By Ryan Menard
Most students at Northeastern aren’t old enough to have known any pope before John Paul II, and his death still hasn’t left the news or peoples’ minds.
Pope John Paul II’s death Saturday brought droves of mourning Catholics to Vatican City to share tears, gratitude and consolation with one another. While a massive reaction has yet to be seen in Boston, the pontiff’s death was a sad final chapter in the life of a figure many Catholics on campus looked to as an international leader and spokesman for the faith.
“He’s been a great moral leader, not only with Catholics, but with the whole world,” said sophomore biology major Megan Lewis.
A devout Catholic and service co-chair of Northeastern’s Catholic group, the Newman Club, Lewis and other Catholics represent a young generation that she says the pontiff appealed to with strong moral convictions and steps to spread Catholicism.
“He was [84] when he died, but he had such a big effect on young people,” Lewis said. “He had a really big following with our generation.”
But while Catholics mourn the loss of the highest member of the clergy, non-Catholic Christians also praise the pontiff as a strong and recognizable figure in the faith.
“One of the things we’ve been talking about is that we’ve lost a great leader,” said senior political science major Meredith Lennox.
As president of the Agape Christian Fellowship, a non-Catholic religious group, Lennox said the group appreciates the pope for his contribution to religions outside of Catholicism.
“It was cool to really see someone stand up for morals that were controversial in the church,” she said, citing his strict Catholic stance on such issues as abortion and stem cell research. “It was nice to see someone in the church stand up for things he believes in.”
However, while many have praised the Roman Catholic Church, political science professor William Miles said there is a degree of skepticism mixed with the remembrance among many people, particularly from Boston-area Catholics.
“There’s a lot of ambivalence to him from the Boston community – he speaks internationally, and has visited Boston in one of his four U.S. visits,” Miles said. “On the other hand, we do have to be honest and accept the friction between some Boston Catholics and the Vatican because of the abuse scandal. Many people think the Vatican hasn’t come down on the priests as hard as he should have.”
Last year in particular, he said, many young people fostered a “large amount of resentment at the Catholic Church” and a “lack of trust.” He said this was a result of the huge influx of sexual abuse cases reported last year accusing priests of assaulting children, primarily young boys in the church.
Still, the pontiff leaves a legacy and has brought a degree of progression to the religion and its outreach, particularly with the reconciliation between Catholic and Jewish communities.
Even in a city with a rich Irish-Catholic heritage, a school as diverse as Northeastern naturally has a student population not rooted in one particular faith, and many students are simply unaffected by the pope’s passing.
“It’s sad that someone as a leader passed away, but I can’t really relate to his leadership, so I’m not really affected by it,” said graduate student Kirk Pitta.
One thing is for certain: As the future brings the funeral Mass for the late pontiff on Friday and continued mourning, Catholics around the world will anxiously await the successor to John Paul II.
“I think that whoever the new pope will be in a few weeks will have huge shoes to fill,” Lewis said.
