President Carter came down from the Camp David mountaintop in July
trying to rally us against a “national malaise” – and the nation yawned. Now
comes Pope John Paul II to America – and to Philadelphia today – sounding
a spiritual and moral challenge to the values of our materialistic world and
escapist culture, and quickly enlivens the hearts and minds of Catholics and
non-Catholics alike. Why? It is an important distinction, and the public’s
perception of that distinction is encouraging.
The pope’s presence obviously has special meaning for Catholics. But
beyond that role he is an important spiritual leader in the world. He is a
symbol of a spiritual life who calls on that higher plane in each of us to elevate
our awareness and thinking to a more spiritual perspective.
We tend to be preoccupied with the things of this world that grasp so
blatantly for our attention: the demands of the job and the home, inflation, the
“malaise” in Washington, the siren song of materialism. What the pope can
do, which President Carter cannot, is to raise our consciousness to a level that
gives broader perspective to our values and our worldly concerns.
What he says we have heard before – from parents, teachers, politicians,
moralists. But because of his spiritual presence, he gives an important new
focus to what is really important in our lives – especially for those with the
faith, however tentative, that how we choose to live our lives has eternal as well
as temporal consequences.
The spiritual message he is spreading has a universal appeal and pertinence
to people who can elevate their minds from the world of the body to the
realm of the soul. He set the tone with his first stop in Ireland, attacking “the
moral sickness that stalks your society” – from pervasive materialism to the
decadence of affluence and sexual license. And what we are hearing throughout
his American stops – and will doubtless hear echoed in Philadelphia this
afternoon – are variations on the theme, with relevance both to those who
hear and those who don’t.
The appeal is to our higher conscience, made all the more ringing with
exquisite eloquence. And the appeal is particularly to our youth – our future
– but really to all of us who care about where we are going, individually and
collectively.
So much of the lives of our young people and the larger “nation of sheep”
is dominated by what is “in” – and organized religion has been “out” for years.
And with the backsliding of morality so pronounced, the challenge is ever
more acute to bring the flock back to spiritual principles.
“How many young people,” the pope asked in Ireland, “have already
warped their consciences and have substituted the real joy of life with drugs,
sex, alcohol, vandalism and the empty pursuit of mere material possessions?”
He held up to them a higher vision than the empty illusion of self557