Pope John Paul II a great prophet – Filipino bishops

source: mb.com.ph

MANILA, Philippines — The upcoming beatification of Pope John Paul II at the Vatican on May 1 has stirred Filipino bishops’ fond memories of the pontiff.

Lipa, Batangas, Archbishop Ramon Arguelles and retired Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz described the late pontiff as “a great prophet” and a “saint long since.”

“Even if you do not canonize him for me, he is a saint. The fact that no Pope could equal his influence in the world,” said Cruz.

“In media, two or three days in the news usually you are out. Mother Theresa was only in the news for four days but with him, he was in the news for two weeks,” he added.

Cruz said that even the Mass and vigil for the Pope was also non-stop which only proves how well-loved the Pope is and how many lives he was able to touch.

Caceres Archbishop Leonardo Z. Legazpi said he has talked with the Pope several times and even had breakfast and lunch with him.

“He was very paternalistic in my regard and very charismatic,” the 75-year-old prelate told CBCP News.

Prelature of Isabela de Basilan Bishop Martin Jumoad said he first met the late pontiff in September, 2002, when new bishops from all over the world had an audience at the Vatican.

“During the picture-taking, I touched his shoulder and he just looked at me and smiled,” he said.

That experience, Jumoad said, was “heaven” for him.

Virac Bishop Manolo delos Santos said the most remarkable asset of Pope John Paul II was his charisma which went beyond Catholics. He also praised the deceased pontiff for his genuine concern for the young.

Cagayan de Oro Archbishop Antonio J. Ledesma said Pope John Paul II was a pioneer in inter-religious dialogue when he began the worldwide prayer for peace during the feast of St. Francis of Assisi in 1986.

The Polish-born Pope is set to be beatified on May 1, 2011 in fitting and elaborate ceremonies at the Vatican.

‘Be not afraid’ changed world

Meanwhile, Lech Walesa, Poland's Solidarity legend, said Pope John Paul II's guidance was decisive in giving Poles the courage to take on the communist regime and sped the demise of the Soviet bloc.

“He woke us up,” the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize laureate told AFP as he prepared to travel to the Vatican for the late Polish pope's May 1 beatification.

“He said ‘be not afraid, change the face of the Earth’. Our nation woke up, other nations were woken up,” he added, referring to a landmark sermon delivered behind the Iron Curtain by the freshly elected pontiff during his first trip home in June 1979.

In his office in the Polish Baltic Sea port city of Gdansk where in 1980 the Soviet bloc saw the rise of its first free trade union at the local shipyard, Walesa recalls that before Karol Wojtyla's 1978 election as the first-ever Polish pope, few dared challenge Poland's Soviet-backed regime.

“We were maybe 50 people in the shipyard out of 17,000 workers there – not even 50! And after the Holy Father was elected almost everyone joined us when we got organized in Solidarity,” Walesa recalled of the union which rattled the Soviet bloc to its very core.

Within months of its legalization, Solidarnosc attracted 10 million out of Poland's total population of 36 million, but this proved too great a success for the regime.

In December 1981, Poland's communist leader General Wojciech Jaruzelski imposed a brutal martial law crackdown on Solidarity, jailing dissidents and driving the movement underground.

Now 67, Walesa went on to become Poland's first democratically elected president in 1990 after he led negotiations with the communist party that brought a bloodless end to communism in 1989, making his country the first to shed totalitarianism in the Soviet bloc.

He has no qualms about pointing out his own role in history.

In Cuba, which the Polish pontiff visited in 1998, nothing happened “because there was no group that could organize the opposition and lead the Cuban nation,” Walesa observes.

“It could have been the same thing here in Poland if ... there would have been no one who was able to transform this into a successful movement,” he insists.

“The Holy Father gave us 'the word', and we transformed it into flesh,” he told AFP.

This notion of a pope who helped topple the first domino in the process which led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, is also shared by General Jaruzelski, Poland's last communist leader.

“As a Pole, I would be very tempted to admit that everything began with Solidarity, even if I was on the other side of the barricade,” the 87-year-old general, now battling lymphatic cancer, told AFP in August 2005.

source: mb.com.ph