Remembering John Paul

National Catholic Reporter, May 6, 2005 by Leticia C. Velasquez

* I was 17 when Pope John Paul II was elected. I was newly in Catholic school after 10 years of suffering persecution for my Catholicism at the hands of "liberal" teachers in public schools.

I also suffered through the tumultuous "renovation" of the Mass in the Catholic church in the early 1970s. We went, in a matter of months, from Latin hymns sung by a choir with an organ to "Blowing in the Wind" sung by a girl with a guitar. There were Vietnam protesters lighting up cigarettes during the consecration at Mass. My CCD teachers told me there was no heaven and hell. Nuns in my Catholic school taught us how to use birth control, in direct contradiction to Humanae Vitae, which they spurned. I was strife-torn and confused, yet still loved Jesus and his church. I was looking for a Catholic hero, a bastion of moral and intellectual clarity whom I could admire.

During the Holy Father's first visit to the United States, in 1979, I saw him in Madison Square Garden. It was there that I found my hero. John Paul electrified us teenagers, as we stood on our seats to cheer him. He told us to "look to Christ for the answers" to all our questions.

In my 20s, I visited Poland during the Solidarity movement's heyday, amazed at how John Paul II had energized Poland's faith.

Whenever I failed at living up to the church's high moral standards as a young woman, I always felt Christ, through his emissary, gently calling me home. I never lost faith in him or his church, even during the "me" generation.

I next was able to see the pope in 1995. I marveled at how far the church and Eastern Europe had come back to freedom and order during his watch.

Now I miss my dear papa, and can't wait to see him in heaven.

LETICIA C. VELASQUEZ

Moriches, N.Y.