wfn.org | [ACNS] Archbishop - Pope's last days a 'lived sermon'

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

ACNS 3965     |     LAMBETH	|     4 APRIL 2005

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Archbishop - Pope's last days a 'lived sermon'

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd Rowan Williams, has paid a
warm tribute to the life and ministry of Pope John Paul II, describing
his last days as a 'lived sermon' for Eastertide about facing death with
honesty and courage.

In a statement delivered in the precincts of Canterbury Cathedral,
visited by Pope John Paul in 1982, Archbishop Williams said that the
Pope's life had been a demonstration of faith lived out. He praised the
way in which the Pope had approached his own death with courage and
acceptance.

"I think in these past few days, we've seen an extraordinary 'lived
sermon' for Eastertide, about facing death with honesty and courage;
facing death in the hope of a relationship which is not broken by death
but continues beyond it. Pope John Paul showed his character in the way
in which he met his death; clearly frustrated, clearly suffering and yet
at every point accepting; facing his frailties and remaining courageous
and hopeful. I feel there's a certain appropriateness about the fact
that he died within the Easter season - a time of the Church's year
which meant so much to him. It has been a season in which he was able to
give a message to the whole of the Christian world, and in fact to the
whole human world, that won't be readily forgotten."

He added that the Pope's early experiences under Nazism and Communism
greatly strengthened the Papacy when he came into office:

"Because he was a man who had lived through the toughest and most
testing times of the modern age, Pope John Paul II brought with him a
very particular authority to his office. He 'd shown that both as an
opponent both of Nazism and Soviet Communism he was fully aware of the
fact that the Church has to be something different; that it has to offer
different values and different hopes to the society around it."

Dr Williams paid tribute to the Pope's willingness to acknowledge the
failures of the church:

"He faced the reality of the Christian church's complicity with
anti-Semitism. This showed itself in the way in which he admitted the
Church's failures in the 1930s, visited the Roman Synagogue and in
Jerusalem made his peace at the Western Wall. In doing this he showed
something fundamental, something distinctive about being a Christian
which is of huge authority."

Note to editors

Dr Williams will be attending a service of Solemn Vespers in Westminster
Cathedral Monday afternoon at 4.30pm

To send tributes to Pope John Paul II to this office, email:
acns@anglicancommunion.org

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