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ANDERSON-JPII Feb-10-2010 (530 words) xxxi
Pope John Paul brought dignity to all who suffer, supreme knight says
By Sarah Delaney
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope John Paul II's humility and willingness to let the whole world watch his declining health gave dignity and meaning to suffering, said Carl Anderson, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus.
"John Paul suffered boldly before millions," Anderson said at a Vatican conference on health care Feb. 9. "He was willing to have the humility to do this before the world.
"Through this, John Paul showed exactly what human dignity is all about," he said.
Anderson, leader of the worldwide Catholic fraternal organization, was one of the keynote speakers at the meeting sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers. The Feb. 9-11 gathering, titled "The Church in the Service of Love for the Suffering," marked the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul establishing the council.
Anderson said Pope John Paul had preached the Gospel and evangelized "with every gift God had given him," including his acting and singing talents, his athletic abilities and his writing. "And as life went on, we saw him communicate the Gospel using what he also called 'a gift,' that is we saw him use his own suffering," Anderson said.
The late pope, who died April 2, 2005, was able to show that Christ is united with those who are suffering, because he himself suffered on the cross, Anderson said.
With his prolonged and very visible illness, Pope John Paul "showed that it's not about the sickness, nor even about the man at all. It's about the other man. It's about Christ," Anderson said.
Without his long pontificate and suffering, Anderson said, "we would not have seen his many faces of humility, holiness, dedication."
He added, "Just as a resurrected Christ would have been less marvelous without his suffering, so John Paul's holiness achieved greater depth because it preached not only the Gospel of love, but the Gospel of suffering wholeheartedly."
After the meeting, Anderson told Catholic News Service that the pope's example could help ordinary people in the midst of pain and suffering from illness.
"It's very easy to say certain things, but very difficult to say them when you're actually suffering and experiencing them. It's not so much that (the pope) said things that are different from what one might read in a spiritual manual, but the fact that he was actually living the experience when he was saying it. It makes a great difference," Anderson said.
Asked about revelations in a recently published book that the late pope had practiced self-flagellation, Anderson said he had not known this aspect of the pope and that others who knew him well also had been surprised.
"Still, even popes deserve a certain amount of privacy," Anderson said. The practice of self-mortification was reported in a book published in January by Msgr. Slawomir Oder, the postulator of the sainthood cause for Pope John Paul.
Anderson said that self-mortification is something "that might be easy to misunderstand, especially by people who don't know the tradition of mysticism or self-discipline."
He said that such a practice is "not outside the tradition" and that it should be considered within the context of the importance Pope John Paul placed on self-discipline.
END
Copyright (c) 2010 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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