The Prophetic Witness of St. John Paul II, by Carl E. Olson

Editor’s note: This essay originally appeared on CWR on April 1, 2015, and is reposted here, in slightly different form, to mark the 20th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s death on April 2, 2005.

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“We, who are called to hold the Supreme Office in the Church, must manifest this fidelity with all our might and for this reason we must be a shining example both in our thinking and in our actions. This indeed must be done because we preserve intact the deposit of faith, because we make entirely our own the commands of Christ…” — Pope John Paul II, First Radio Message “Urbi et Orbi”, October 17, 1978.

 The first time I really thought about Pope John Paul II was when I watched him being ripped to shreds.

Not literally, thankfully, although there was actual ripping involved. I was an Evangelical at the time, a year removed from Bible college and living in Portland, Oregon. One evening, in October 1992, my housemates and I tuned into “Saturday Night Live”, which was notable since I rarely watched television and I had little interest in watching Irish singer Sinead O’Connor perform. …

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