Pope John Paul II and Bethlehem Community

The good folks from Bethlehem Books have this to say about Pope John Paul II:

Pope John Paul II and Bethlehem Community

Our community began as a Protestant community in the ’70s and ’80s; we didn’t enter the Catholic Church until 1993. But even in our early days we liked the Pope very much. He was obviously a man of faith preaching Christ, the Redeemer of mankind. He seemed to us to have an amazingly open, generous attitude rooted in unshakeable Christian truth. He was to be respected too, because he had suffered for the faith in various ways, even to the point of death and this spoke to our evangelical hearts like nothing else could.

When we began to study the Catholic Church, we discovered what a profound thinker he was, and our respect grew. A Catholic friend gave us a set of books from John Paul II’s Wednesday audiences on the Theology of the Body. We may not have read them all at this time, but we began to get a glimmer of the depth of his spiritual and philosophical wisdom. Already, we had seized upon Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae with great joy; we ourselves had felt lonely, as Protestants, in our own views on the issue of contraception, and now we had been greatly encouraged to discover that the firm teaching of the Church upheld these views in the wisdom of a full tradition. John Paul II clearly thought and taught in this same line.

In the summer of 1993 our youth, led by Jack Sharpe and his brother-in-law, went to Denver to World Youth Day. Those on pilgrimage and even those who stayed at home had opportunity to bond with the pope through his presence, his voice, his words and his personal magnetism.

Perhaps the greatest contribution of Pope John Paul II was to be and remain fearlessly himself—a man of courage, rooted in hope; a man who could truly be a father to the Church.

- Lydia Reynolds for Bethlehem Community