Dear Colleague:

Our Founder and Chairman, Father Paul Marx, O.S.B., had more than one encounter with our dear departed Pope John Paul II, as he recounts below.

Steven W. Mosher

President

John Paul II, The Apostle of Life

I remember well my first meeting with Pope John Paul II on 17 November 1979.  By then, I had been active in the pro-life arena for over a decade from my post at the Human Life Center at St. John's University, always taking the total life approach.  The Pope came up to me and stunned me by saying, "I know who you are, Father Marx."  "Is there a little bit of Karl in you?* he continued, referring to the 19th century founder of Communism, Karl Marx.

Only through Adam and Eve, I responded.

The Pope chuckled.  "Maybe you can make up for some of the evil things that he did."

The Pope had just returned from his first visit to the United States.  He had addressed the life issues at every stop.  In Washington, he had told the audience, When God gives life, He gives it forever.  Then in Chicago, speaking to the American Catholic hierarchy, he had roundly condemned contraception. 

"Thank you for condemning contraception," I told him.  "I have been in 48 countries around the world.  I have always found that contraception leads inevitably to abortion.  I can find no exception to this rule, and no one has ever been able to point one out to me."

The Pope agreed wholeheartedly.  "I am thoroughly convinced of the same relationship," he nodded.  "I have promoted Natural Family Planning in my marriage preparation courses in Polish parish centers."

I told him that I had held a dozen conferences on Natural Family Planning to promote this wonderful method for regulating human procreation.  There was a pause in the conversation-I think that he was praying-and then he said, "You have lots of experience.  You must bring this pro-life movement all over the world.  If you do that, you will be doing the most important work on earth.  Surely the Americans will help you."

That phrase-the most important work on earth-rang in my ears, and I vowed to redouble my efforts for life.

In the years that followed, Pope John Paul II wrote and spoke many times against the related evils of contraception, sterilization and abortion.  He consistently presented a positive vision of human sexuality.  If there is one thing a married couple should understand on their wedding day, he made clear in Familiaris Consortio, it is how to control their fertility responsibility, lovingly, and generously.

The Pope also spoke directly to those in charge of the machines of the culture of death.  In 1984, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) was gearing up to hold a major conference in Mexico City on Population and Development.  The Pope summoned the head of UNFPA, the fallen-away Filipino Catholic Rafael Salas, to meet with him.  Salas received a tongue-lashing, in the politest language, from the Pontiff, who reminded Salas that it is immoral to promote abortion, sterilization, and contraception, or to bribe nations into reducing their populations.  Not long before, Salas had boasted that UNFPA had already spent $80 million on population control on our brothers and sisters south of the border.

Totally in touch with God, and therefore His instrument, Pope John Paul II had a way of always saying the right things in the right way for the right people-never mincing words, never being misunderstood, never having to explain what he really meant.  Visiting India, the Pope cited Indian hero Mahatma Gandhi in condemning artificial, inhuman methods of birth control in that country.  The Indians cheered wildly.  Visiting the U.S. in 1987, the Pope reminded us: That is the dignity of America, the reason she exists, the condition of her survival, yes, the ultimate test of her greatness: to respect every human person, especially the weak and most defenseless ones, those as yet unborn.

We met again in 1991, and the Pope greeted me like an old friend.  It was then, after again pausing for a moment in prayer, that he called me the Apostle of Life.  These words as well have stayed with me over the years, inspiring me to make more journeys, to give more talks, to write more articles.

But, of course, it was really Pope John Paul II who deserved this title himself.  Along with so many others.

April 2005