Jonathan's Journals
I have been moved, as have millions of people around the world, by the story of Pope John Paul II’s death. As United Methodists, we have some serious theological differences with some parts of Roman Catholic theology. However, that is not what my mind keeps coming back to. Rather, what keeps coming to mind is the things we share in common with Roman Catholicism, as they have been embodied in the life of John Paul II. (future generations will probably refer to him as Pope John Paul the Great).
When I think about the Pope, I think of that wonderful human spirit that was so alive and burning with a passionate love for Jesus. This is what I will remember most about him: He always pointed the way past himself to Jesus. I remember when I was ordained at Lake Junaluska some 12 years ago. A Catholic bishop participated in the service (though not in the actual laying on of hands). But he did say a few words. He said, “Go and feed the sheep God has entrusted to you, and may the love of Jesus always burn brightly in your hearts.” In saying this to us, this Catholic bishop reminded me of the pope’s warm, winsome, enthusiastic, vital, and passionate commitment to Jesus.
I was watching Larry King yesterday. He was interviewing Father Richard John Neuhaus, who was recently named as one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in our country. Larry King said, “Father Neuhaus, Catholics can’t be evangelical, can they?” He responded, “Of course they can Larry. Evangelical comes from the Greek “evangelion” which simply means good news. Anyone who believes the good news of Jesus Christ and wants to spread the good news to others is an evangelical.” Thank God for Father Neuhaus. He said exactly what I hoped he would. Catholics are evangelical!
I used to think that Catholics did not believe in justification by faith. I thought only Protestants believe that, as if Catholics believed in justification by works. How wrong I was! Catholics and Protestants share a common faith in Jesus Christ, outlined in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creed.
In addition to the Pope’s beautiful commitment to Jesus and to the gospel, Pope John Paul II also stressed the social significance of the gospel for today, and he never hesitated to speak truth to power, mixing religion and politics. JP II helped end Communism in his native Poland by supporting the solidarity movement among workers, and this eventually led to the downfall of atheistic communism. Of course, JP II was not very impressed with capitalism either. He saw the hedonism of western culture, and he was extremely critical of the way western capitalist nations left out the poor and oppressed in their efforts to gain more and more wealth. For the Pope, unrestrained capitalism was just as destructive as communism.
John Paul’s faith embodied a respect for all of human life, from the moment of conception until death. He called the message of Jesus, Evagelium Vitae, the gospel of life, and he preached it in the midst of our culture of death. Because he worshiped God as the Creator and Redeemer of life, he resisted all forms of death including abortion, war, and capital punishment.
I laugh when I hear liberals and conservatives each trying to claim the Pope’s legacy. Conservatives will cite the Pope’s rejection of abortion and homosexuality, and claim he was “one of theirs.” Liberals will cite the Pope’s rejection of war (especially America’s most recent war) and capital punishment, and claim him as “one of their’s.”
The truth is that someone as great as the Pope transcends flimsy labels like “liberal” and “conservative.” His rejection of war, abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment were all part of the same seamless garment: his commitment to life in all its forms as the gift of God for humans whom He created in his own image.
The Pope reached out to us Protestants and accepted us as brothers and sisters in Christ. He reached out to Jews, going to synagogues, the Western Wall, apologizing for the church’s history of anti-semitism, and calling the Jews, “our elder brothers.” He even reached out to Muslims, becoming the first Pope to set foot in a mosque, and calling for reconciliation and mutual cooperation among Muslims, Jews, and Christians.
I do not mean to paint too rosy a picture of the Pope or Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism, for all its beauty, still has its problems: the clergy sex scandals in our country have been particularly painful and destructive. I think they are related to two other weaknesses in the Roman Catholic Church: the requirement of celibacy in its clergy, and the refusal to ordain women. And certainly they have different beliefs about Mary the mother of Jesus, the nature of the sacraments, birth control, and the role of the bishop of Rome – just to name a few.
I have a friend who until recently was an ordained United Methodist minister. She was one of the brightest, most intelligent, and most gifted United Methodist pastors I know. She’s the kind who wouldn’t have surprised me if she had become a bishop. Yet, a few weeks ago, she turned in her ministerial credentials to the conference office. Why? She was becoming a Roman Catholic. She wrote that she increasingly finds that she feels most at home spiritually in the beauty of the Roman Catholic Church’s worship, liturgy, and sacraments. And she is a feminist who feels called to be a priest, and yet knows that will never happen in the Roman Catholic Church, and yet she still feels called to unite with them! How powerful is the force that draws her into Catholicism, that it is even stronger than her deep convictions about women’s ordination. I know several other United Methodists who studied theology at Duke and eventually became Roman Catholic.
Perhaps that shouldn’t surprise me. After all, John Wesley was often accused of being a Jesuit and of undoing the Protestant Reformation. In Wesley’s insistence that human beings participate in God’s grace, work in synergy with God’s grace, he rejected certain extremes of the Protestant Reformation. Wesley shared with Roman Catholics the belief in the importance of good works and the continuing work of sanctification in the Christian life, and the centrality of the church and sacraments in our relationship with God.
At a time of bitter resentment and alienation between Catholics and Protestants, John Wesley wrote a famous letter called, “Letter to a Roman Catholic,” in which he observed,
“Brotherly love is utterly destroyed and each side, looking on the other as monsters, gives way to anger, hatred, malice, to every unkind affection . . . Can nothing be done, even allowing us on both sides to retain our own opinions, for the softening our hearts towards one another, the giving a check to this flood of unkindness? . . . Be our opinions right or be they wrong, these tempers are undeniably wrong . . .
I think you deserve the tenderest regard I can show . . . How much more, if you are a person fearing God (as without question many of you are) . . .
Let us resolve, first, not to hurt one another, to do nothing unkind or unfriendly to each other . . . Let us resolve, secondly, God being our helper, to speak nothing harsh or unkind of each other . . . to say all the good we can, both of and to one another . . . Let us, thirdly, resolve to harbour no unkind thought, no unfriendly temper towards each other . . . Let us, fourthly, endeavor to help each other on in whatever we are agreed leads to the Kingdom. So far as we can, let us always rejoice to strengthen each other's hands in God.
On another occasion, Wesley said to someone with whom he disagreed, “If your heart is with my heart, take my hand.” I have a feeling John Wesley and Pope John Paul II are now in heaven rejoicing together, hand in hand, gathered around the throne of the Lamb, two of God’s brightest witnesses, casting their crowns before Him, “lost in wonder, love, and praise.”
