The death of John Paul II brings to an end one of the greatest papacies in the history of the Catholic Church. Surely this pope ranks with Winston Churchill as being one of the most talented adventurers of the 20th century.

Here was a man who by the age of 20 had lost his mother, brother, and father, a man who came of age under the Nazis and who lived another 30 years as a priest and a bishop under a Communist regime. Here was a man who helped bring about the downfall of tyranny in Eastern Europe, a man who sought to reunite Roman Catholics with other Christians, who bridged tremendous religious gaps with Judaism. Here was a man who visited dozens of countries, bringing a message of hope and courage to millions of people. Even the pope’s detractors — and there were many — concede the man’s charisma and abilities.

One of the papal legacies frequently overlooked by many commentators during the days surrounding John Paul II’s death was his place in the Church as a writer and a philosopher. This was a pope who, in spite of all his travels and an intense prayer life, nevertheless left us an enormous intellectual treasure chest: a play, poetry, popular and philosophical works, encyclicals, letters to the faithful, and thousands of homilies. His book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, sold 20 million copies in 30 languages. His meditation on the priesthood, Gift and Mystery, was also a best-seller. In addition, John Paul II promulgated the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the first revised catechism issued to the whole church since the Council of Trent in the 16th century.

With the exception of the Catechism, the most important written works of John Paul II, those with the most impact on the life of the Church, are his encyclicals and philosophical writings (an encyclical is an open letter addressed to the bishops of the Church and so to all the faithful). In these writings he addressed issues like evangelization, the unity of all Christians, the place of Mary in the Church and in the world, the meaning of the Eucharist, and a dozen other topics.

Perhaps Veritatis Splendor, an encyclical issued in the 1990s, best shows John Paul II both as a philosopher and as a guardian of the truths of the Church. The Splendor of Truth defends the idea that truth exists objectively, that is, that it stands outside the relativistic approach of our own age to truth, our belief that each of us creates our own truth. This encyclical particularly calls to task the advocates of proportionalism, that school of thought that states the impossibility of labeling any human act in and of itself as intrinsically evil. John Paul wrote instead in support of “the universality and immutability of the moral commandments, particularly those which prohibit always and without exception intrinsically evil acts ....” Tough slogging for the average reader, Veritatis Splendor nonetheless offers great rewards in terms of understanding the concepts of truth, relativity, proportionalism, and moral absolutes.

This pope will also be remembered for his writings and homilies on human sexuality and love, ideas which were eventually collected under the general title of The Theology of the Body. The pope’s first major book, published long ago in Poland, was Love and Responsibility, an examination of marriage, sexuality, and vocation, themes to which he returned again and again in his pontificate. The ideas he expressed regarding the theology of the body — the importance of human dignity and human fulfillment, the meaning of marriage, of the single life, and of celibacy, the painstaking examination of human sexuality in connection with God and his creation — will take years for the Church to absorb and put into practice, but already in the United States and around the world men and women have begun to bring these ideas into play at the parish level.

Having read only a fraction of the papal writings — they are said to consume nine feet of a bookshelf — and having only a student’s grasp of various Catholic dogmas, I am nonetheless astounded by some of the statements issued in the last few weeks regarding both the deceased pope and his successor. Either the news commentators are ignorant of the Catholic faith, or else they hope by their misleading commentaries to sway the Church in a certain direction. John Paul II was not a “conservative pope;” he was a Vatican II pope who often baffled or offended many conservatives within the Catholic Church. Nor will John Paul’s successor be a liberal pope who suddenly begins to allow contraception, abortion, or female priests. The first two issues in particular are not up for grabs like some part of a political pork barrel. No, they are a part of Catholic dogma, those truths of the Catholic faith which a pope guards.

Another philosopher of the 20th century, Richard Weaver, a writer and teacher who had family connections with Western North Carolina, once wrote that “Ideas have consequences.” For his ideas alone, John Paul II will be long remembered — and perhaps someday officially titled — John Paul the Great.

(Jeff Minick lives in Waynesville. He can be reached at saintsbookco@aol.com)