Father Figure

How the late pontiff changed a conservative columnist's life.

JOHN PAUL THE GREAT

Remembering a Spiritual Father

By Peggy Noonan

Viking. 238 pp. $24.95

Over the last decade of Pope John Paul II's life, his chief defenders to the American public were a party of neoconservative Catholics. These men, and a few women, dubbed him "the Great," a title bestowed on transforming popes down through history. Certainly John Paul was held in high esteem by a wide range of Catholics and others for his influence in lifting the Iron Curtain, his determination to call attention to the poor and marginalized through his global travels and his dramatic gestures acknowledging the church's past failings. He was an expansive man, welcoming to saints, such as Mother Teresa, and to sinners, such as Kurt Waldheim and Yasser Arafat, as well as to those with whom he disagreed, including George W. Bush and Ariel Sharon.

The hesitation of some Catholics to call John Paul "the Great" grew out of increasing doubts about church governance and accountability as his reign wore on, as well as disagreement with the views of those who promoted that title. What the pope made of these fervent supporters we won't know until his closest associates begin to write their memoirs or publish his diaries.

In the meantime, there is this paean by Wall Street Journal columnist and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan. Drawing on frequently told John Paul stories while linking his pontificate to its impact on herself, she writes, "John Paul walked into my life and served, unknowingly, as my spiritual father. He had led me like a light in the dark, like Jim Caviezel's small lit match in a big dark factory." The comparison of the late pope to the actor who plays Jesus in Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ" perfectly captures Noonan's idea of spirituality -- an emotional response to random events that inspire mystical musings. Noonan recounts a phone interview with Caviezel and reports a few audiences and a Mass at St. Patrick's with the pope. Both men, apparently linked in her mind by their larger-than-life personalities, kindled the same emotional yearning for a more exalted spiritual life.

As for mystical musings: There is the morning -- the very ordinary sunny morning -- when her glass coffee mug shatters in her hand and produces rounded pebbles rather than shards. Noonan takes this as a sign from God, who says: "There is explosive power in what appear to be mere pebbles. There is explosive power in the Rosary, for instance. And I want you to know this." Having received a rosary from the hands of the pope, she begins saying it. All of this -- the mug, the coffee that didn't scald her, the pebbles, the rosary, the pope, God -- " feels like a little miracle ." Or maybe it was just shatter-proof safety glass.

The chapters recounting her spiritual development and back-sliding are high on rhetoric and low on detail. Veiled allusions to challenging and painful events vanish into the wisps of spiritual counsel, drawn from her own articles and columns, which have been cut and pasted into this volume. Sometimes that advice sounds Catholic, sometimes evangelical Protestant; sometimes it is common sense, and sometimes it has a Noonanish spin. On the subway, she is saying her rosary when an altercation breaks out: "I continued to say my prayers but directed them in my mind toward the woman; and in time she calmed down, after the intervention of a diplomatic passenger, so fisticuffs were averted." No doubt many pray on New York City subways. What does this have to do with John Paul the Great?

Interspersed within the interior castle of Noonan's spirituality are stories from the life and times of John Paul, some of his wit and wisdom and a prcis of some of his writing. Fans of Noonan may enjoy her renditions of this heroic life. Others may want to turn to the originals -- biographies and papal writings that convey the life and thinking of a remarkable man.

Margaret O'Brien Steinfels was the editor of Commonweal from 1988 to 2002 and is now co-director of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture in New York.