REMEMBERING POPE JOHN PAUL II

Monday evening, the Papal schedule sees Pope Benedict XVI presiding at a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica in memory of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, five years from his death. Linda Bordoni asked Papal biographer and newspaper colomnist Marco Poliiti, to share some of his memories of the much loved Pontiff...


Excerpts from the programme:

"He transformed the papacy into a spokesman for human rights, he brought the Roman Pontiff to advocate religious dialogue, cultural dialogue, and to be very clear on the issues regarding the human face of globalisation and the issue of war and peace. When the Bush administration decided to wage war on Iraq, Pope John Paul II didn't just make some speeches, in general against the war, but he really mobilised the Vatican on a diplomatic level. In order to avoid the war, he sent a secret message to president Bush, then he sent special envoys to Bush and to Saddam Hussein, then he organised meetings of all the Papal Nuncios, and when he realised it was not possible to stop the war, he made it very clear that the Vatican was against the war, absolutely..."

Another of Pope John Paul II's capabilities was also "...to find contact with people and also with masses of non believers..."

"I was touched by the great participation of the people in Rome, in Italy, all over the world, in the last days of John Paul II. How they followed him when he was ill... and this was another special characteristic of John Paul II: he had been known all over the world as the strong athlete of God, the sportsman of God, and later, when he became ill and the Parkinson's set in, he didn't hide himself within the Vatican as it had been the custom to do in the past, but he transformed his ill body into a message, and the message was: I'm suffering like Christ was suffering so I take part in the passion of Christ, and I don't resign because also Christ can't come down from the cross; and in the same time, showing my suffering I remember that all over the world there are suffering people and these suffering people have a great dignity. So I share with them this dignity and I communicate that suffering is something with great dignity and which is important to think over...".