The next big event in Rome is the beatification of Pope John Paul II. Like most Roman events nowadays, it has been preceded by excitement and controversy. The excitement has been most notable among Polish Catholics.
After Mary MacKillop's canonisation, Australians have a better idea of what it all means.
John Paul's reputation for holiness has been judged well-founded, and he may now have a place in public liturgy in some local churches. He is a man of his own time and place, a local tile in the mosaic of the people notable for their faith who compose the universal church.
Karol Wojtyla was a larger than life size figure closely identified with his time and place. He came from a nation whose particular form of faith distinguished it from its often hostile neighbours. The Polish church was disciplined and had a sense of embattlement. He himself was a man of deep faith and prayer, and a natural leader in his church.
From his early years as a seminarian he confronted ruling powers inspired by totalitarian ideologies hostile to Christian faith. They particularly attacked the Polish Catholic links through the Pope to the broader church. They tried constantly to exploit divisions among Catholics.
He learned the importance of a unified Catholic voice and strict discipline, particularly among bishops and clergy. He also saw clearly the moral wasteland the Communist regime had created, the strength of popular disaffection with it, and so the weakness that beset its apparently unshakable power.
When he was elected Pope he brought his Polish experience and history, together with his personal instinct for the dramatic gesture, to the universal church, His gift and moral force, shown in his indomitable recovery from the attempt on his life, eroded the legitimacy of the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe. His personal role in the fall of the Berlin wall and in the gaining of freedom from oppression and fear by the peoples and churches in Eastern Europe was significant.
No wonder his beatification has been so enthusiastically received in Poland and in much of Eastern Europe. He was a man of their times and place, as much a Polish Catholic as Mary MacKillop was an Australian. As they did with Mary MacKillop, Catholics in other parts of the world can join the Polish people and others in celebrating and thanking God for the gift of a faithful and brave person.
The controversy about the beatification of Pope