The Buffalo Connection to a Man Who is Now a Saint

WGRZ
April 27, 2014

http://www.wgrz.com/story/news/local/2014/04/27/buffalo-connection-to-john-paul-the-second/8267961/

St. Casmir is a historic church in Buffalo's Kaisertown neighborhood. In 1976, Pastor Czeslaw Kyrsa was a young seminarian in Niagara Falls. "A group of bishops came to St. Casimir's," he recalls."My pastor then told me it's a bunch of bishops from Poland." He happened to speak Polish. "'We're going to Buffalo.' That's all he said." Leading the delegation was Cardinal Karol Wojtyla. "With all this anticipation and excitement, right down the steps that I walk down now, every single day, comes Karol Wojtyla, vested for Mass and everything, greeting everybody, saying a few words, and he said, 'Oh, yeah, I saw you at Niagara Falls yesterday, so he had a very good memory."

Two years later, that same Karol Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II, the first non-Italian pope in more than 450 years, and at age 58, the youngest pope in over 150 years. Some who were at the Vatican for his installation sensed the achievements to come even then. "He's made it, he's made it," said Monsignor John Gabalski of St. Stanislaw's Church in Buffalo. "He's the people's man."

"The people's man" became the most traveled pope in history. He visited more than 100 countries during his 27 years in office. He was the first pope to visit Cuba, the first modern pope to visit a synagogue. Buffalo Bishop Richard Malone found him to be deeply spiritual. "I had the privilege of being in his private chapel for morning Mass," he tells us. "I was a priest working in Boston then. Going in there, he was already there, sitting in a chair, with a kneeler in front of him, he wasn't vested, he wasn't dressed yet for Mass, he was just there for his morning prayer. And just looking at him, his eyes were closed tightly, and you could hear the slightest whisper of a prayer. You knew that this man was a mystic. You just knew looking at him that he was deeply in contact with God. We were coming in quietly and taking our places and waiting for Mass to start. He wasn't even aware that we were there. Then, eventually, one of his assistants would, about five minutes before the Mass, would come over and just tap him gently. He wasn't asleep, he was deep in meditation, tap him, and he'd get ready for mass. A remarkable experience."

He was a man of the Church, but also a man of the world. He inspired and supported the Solidarity movement in his homeland of Poland. "As a young seminarian, he stood up to Naziism, he stood up to the Communist system that he then had to grow up with in Poland," says Dr. Irwin Gelman, a researcher at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. He is also the cantor of Congregation Beth Abraham in Buffalo. "He stood up and he said he's now going to take on these massive governments and powers, and what was basically the Soviet empire, and arguably, single-handedly, was the most important person in the last century to take down that system. He did it because he felt he had the right moral compass behind him."

"John Paul made important strides forward in healing the historic and tragic wounds between the Jewish people and the Catholic Church," says Bishop Malone. He condemned anti-semitism as a sin. he apologized for the Church's treatment of Jews and others over the centuries. He visited and prayed at the Great Synagogue in Rome. And in 2000, he visited Israel. "I think we'll always have in our memory that image of John Paul praying at the Western Wall there at the Temple, inserting as is the custom, a little message, a little prayer into the stones of that ancient wall."

Around that same time, some 15 years ago, Hannah and Norm Weinberg of Amherst found themselves impressed by the pope's words and deeds. They'd been working on a project in their families' homeland of Poland to restore Jewish cemeteries that were desecrated by the Nazis. That project continues today. Hannah told us in 2001, "We could never have done it without the help of Polish Christian people living in Poland."

Norman added, "It could not have happened 10 years ago. The pope had a lot to do with it."

Joe Macielag of Tonawanda, a former president of the WNY Polish American Congress, says Pope John Paul II lived a full life. "He saw what went on living through the Second World War, witnessing executions, the shootings by the Nazis." Joe has been helping Norm and Hannah with their project of restoring Jewish cemeteries in Poland. "The first thing that went through my head was, 'Norm and Hannah, thank you for making Poland whole again.' The Jewish community in Poland was an important element in the success of Poland Prior to World War II--academics, business, scholarship--an integral part of the Polish community." "

John Paul was on a fast track to sainthood, 9 years after he died. "Right after he died, the people in Rome began to shout out 'Santo Subito', which meant 'make him a saint quickly,'" says Bishop Malone. "They just saw something, the world saw something very special in John Paul."

But some Catholic believe it was too fast, especially in light of the priest sex scandals in the Church. Critics claim he and his top advisors failed to grasp the severity of the abuse problem until late in his papacy. Judith Burns-Quinn of Hamburg heads the WNY chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. She says she's torn between her admiration of Pope John Paul and the failure of the Church under his watch "I think he was a wonderful man and was a good pope. (But) I think this is very premature and they're rushing."

There's less of a rush for one of John Paul's mentors. Pope John XXIII was also chosen to become a saint on April 27^th. Like John Paul, he was warm and outgoing. But he was seen as a reformer, a liberal, while John Paul was conservative, supporting Church doctrines and practices. Pope John XXIII convened the historic Second Vatican Council in 1962. "He said he wanted to throw open the windows of the Church to bring in fresh air," says Malone. "People typically call him Good Pope John. There's something very appealing and warm about Pope John." John Paul worked with Vatican II, and helped write the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. "It was encouraging Catholics to not have a hostile attitude toward the world and be closed off to it, but to be engaged in the world, to help transform the world," Malone tells us.

The world of young Czeslaw Krysa was transformed back in 1978 when he accompanied the future Pope John Paul II to Niagara Falls. As Pastor of St. Casimir Church today he remembers the conversation. "When we walked away from the falls, the two of us, he grabbed me by my elbow, he was asking me questions, I felt there was nothing else on his mind than the crazy answers that this seminarian is going to give. His whole heart was just open. And to have somebody listen like he listened, I don't think there was ever another person I came in contact that had that."

Here in our corner of the world, we'll go on telling those stories and share the memories of the man many knew before he became pope, who is now St. John Paul II.