“And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces. …”

Isaiah 25:7-8

Today the world mourns the death of Pope John Paul II.

John Paul’s influence reached far beyond the Catholic Church. He was an irrepressible defender of human rights and life. A hero to the oppressed, John Paul stood face-to-face with despots, who were quickly humbled in his presence. He traveled widely and often, visiting more than 100 countries. He spoke eight languages and wrote extensively.

As Pope John Paul II’s health faded, millions sank unto bended knees, offering up prayers for the ailing pontiff. But the conspiracy of age and illness would not be thwarted.

The legacy of his leadership remains.

Jane Barnes, as part of a PBS Frontline profile, described it this way: “As the Vicar of Jesus Christ and successor of St. Peter, he has revolutionized the office of the modern pope. He has taken his mission out of the Vatican and around the globe, pushing back the boundaries of the old Christian Europe – proselytizing, reforming, opening new churches wherever he’s gone in Latin America, the United States, the East and Africa. He wooed and won the media with his personal gifts and variety. He has been the skiing pope, the poet pope, the best-selling CD pope, the designer robes pope, the intellectual pope.

“But he has never descended into trivial celebrity. He is the pope who brought down communism; the pope who worked ceaselessly toward Christian reconciliation with the Jews; the pope who raised his voice against the contemporary evil in our culture of death.’ He has never consulted pollsters, but marched to a stern, unyielding drummer. So John Paul II has also been the infuriating pope, the retrograde pope, the silencing pope, the pope who has ignored the revolutionary changes in the status of women. His uncompromising limitations – as well as his extraordinary accomplishments – all reflect the impress of a vanished world: the Poland where Karol Wojtyla came of age.”

Pope John Paul II was born Karol Josef Wojtyla in 1920 in Poland. He became pope in 1978 and shook the foundations of communism in his home country with a visit just a few months later. He was charismatic and spectacular, and put those strengths to work in strengthening the conservative traditions of the church.

That he has touched the lives of countless people, that he has stood as a moral pillar in a world beset with violence and despair is beyond doubt. He has stood with the world’s poor, repaired the relations of the church with other faiths and called politicians to task on issues ranging from war and abortion to the death penalty and Third World poverty.

His strength was personified in 1981 when he survived two bullets from an assassin’s gun, and then later forgave the man during a visit to his prison cell.

There is sadness in the passing of such an influential leader. But the sectarian and secular alike can take comfort in the fact that John Paul’s faith guided him in the last hours of his life.

“Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff they comfort me.”

Psalm 23:4