One could sense it all over the world yesterday as the whole world – with its many wars, famines and tragedies – ground to a halt and focused on a room in Rome where an old man lay dying.

The passing away of Pope John Paul II is a world event, not really because of the complex and ritual proceedings it sets in motion, nor because such an event has not taken place for 27 years, nor because the Pope has become a world player with a mega popularity but because this Pope has, even more than his illustrious predecessors, made the Bishop of Rome a figure in history and influential on the events of history.

The election of Karol Wojtyla as the new Pope in October 1978 was itself historic: this was the first Pope in 400 years who was not an Italian. Looking back now with the hindsight of these intervening years, one sees this as perfectly natural and today one can even look ahead to the next Pope being a non-European – a black Pope perhaps!

Coming from a Communist country, as Poland then was, experienced in fighting Communism from within, Pope John Paul II was a crucial figure in the years of resistance which led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the eradication of Communism. No wonder he was the target of a KGB-ordered, Bulgarian-organised, Turkish gunman assassination attempt in 1981! Those were the months when Russian repression and martial law kept Poland a prisoner in its own house. It was the Pope who courageously supported Solidarnosc and the freedom fighters. On the local scene, one must point out here that on the same day that he flew to Malta to meet President Bush in the Malta summit in 1989, President Gorbachev had visited the Vatican and spoken to the Pope.

In the long run – perhaps even more important from a global perspective than contributing to the downfall of Communism – Pope John Paul II, over the many years of his pontificate, through his many travels around the world and the Masses celebrated in the presence of oceanic assemblies of people, became a symbol of peace and love. One remembers his courageous meeting with the gunman who shot at him and his open and total pardon for him. But one also remembers how this increasingly frail Pope attracted the love and affection of the huge crowds of young people who greeted him wherever he went and especially at the Youth Days he celebrated on all continents. One also remembers him sweating profusely in the end-of-May sunshine at the Ta’ Qali stadium as the young people of Malta swayed to his attraction.

It has always been a matter of ironic comment that while the Pope was becoming ever more a mega figure on the world stage, and attracting the attention of Christians and non-Christians, within the Church he was somewhat controversial. While battling for human rights all over the world, the Pope was an authoritarian figure within his own Church, dictating that women could not become priests, for instance, going against the feelings, beliefs and practices of millions of Catholics as regards sexual ethics on contraception and the like. Reinforced by his appointment of countless bishops and cardinals in his own image, the Pope has tried to guarantee that the Church after him keeps to his own principles and ideas. That very much looks like being the main issue of the coming Conclave.

But on yet a deeper level, the Pope, silenced now by his illness, has had the last word. He has shown to a humanity that has taken to love him the face of the suffering, the elderly, the impotent. Is it just a coincidence, one wonders, that the last days of the dying Pope were somewhat overshadowed by another death, that of Terri Schiavo, or do the two exemplify the reality of suffering humanity that a world immersed in consumer goods many times forgets?

Over the past century the Church has been lucky to have had so many good Popes, from St Pius X to anti-Nazi Pius XI, from austere Pius XII to good Pope John, from intellectual Paul VI to the too-short-lived John Paul I. But John Paul II overshadowed them all. The grief over his passing being expressed by so many peoples all over the world is a real grief, a grief that is pure homage.