IN PRAISE OF THE DEUCE The Pope and I may not have seen eye to eye, but I loved him BY RICK WORMWOOD

Around 1 a.m. last Thursday, as the Vatican — an institution sufficiently reticent about the health of its leader to give rise to the historical axiom that the pope is never sick until he is dead — was admitting that John Paul II was in grave condition and the cable news networks were gearing up their coverage of the death vigil, The Godfather Part III happened to be starting on HBO. After flipping back and forth for a while, I finally settled on the bloated, unsatisfactory final chapter of Coppola’s gangster epic, the one movie of the trilogy I had previously always been able to turn off in favor of sleep when I chanced upon it in the bleary-eyed early hours. Why was it so enticing at that moment? Because Godfather III concerns, as part of its convoluted plot, the death of Pope John Paul the First, whose brief pontificate presaged the 26-year papacy that was ending on another channel.

Talk about synergy. It was a tough night for successors of Saint Peter, both the real and the fictionally embellished kind, all over the tube.

What can you say about a man as great and as contradictory as Pope John Paul II, especially when his shuffling off of this mortal coil has generated more newsprint than any event since the (supposed) moon landing, or at the very least, the cancellation of M*A*S*H? There are so many correspondents in Rome right now that you could easily be forgiven for thinking that journalists disproportionately comprised the crowds in St. Peter’s Square. Given the surfeit of valedictories that have come from seemingly every political and religious leader on the planet ever since John Paul II died last Saturday night, what could I possibly add?

Well, we were not in lock step, John Paul the Deuce and I. My record as a Catholic is spotty, at best. For first through sixth grade I attended St. Thomas School, in Sanford, where I learned good penmanship and — after being tossed down a stairway by my folk-guitar-playing nun teacher Sister Mildred, who had just busted me cheating on a spelling test — a healthy suspicion of authority of which the Pope, a strict traditionalist, would not have approved. The day before my scheduled Confirmation in 1986, I was thrown out of the program for calling Father Ray Auger, a haughty and vain man who was the dominant priest in Sanford for nearly two decades, a "dink." When I hurled that accurate (ask around Sanford), but totally unnecessary epithet at Father Auger I was really feeling that good old teen angst in full force and, to paraphrase Bard of Indiana John C. Mellencamp, doing my best James Dean.

While I might have called it speaking truth to power, John Paul II would have labeled it youthful arrogance and told me to get in line. On the Halloween of my senior year, I bought a fake beard at Spencer Gifts, made a toga out of bed sheets, borrowed my Dad’s sandals, and built a massive cross from timbers swiped from a construction site, which I toted around school all day as the ultimate accessory to my Jesus costume. Respectful irreverence and a refreshing change of pace I called it, especially when considering how many people dress up like Satan on Halloween, but the Pope would have probably called it blasphemy.

It goes on: I am divorced. John Paul the Deuce’s 14th and final papal encyclical was about how divorced Catholics who remarry shouldn’t receive Communion. Where that leaves me, I don’t know. Not only am I pro-choice, but I honestly believe that it’s such a women’s issue that men ought to shut up about it, since, if it was men who bore children, yet everything else remained the same in our patriarchal world, women wouldn’t get a vote on abortion, or even a voice in the discussion. The Deuce’s pro-life positions were widely known. He would have considered my opinion on the matter stupid pap.

Still there is more: Not long after the priesthood sex-abuse scandal broke in Boston, mortifying the whole nation, Father Jim Nadeau, at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, here in Portland, took a break from the Mass one Sunday, stepped down into the aisle, and, referring to the terrible news out of Massachusetts, said, "You can’t let one bad apple ruin the whole bunch." Wondering just when a grotesque mischaracterization becomes an ugly lie, I left mass that day full of disgust, and, except for funerals, I have not been back. (Since then I have been totally away from the Sacraments, including my personal favorite, Confession, and that’s no good, ladies and gentlemen, because Rick Wormwood is a sinner.) Had I laid all of that out for the Deuce, his response would have probably been underwhelming because the entire manner with which the Vatican dealt with that demoralizing (in the truest sense of the word) issue was lacking, to put it mildly.

To my mind, after such an extended catastrophe Rome would have to at least consider ordaining women, or at least enlarging the already existing loopholes in the celibacy requirements so that priests could marry, but time and time again the Deuce emphatically said no. These things were not even up for discussion.

While none of this would have made me the Deuce’s favorite member of the flock, they are attributes and attitudes not uncommon among American Catholics, which is a big part of the reason why John Paul II was uneasy, and often frustrated with, the American Church.

My differences with the man’s positions and teachings are neither few nor small. Why then, did I love him so? Why do I feel such a rending, palpable, and yes, a personal loss at his passing? Both large and small, and in no particular order, here are some of the reasons:

• He contributed more to the defeat of Communism in Europe than any other individual. Yes, Truman came up with the Containment Theory, Carter boycotted the Moscow Olympics, the Soviets went bankrupt trying to compete with Regan’s defense budget, and Bush 41 was president when the Berlin Wall fell, but the real beginning of the end for the Iron Curtain came when the Polish Pope returned to his homeland to be forever taken into the nation’s heart. Since godless communism, in which religion is the opiate of the masses, was always a tough sell, when the Polish Politburo saw the rapture of the people as the Deuce toured the country for the first time as Pope, they had to know right then and there that they, and their political philosophy, were screwed. Right now, Poland is covered in candles, and the few Poles I know are too heartbroken for words. The world hasn’t seen a country convulse in grief as one like this since Princess Diana died.

• Pope John Paul II was a socialist. Hear that, all you right-wing politicians trying to make him out to be a Republican? Yes, he was with you on the right to life, that can’t be denied, but he was also a socialist. Go ask Lech Walesa if you don’t believe me. The Deuce was a union man. Solidarity!

• The Deuce was a good and true priest. Karol Jozef Wojtyla, the Deuce’s given name, felt the calling of his vocation so strongly that he clandestinely studied for the priesthood in Nazi-occupied Poland. Think about that. Had Nazi thugs stood between my goals and me during my shiftless and extended college career — or at any other time, for that matter — I tend to think that I would have found new goals.

• He’s tough. On May 13, 1981, the Deuce took three bullets and survived. Shot in the gut, and also his right arm and left hand, he lost part of his intestine in surgery, but came back strong. Not only did he survive the assassination attempt, but . . .

• He forgave the guy who shot him! Who can ever forget the 1983 photograph of the Pope visiting, in his cell, Mehmet Ali Agca, the 23-year-old Turkish gunman? Barring me living long enough for Alzheimer’s to set in, I never will. Forgiving people is one of the hardest things Christianity asks of its followers and there was the Pope, walking the walk. The image still stuns me. Even though I was only 13 when that picture was taken, the first time I saw it I thought, wow, John Paul II is a holy man.

• He was consistent. While the Pope and I disagreed on the abortion question, I totally respect the fact that he was always consistent on the issue, and not just on abortion, but on related areas, like birth control (a position modified ever so slightly in comments he made after visiting the slums of Mother Theresa’s Calcutta), the death penalty, and euthanasia. It was at times difficult, puzzling, and admirable all at once to watch him struggle with Parkinson’s disease and failing health over these past many years, but the Deuce believed that suffering was a necessary part of life which brought the sufferer closer to God.

This was another part of his message largely lost on an America where a majority of citizens favored the removal of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube. If the Pope would have been in better health at the time that the President was saying that Mrs. Schiavo should continue receiving nourishment because he believed it necessary to err on the side of life when there were any questions, I bet he would have loved to have called the Oval Office and asked the Texecutioner why he hadn’t felt that way as Governor whenever the Pope had called to lobby on behalf of whatever poor, under-represented, and usually minority prisoner was scheduled to fry in the death chair next.

• The Deuce reached out to people. Everybody knows that he was history’s most traveled Pope, going to 129 countries during his papacy. Fewer people realize how actively he sought bridges of understanding and tolerance between world religions. Relations between Jewish and Muslim leaders and the Vatican were sometimes rough (huge simplification), but John Paul II was the first Pope to visit a mosque, a Jewish temple, and, in March of 2000, the Holy Lands. He was the first Pope to establish diplomatic ties with Israel.

• He issued an apology to Galileo. Sure, it was several centuries after Galileo’s death, but it was cool of the Deuce to say. Obviously, he didn’t have to do it. Talk about a modern papacy.

I could make an equally long list of things that troubled me about the man, but I could probably say that about any great man. FDR interned the Japanese; MLK had extramarital affairs; Gandhi platonically shared his bed with several young women every night; and Lincoln freed the slaves, but he did it for political reasons as much as for principles. Gladly, these facts are not the most important things to remember about what those men did for the society they lived in, and while John Paul II’s shortcomings were real, I think they were greatly outweighed by his contributions.

Here’s a final thought. While in Cleveland recently, a city full of Slavic people, I happened to learn that Stanislaus and Hyacinth are the patron saints of Poland, but just as sure as tears are falling into pirogues all over Warsaw, Krakow, and every bit of Polish soil in between, salting the national dish with a people’s shared, national pain, Stanislaus and Hyacinth will soon have to make room for a new saint of the not-too-distant future who will share their patronage.

Make way, boys, for Saint John Paul the Great. Believe it.