Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
The Pilgrims and John Paul II
The Pilgrims and John Paul II
Jul 1, 2024 4:48 AM

On The Catholic World Report, Acton’s Michael Matheson Miller offers a personal reflection on the recent canonization of Pope John Paul II.

There were pilgrims from all parts of the world: Spaniards, Australians, a remarkable number of French (including a couple whose five young children wore matching jackets), a large group from Equatorial Guinea were also matching memorative traditional garb marked with images of Pope John Paul. I saw Slovaks, Americans, Nigerians, Lebanese, Italians, and legions of Poles young and old, waving red and white flags and holding banners. More than one million Poles came to Rome to see their native son raised to the altars. A risk-taking American couple had brought along three of their children, including a five-month-old in a baby carriage. At moments it was unnerving to stand in such a crush of people, yet despite the multitude, nearly everyone kept their calm and minded their manners. It was no European football match.

The love that John Paul II evokes has long perplexed journalists. George Weigel tells the story of a reporter who was stunned to see ninety thousand people in Denver’s Mile High Stadium chanting “JP II We Love You!” She attempted to explain away the faithful as “Vatican plants.” There is an attractiveness about sanctity that doesn’t fit into our normal categories. Perhaps this is why it is easier for the media not to deal with it.

I think we love John Paul II for a very simple reason—because, as St. John says of Christ, “he loved us first.”

Read more of “The Love of Saint John Paul II” by Miller on The Catholic World Report.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Video: Rev. Robert A. Sirico At The Acton Institute 25th Anniversary Dinner
On October 21st, the Acton Institute celebrated its 25th Anniversary with a dinner at DeVos Place Convention Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The keynote address for the evening was delivered by Acton President and Co-Founder Rev. Robert A. Sirico, who reflected on how the world has changed in the quarter century since he and Kris Mauren founded the Institute, and on what challenges those of mitted to a free and virtuous society face as Acton embarks upon its next twenty-five...
As You Sow’s Multi-Faith Scientism
This year is shaping up as an annus horribilus for those opposed to public and private policy climate-change “solutions” that would reverse decades of advancements in wealth creation and the obliteration of poverty. This year’s capper is the ing Sustainable Innovation Forum in Paris, France, which will be held December 7-8 under the auspices of the at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21). As with any jet-airliner pilgrimage of this sort, we can anticipate all sorts of mischievous responses to...
Remember the AIDS/Cancer Drug Whose Price Increased 5,000 percent Overnight? The Free Market Came Up With a Solution.
Last month Turing Pharmaceuticals felt the backlash after a medication they sold for $1 a pill in 2010 increased overnight to $750 a tablet. Politicians like Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bernie Sanders were quick to claim that this is why we needed more government intervention in the healthcare system. But at the time I pointed out that the reason Turing was able to raise the price so spectacularly was not because of a failure of the free market but because...
How Faithful Churches Create Economic Flourishing
What is the pastor’s role in affirming the various callings within hiscongregation? How might churches empower the people of Godin pursuing vocational clarity and economic transformation? How can webetter encourage, equip, and empower othersin engaging theircultures munities? In a talkfor theOikonomia Network, theologian and author Charlie Self explores these questions and more, relaying many of the themes ofFlourishing Churches and Communities, his Pentecostal primer on faith, work, and economics. “Faithful churches create munities,” says Self, “bringing the joy, peace, and...
The frontier spirit of ‘The Martian’
A new film set on Mars taps into the quintessential American story, says Dylan Pahman in this week’s Acton Commentary. After the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to travel to outer space in 1961, Nikita Khrushchev remarked, “Gagarin flew into space, but didn’t see any god there.” The Soviets would not pass up an opportunity to deride religion, even though, reportedly, Gagarin himself was a Russian Orthodox Christian. Americans, by contrast, are the sort of people who...
How Religion is Redistributing the World’s Wealth
Dramatic religious shifts over the next few decades will change the distribution of wealth around the globe, according to a new study by the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation. During this period, notes the study, the number of people affiliated with a religion is expected to grow by 2.3 billion, from 5.8 billion in 2010 to 8.1 billion in 2050. The growth in religious populations will also bined with religious diversity, which will change the makeup of the world economies:...
6 Quotes: Russell Moore on Religious Conservatism
“There is a kind of religious conservatism that can simply be another form of nostalgia,” says Russell Moore, “There is a kind of religious conservatism that can easily present itself as time travelers from the past. Those who are seeking to bring forward the values of the 1950s. We are not time travelers from the past. We are pilgrims from the future.” Moore, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, recently delivered a...
Are You Pro-Union or Pro-Minimum Wage?
During CNN’s Democratic debate, presidential candidate, senator from Vermont, and self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders promised that if elected he would work to “raise the [federal] minimum wage to $15 an hour.” From an economic point of view, this policy would run the risk of sparking a wage/price spiral, where wages are tied to a cost-of-living index and their increase, in turn, raises the cost of living, sending inflation out of control and ultimately working against the intended goal of helping...
The Nightmare of Living in the Past
Stories can convey, so much better than raw data can, the human effects of the increased living standards that market-driven innovation has provided us, says Steven Horwitz. He notes how theBBC and PBS series 1900 Houseshows what a nightmare it was to live at the turn of the twentieth century. Mothers in particular had it especially rough: She has to get up early to make sure the range is warm enough to make breakfast, and by the time she is...
Why Being Poor is Too Expensive
In the critically acclaimed, though rarely seen, movie Killer of Sheep (1978) there’s a scene that highlights why being poor can be so expensive. The film is about a black family living in the Watts section of Los Angeles in the 1970s. In an attempt to escape the drudgery of their everyday life, the family decides to join some friends one Saturday in taking a day trip out to the country. Before they can even get out of Watts, though,...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2024 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved