The Pope

In our class this weekend, we were just supposed to write. Somehow the fact that we had little or no warning and that we had to turn off our monitors and just type was liberating. Now that I have this format in which to write, I am finding it a little difficult to decide what to write about. Besides, now I am paying a little more attention to spelling and typos so that I don't sound like a complete buffoon.

The two topics that I chose to write about in my class this past weekend were my the day of my son's birth and the death of the Pope. I think that I will probably return to the topic of my children pretty often because they absolutely fascinate and amaze me. Now I know you are worried because you think I'm going to start sounding like Kathy Lee Gifford. I promise it won't be that bad. Plus I had enough sense not to name any of my kids "Cody." However, because of the events of this past weekend, I think I want to take a little bit of time to write about the Pope.

One of the things I wondered about over this past week, even before his death, was how non-Catholic's view this man. I've come across some people who, not knowing I am Catholic, would say what I perceived as ignorant or disparaging things about the Roman Catholic Church, without knowing a whole lot about it. One of the people I was most surprised to hear these types of comments from was the minister who co-presided over our wedding ceremony ("you know those Catholics, they have all those ridiculous rules, always telling you what the right way of doing it..."). I wonder if these types of things are also transferred on to the Pope.

I was lucky enough to see the Pope in person on a couple occasions. First was my senior year in high school when a busload of us high schoolers traveled from Cleveland, Ohio to Denver, Colorado to the World Youth Conference. It was more commonly referred to as "the Pope trip" by us ever-witty teenagers. Anyway, the conclusion of the week in Denver was a mass in a state park, with the Pope presiding. One of the characteristics I was most surprised to discover was his sense of humor. You grow up going to church and Catholic school and you are surrounded by all those holy, iconic images and you don't expect to see and hear a human, jovial man. It was amazing how he seemed to get just as much from all of us as we from him. The Pope obviously is, or rather was, a symbol of the Church, but he was, rather surprisingly, so much more than that. This is the true nature of my question. Do, or can, most people see beyond the symbol of the head of the Catholic church and see the Pope for the amazing things that he accomplished in the 26 years of his world leadership? I hope so, because the world has truly lost one of it most intelligent and giving souls.