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Washington, D.C. - millions of
people strained for tleeting glimpses
of the man who captured the imagi–
nation of Catholics and non-Catho–
lics alike.
The pope's mere physical presence
seemed to mesmerize the huge
throngs. Often it took only the slight–
est gesture of his hands or the utter–
ance of a quaintly mispronounced
word to draw rounds of thunderoús
applause.
The jam-packed seven-day affair
also turned out to be the biggest media
event in the nation's history. Coverage
by the news media was phenomenal.
Over 14,000 journalists were accred–
ited to report on various aspects of the
pope's "pilgrimage" to .the U
.S.
from
October
1
through
7.
I
was part of that
sea of reporters, a!ld the following is a
firsthand observation.
"Moral Leader" of the West
From the point of view of the Vati–
can, the timing of the pope's trip to
America could not have been bet–
ter.
The United States and, for that
matter, the entire Western world is
suffering from a gaping void of lead–
ership. The política! giants that dom–
inated the postwar world have nearly
all faded from the scene. Widespread
antiauthoritarian, antiestablishment
views have reduced the appeal of and ·
the respect for political office in re–
cent years. Government scandals
have further taken their toll.
Into this vacuum is stepping, by
subtle yet well-orchestrated design,
the leader of the oldest Christian pro–
fessing body. This visit did not occur
by happenstance.
"AII this reflects conscious deci–
sion and a major development,"
wrote the editors of
Time
magazine,
analyzing the pope's performance in
the United States. "John Paul, who is
perfectly aware of bis charisma, is
quite deliberately converting the pa–
pacy into a personal office....
It
is a
strategy .. . well adapted to John
Paul's personality and the world's
eagerness for leadership."
Almost losing themselves in tbe
emotional impact of the pope's trip,
the editors of
Time
added: "The Pon–
tiff is emerging as a kind of incandes–
cent leader that the world so hungers
for . . .. He was [in America] a man
for all seasons, all situations, all
6
faiths, a beguilingly modest super–
star of the church."
Many other editors, reporters, and
even television news anchormen- all
of them normally an unfazed, hard–
bitten bunch-were also swept up in
the emotions of the day. Not a few
appeared to temporarily lose their
usual reportorial objectivity by which
they scrutinize other important per–
sonalities.
The pope was somehow different,
beyond the journalists' cutting edge
and probing pen. They had no yard–
stick by which to gauge him, so they
just joined in the euphoria. For ex–
ample, one well-known columnist,
himself a Catholic,. said that "John
Paul embodies the real meaning of
charisma, which is from the Greek
and indicates the presence of God.
His manner is quite effortless.... He
says exactly what he believes, and
we're starved for that."
Another journalist, James Restan,
one of America's most respected
news analysts, asked himself (in a
column entitled "God Lives in 8os–
ton") why the visit of John Paul en–
gendered such an outpouring of en–
thusiasm. He answered: "It is due,
1
believe, to the disenchantment of so
many people with the secular
world.... Pope John Paul 11 has
emerged, above all the contending
races and nations, as a solitary fig–
ure-but with the ability to speak
with great moral authority.
"Accordingly it's no wonder that
he has emerged, not only as a spiri–
tual but as a political force in the
world. For all the other political and
economic gods have failed, and he is
speakirig to the widespread sense of
regret in the Western world about
the spiritual heritage it has los
t."
Yet perhaps tbe nearly universal
appeal of the 59-year-old Polish pope
was best expressed not by a Jeading
journalist but by a middle-class Phil–
adelphia woman. While waiting six
hours on a Philadelphia sidewalk to
get a glimpse of him, she exclaimed:
"We don't have heroes, and he is
what we need- a hero."
U.N. Message
Nearly everyone, from the small up
to the great, was so awed by the man
that few, it seems, paid particularly
close attention to what the pope said,
especially during the first half of bis
trip, when he addressed himself pri–
marily to world and national rather
than church-related issues. This was
very much in evidence with regard to
John Paul Il's speech at the United
Nations on October 2.
During his 62-minute discourse at
the General Assembly, the pope
showed he understood bis audience
well , displaying here as everywhere
else a savvy for selecting the appro–
priate message for each group.
He was fully aware that Third
World countries, the socialist and
communist camps and the so-called
nonaligned nations domínate the ac–
tivities of the General Assembly. To
them, therefore, the pope shed, as it
were, bis clerical garb and displayed
bis "humanistic" side (he was once a
teacher of philosophy at the Catholic
University of Lublin). He inter–
spersed his carefully chósen words
(he writes his own speeches) with
patently Marxist egalitarian themes.
Remarked Murray Kempton of the
New York Post:
"There were curious
echoes of Karl Marx's arraignment
of the 19th Century capitalism."
The pope went far beyond criticis–
ing the materialism that permeates
American life. He aligned himself in
spirit with the demands of the devel–
oping nations for restructuring the
world
~conomic
order.
Later in that day, in a mass at
Yankee Stadium, John Paul drove
his point borne deeper, stating: "The
poor of the United States and the
world are your brothers and sisters in
Christ. You must never be content to
leave them just the crumbs from the
feast [a reference to the parable of
Lazarus and the rich man.] You
must take of your substance and not
just your abundance in arder to help
them."
·
In this very political address, the
pope asserted that the standard of
living of the rich countries was being
maintained by "draining off a great
part of the reserves of energy and
raw materials that are meant to serve
the whole of humanity."
Throughout the first two days of
bis visit the pope repeatedly returned
to this "exploitation" theme. This
same theme reverberates often in the
halls of the General Assembly, where
"excessively rich" (the pope's words)
countries-specifically tbe United
(Continued on page 40)
The
PLAIN TRUTH Oecember '1979