6 Feet Under

Back in the Autumn at the Unicef Ball with Joe, I happened to be sitting at the same table as Andrzej Jonas, which is why this article re: PJP THE GREAT is even more interesting to me, besides the point that today was his funeral. Peter and I walked around Warsaw this afternoon well after the funeral masses had taken place, and there were still throbs of people everywhere. This is how Andrew sums up Poland's feelings of the Pope. It is taken from this week's issue of The Warsaw Voice:

"We grope for words. Because naming something means understanding it. Who was John Paul II, how will he remain in our memories and the memory of generations? What did he contribute to the history of civilization? Words, crumbs of meaning tumble in from the world. Poland is filled with them. He was the parish priest of the global village. An uncompromising guardian of values.

Adam Michnik, historical leader of the democratic opposition and editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza, said in his first publicly spoken words in months, "John Paul II defended all that was fixed in a changing world. He was as much a pope-staid defender of principles as he was a giver of continual mercy to those who erred. He was a pope of testimony and a pope of diplomacy...though more of testimony than diplomacy. He was a pope who taught courage and heroism, but understood the idea of compromise in public life and warned against the fatal logic of vengeance. He was a sign of the times and a sign of opposition to his times; he said to his times: 'yes, yes, no, no'."

Archbishop Tadeusz Życiński, an intellectual and a liberal hierarch, called Karol Wojtyła the Moses of our times, who brought us out of the house of slavery, led us across the Red Sea and is our guide on the shifting sands of freedom that are so easy to get lost in.

A genius and visionary, a citizen of his era, like so few others understanding the hopes and dangers those times brought. A master of and an expert on the latest forms of interpersonal communication. An apostle of love and a consistent moralist.

To the Poles, he was a gift from fate, the end and the beginning of a chapter. An impulse and a sign of rebirth. A source of hope and strength. A restoration of dignity and a call for rejection of sin.

He will remain a symbol, an integral, indomitable figure. A beacon. For some, he will also be a teacher, a guide along the complicated paths of thoughts, feelings and actions. A sentinel and a judge.

Before Karol Wojtyła, there were other popes called "the Great"-Gregory, Leo and Nicholas. Now, John Paul joins them. John Paul the Great."

It is beautifully written in my opinion, and when you see grown men crying in the street (other than those crying over the music) it is quite scarey to think about how much a false Christ meant to an entire country. PJP, I love ya man, but no one gives mercy to sinners but a heavenly, eternally living God. That's just the way it goes.