The Head of the Church, 1987

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“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” So said Jesus of Nazareth unto Peter, the first Pope.

Two millennia after the resurrection of Jesus, in blissful majesty the Supreme Pontiff entered Saint Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco, USA. The building was immense, and magnificent; a small corner of heaven that had only just been consecrated. It was a stunning, fascinating edifice, standing out even amidst the metropolis of San Francisco. Along each side of the nave, some fifty benches were neatly aligned. A brand-new altar stood at the head of the congregation. The dome, topped with a cross, was so high that it cut into the blue sky over San Francisco. The parishioners had been awaiting the Pope’s visit with fervent anticipation. They had counted the days before they would have the chance to graze his white cassock, imbued with the power of the Holy Spirit. The humbled crowd rose to honour the Pope’s presence. They bowed their heads and genuflected. The congregation closed their eyes and made the sign of the cross. Old believers prayed the rosary, letting pearls of olive wood slip through their fingers to the rhythm of the Supreme Pontiff’s footsteps. He entered silently, and blessed the congregation to his right and left. The Americans venerated the head of their church. They nodded their heads in a sign of respect. The Pope was moved by the young crowd, who had come from all over the city to hear and ponder his words. He felt no apprehension in addressing them. “Have no fear,” intoned John Paul II. “Have faith. Believe in the Lord your God.” Tears ran down their cheeks, and babies cried. The Pope walked to the rear of the altar, which had been ornately decorated for the occasion, where he was welcomed by the rector of Saint Mary’s. The rector could hardly believe his eyes: the head of the Church stood there before him, in flesh and blood. And he, John Paul II, knew all too well what it meant to be there in the flesh. Memories flowed through his mind as he addressed the Catholics of San Francisco. 

Poland had been invaded. Poland, a mother worthy of her sainted son, Karol Wojtyła. The Nazi occupation had closed the university where young Karol was studying. The population had been enslaved, subjected to the will of the Third Reich.  Under the Nazi occupation, the Polish were given new laws. All able-bodied men were required to work. To avoid being deported to a concentration camp, young Karol Wojtyła worked as an errand runner in a restaurant, a labourer in a limestone quarry, and a factory worker for Solvay chemicals. Life had not been easy. He breathed in the acrid fumes spouted by the trucks that left the quarry. He carried rocks as sirens blared in the city. His hands were blackened and bruised. He worked himself to the bone, in fear of his life. He concealed himself from the enemy, and studied in secret, and worked in silence. One fine day, as he was making his way to the quarry, he was hit by a tram. His skull was fractured, and one of his shoulders now sat higher than the other. On another day he was run over by a quarry truck, leaving him hunched for the rest of his life. His father was an officer in the Polish army, and died from a heart attack during the Nazi occupation.

Jean Paul II addressed the vast crowd gathered in the cathedral: “I was not there when my mother died. I was not there when my brother died, nor when my father died. By the age of twenty, I had already lost everyone I loved.” The parishioners were awed by this revelation. They wept, and the young folk searched for signs of hope in the expression of God’s representative on earth. John Paul II went on, speaking through the microphone: more memories flashed through his mind.

Karol Wojtyła had found young Edith Zierer, then aged fourteen, after she collapsed from exhaustion on a railway station platform. Her face was pale, and her expression defeated. She had escaped from a Nazi work camp in Czestochowa. She gasped for air, exhausted. Her breath came in starts and gulps, like the chugging trains that came and went along the tracks. Young Karol Wojtyła carried her, with the strength he had built up carrying rocks in the quarry, and took her on the train back to Krakow. There he avoided the Nazi officers who monitored everyone getting on and off the trains. He would have to slip past the soldiers, who would not hesitate to pull anyone aside and shoot them on sight. The man who would become John Paul II was not afraid to lose his life for treason. Later, Edith Zierer stated that Karol Wojtyła had saved her life on that day. John Paul II asked the congregation to make the sign of the cross. His words were precious, and his voice soft as a bleating lamb’s. He raised his arm, and blessed the crowd.

Years later, in his final book, Memory and Identity, John Paul II would refer to the 12 years of the Nazi regime as “bestiality.”

Alan Alfredo Geday