' was what the pope was saying to Schachter. “We have to continue to close the gap of estrangement.''

Zeki Saritoprak, professor of Islamic studies at John Carroll University, said it was significant that John Paul's first visit as pope was to Turkey, a predominantly Islamic nation.

But an image that sticks vividly in his mind was the pontiff praying with Islamic scholars in 2001 inside a mosque in Damascus “for the hearts of Christians and Muslims (to) turn to one another with feelings of brotherhood and friendship.''


In offering his condolences to colleagues at John Carroll, Saritoprak would tell them, “This is a great loss for humanity and for interfaith dialogue.''

Many religious leaders recalled both a life well lived and a death faced with courage and dignity.

Bishop Marcus Miller of the Northeastern Ohio Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America remembered how the pope's eyes offered a window into his faith when he met the pontiff two years ago.

“When he looked me in the eyes, it was as if I was the only person in the room,'' Miller said. “It was clear that this was a person who walked with Christ and freely and joyfully shared his love.''

The Rev. John Thomas, president of the Cleveland-based United Church of Christ, said John Paul reached out to Eastern Orthodox and other Protestants, but what particularly impressed him was the pope's strong pastoral presence with youth.

“It was clear that he had a magical way with young people, and they responded well to him,'' Thomas said.


The Rev. Vladimir Berzonsky of Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in Parma, Ohio, said Slavic and Russian populations will remember the pope for bringing down “the horrible wall'' of Communism.

But he personally will never forget the image of John Paul visiting his would-be assassin in a Rome prison and offering him forgiveness.

“He's been an elegant example of not just the pope, but what Christ expects every Christian to be,'' Berzonsky said.

(David Briggs is religion reporter for The Plain Dealer of Cleveland.)

KRE/PH END BRIGGS

 

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