Remembering John Paul II in New York
Pope John Paul II waved as he arrived at Newark International Airport on Oct. 4, 1995. (Photo: Monica Almeida/The New York Times) 
Slide Show: The Last Papal Visit to New York
In a gray drizzle, John Paul II came down the jetliner steps with care, limping but still iron-willed at 75, and stood on a red carpet on the tarmac at Newark International Airport. He did not bend to kiss the ground, a gesture he reserved for his first visits to a country — and this was his fourth to America.
The burdens of 17 years as pope were obvious. The mountaineer’s shoulders were bent, and the big Slavic face was lined with the years. A hand trembled with Parkinson’s disease. But the man who had cried out for humanity at Auschwitz and Hiroshima, who had begged for peace in Ireland and roared for justice in Poland, still had miles to go.
He beamed and made the Sign of the Cross with the fluid gestures of a parish priest. He shook hands with President Clinton and waded into a throng of senators, governors, cardinals, bishops and 800 other dignitaries sheltering under clumps of black umbrellas.
It was Oct. 4, 1995, the start of his final four-day visit to the New York area, and a heavy schedule of Masses, conferences and appearances lay ahead. But he seemed in no hurry. Along a fence on his way to the car, he stopped to greet Sister Miriam Anne Evanoff and her schoolchildren from Jersey City. He reached across to touch them.
“Praised be Jesus Christ,” the nun said, her eyes glistening with tears as she offered the traditional Polish greeting.
“Forever, Amen,” the pope responded in his native tongue.
Myron Maslowyca, 13, tried his family’s Ukrainian: “Glory be to Jesus Christ.”
“Glory, forever,” the pope said softly, in Ukrainian.
It was one of those touching, spontaneous moments of human contact that, even after all these years, people remember when they think of John Paul.
The pope was welcomed by President Clinton in Newark. (Photo: Paul Hosefros/The New York Times)
Security agents and advance planners try to arrange papal trips down to the last detail, fixing routes, timing events, limiting potentially dangerous contacts with the public, trying to prevent the kind of violence in which John Paul was shot in St. Peter’s Square in 1981.
But the truth is that elaborate plans are often flawed, and that the pope’s spontaneous moments — the small asides and intuitive reactions to strangers — often leave the most lasting impressions, those glimpses into the personality behind the public face and the studied pronouncements.
On John Paul’s last visit to the city 13 years ago, what most people saw was just a tiny gold-and-white figure on a distant altar during the Masses he celebrated for biblical multitudes on the Great Lawn in Central Park, at Aqueduct Race Track in Queens and at Giants Stadium in the New Jersey Meadowlands.
But a more revealing episode, for thousands who witnessed it, was the pope’s moment of impulse outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral on his last day in town, when he emerged after reciting the Rosary and, instead of stepping into his Popemobile and riding away, he decided to take a stroll around the block.
“He’s walking! He’s walking!” someone cried.
And the crowd of more than 6,000, which had hoped for no more than a fleeting glimpse from behind the barricades, suddenly roared and surged after him. A few people actually touched the pontiff before scrambling police officers and Secret Service agents caught up and formed a protective ring around him. John Paul was unruffled and it was all harmless.
But it was not unusual for John Paul. People everywhere found his presence intensely physical. In his visits to 129 nations on 104 trips abroad, he often made protocol chiefs wince and horrified security officers. Not content to wave from a passing limousine, he would jump out and plunge into the crowds, hugging strangers, kissing babies, singing, smiling, winking, reaching out to touch and bless people.
On his first papal trip to his Polish homeland — a journey that defied the Communist government — his presence dominated life for nine days, drawing workers away from jobs to outdoor Masses attended by throngs that stretched across hillsides. He sang hymns and folk songs with his people, clasped old friends in headlocks and talked to coal miners, housewives, college students and teenagers in blue jeans.
John Paul leaving St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue after offering Mass on Oct. 7, 1995. Enlarge this image. (Photo: Keith Meyers/The New York Times)
Throughout his 26-year papal reign, John Paul was theologically conservative — many would say intransigent — but almost from the start it was clear that he was not to be a traditional pope, ascetic and remote behind the high walls and elaborate ceremonies of the Vatican.
Here was a different kind of pope: deftly politic, schooled in confrontation, a physically expressive man of wit, daring and energy who had seen war and sweeping political changes in the world, a showman of the television-and-jet age who would captivate much of humanity by sheer force of personality.
He had been a poet and playwright, an author of books and articles, a philosopher, a debater, an actor, a factory worker, a professor of social ethics and a linguist skilled in a dozen languages. He had been an athlete and outdoorsman most of his life — a soccer player, backpacker, camper and boater who loved to ski, swim and climb mountains. And he looked it: a rugged, ruddy-faced man with a bullish neck, pastry-maker hands and the legs of a long-distance runner. He moved gracefully until age began to interfere.
Ultimately, John Paul, who died in April 2005, helped end the cold war, contributed to the defeat of European Communism, made ecumenical gestures to Jews, Orthodox Christians and other faiths and reshaped his church with a vision of combative, disciplined Catholicism.
His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, despite almost three years on the Throne of St. Peter, is largely unknown to New Yorkers and even to many American Catholics. He turns 81 on Wednesday, has been abroad six times as pope and has made no deep impression on people around the world. Experts who know him as the German-born former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, John Paul’s arch-conservative Vatican defender of the faith, say he is scholarly and tough beneath a mild exterior.
This week, as Benedict visits America for five days, including three in the New York area, crowds are expected to line his routes, attend his Masses, follow his movements on television and hear him address the United Nations. He is to meet President Bush at the White House, visit ground zero and St. Patrick’s Cathedral and celebrate Mass at Yankee Stadium. He is also to meet with Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and members of other faiths, as well as Catholic leaders, seminarians and parishioners.
Impressions of Benedict may come primarily from what he has to say — much of which he has said before — opposition to the war in Iraq, regrets over the priest sexual-abuse scandals, praise for American religious toleration and rejection of secularism and changes in church teaching on birth control, priestly celibacy, the ordination of women, homosexuality and other issues that trouble American Catholics.
Security will be the tightest ever, the authorities say, with backpacks banned, spectators searched and audiences vetted at every venue. And Benedict will travel in an enclosed Popemobile, limiting chance encounters with people. His visit thus may be a sequel, but in the cautious age of terrorism, impressions of the pope — especially the emotional connections many felt toward John Paul — may be limited.
About 130,000 people gathered on the Great Lawn in Central Park for a papal Mass. (Photo by Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times)
No comments:
Post a Comment