09:39 PM MST on Sunday, April 3, 2005

By Tom Beal / ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Tucson Catholics, especially those who met Pope John Paul II, remember him as a charismatic presence, an intellectual force, a champion of human rights and a man of political action who aided the fall of communism in Europe.

Mostly, they say he was a good priest whose frequent travels made Catholics around the world feel he was their pastor.

The pope's football

Attorney Tim Reckart was a graduate student at Stanford University when he flew to Rome to give the pope a football.

Carrying a football was an attention-getter designed to get him close enough to actually touch the pontiff.

"To this day, it will never leave me how much at peace I was. It has been a source of great comfort," said Reckart, who was studying for his law degree and MBA in 1981 when he flew to Rome with a Catholic youth group.

"I figured if I was going to blow all my student loan money, I had to find a way to hug the pope or touch him, at least."

He bummed a ticket to a papal audience from a friend who couldn't attend and sat right up front.

When Reckart met him on April 14, 1981, he knelt, took the pope's hand and kissed his ring. Then he handed him the football and stood up and hugged him.

"He was a big, very strong man. I played football, I'm not small myself and I couldn't get my arms around his shoulders. There was a real symbiosis, a real connection I had with this guy that he genuinely loved me and I, of course, loved him."

"It's not just a matter of faith. There is something about the guy - that he's close to something that transcends all of us."

Reckart has followed the pope's pronouncements and his writings since then.

"I'm just blown away by the genius of the guy. It's going to take us 50 years to understand what he's done to expand the application of Christian ideals to the world around us"

A good priest

Sister Jean Olmstead didn't get close enough to hug the pope, but she was part of an audience when he canonized Sister Katherine Drexel, founder of the order of nuns to which Olmstead belongs, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament.

Olmstead, vicar for religious for the Diocese of Tucson, also saw the pope when he visited Colorado and Phoenix. "When you talk about what these years have meant, one of the best things was his visibility, his traveling from country to country. He just gives a feeling that he's more part of the church," she said.

She wasn't always satisfied with his views on things such as the ordination of women and married men, and mandatory celibacy, but she found herself often in agreement with him. "I think he's tried to guide us to moral balance, which we need in this life. He has spoken strongly against war and for life - life not only for the unborn but for all life."

"This pope has been a good priest, and I think that's more important than anything."

The pope in America

The pope visited Arizona once, a 48-hour trip to Phoenix in 1987. Officials at Arizona State University covered cartoon images of their horned, pitchfork-carrying mascot when the pope celebrated Mass at Sun Devil Stadium.

The Phoenix ceremonies included a large contingent of Indian Catholics. Vivian Juan-Saunders, chairwoman of the Tohono O'odham Nation, met the pope then as a leader of an Indian Catholic group dedicated to Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, whom the pope had proposed for sainthood in 1980 - the first Native American so honored.

"What he did on that visit was significant because he apologized to the American Indian community for past injustices that the church engaged in over time, in terms of taking away our cultural identity," she said.

She was "so involved in coordinating the event that it didn't really touch me until I looked up and there was a group of people from the Tohono O'odham and they were crying."

She saw John Paul once more during World Youth Day in Colorado in 1993. This time, she said, it was the pope who cried. "Thousands and thousands of youth from all over the world who journeyed on a pilgrimage from downtown Denver walked to meet with him, and what struck me the most is he came out and just looked across the whole valley and he was in tears. He had a very special connection to young people."

Frances Nuñez of Tucson was in the crowd that day, accompanying a youth group she taught.

"We were close but not that close, and just seeing him, it just brought tears to your eyes. There is no comparing to God, to the Lord, but it's close to it."

Peter Strittmatter, regents professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona, also met the pope during his visit to Phoenix, part of a group of scientists and administrators involved in siting the Vatican Observatory on Mount Graham.

The pope was very interested in the science of the endeavor and asked several good questions, Strittmatter said. The meeting, scheduled for 20 minutes, lasted twice that long.

"When he came into the room and was told this was the astronomers, a smile of relief came over his face," said Strittmatter. "He had been facing a lot of hot issues.

"He gave a little speech about how important it was to study the heavens, theologians and scientists, each in our own way."

The pride of Poland

Pope John Paul II was especially revered by Poles and Polish Americans, both as a national point of pride and for his role in ending the communist rule of Poland.

Father Ed Pietrucha remembers the day the College of Cardinals chose Cardinal Karol Joseph Wojtyla as the first Polish pope. Friends from across the country called him at his post in Greeley, Colo., to congratulate him.

Pietrucha, now at St. Cyril's Catholic Church in Tucson, met John Paul when his Paulist order sent him to Rome in 1985 for a four-year stint as rector at Santa Susanna Church. "He was my bishop," said Pietrucha.

Pietrucha, whose parents were from Poland, grew up in a Polish community in Irvington, N.J. He celebrates Mass in Polish once a month at St. Cyril's.

In Rome, he had frequent opportunities to concelebrate Mass with John Paul and to chat with him in Polish.

"He's one of the greatest popes we've ever had, especially his great pastoral presence with people," Pietrucha said.

"His greatest contribution, of course, was the beginning of the end of communism."

John Paul made his first trip to Poland in 1979, the year after he was elected pope. A year later, the workers movement Solidarity was formed, led by Lech Walesa, who became the country's first post-Communist president. "He's a big hero for us," Pietrucha said of the pope.

Pietrucha said he has spent many moments in the past month thinking about what he would say in his sermon after the pope died. "I'll talk about the greatness of this man, what he's done for the world and the church, his warmth, his many talents, his linguistic prowess. He'd address people in 60 different languages.

"I'll talk about his impact on the world, certainly, the downfall of communism. Look what he's done for Poland. He's the greatest Pole since Copernicus."

Irena Chodacznik, a tutor in Polish at the UA's Critical Languages Department, called Wojtyla's election to the papacy a major event for all Poles, Catholic or not.

"It was almost beyond belief that a Polish pope would be chosen," she said.

On Tuesday, her class read a poem written in 1848 by Juliusz Slowacki, one of Poland's most famous poets, that seemed to foretell John Paul II.

"At a time when Poland was partitioned, not free, Slowacki was prophesying that God would put on the papal throne a Polish pope who would be unafraid to go forth and, in very archaic language that involved fighting with swords and all that, he would make changes in the world.

"And Pope John Paul did bring about changes in Poland. With his help, inspiration and support, Poland was able to overthrow the communist regime."

Chodacznik knows well the importance of that change to the Polish people. She was 3 years old and living in Poland when it was invaded by the Germans and the Russians. After years as refugees in several countries, her family made it to America.

John Paul "was such a fighter for human rights," she said. "He inspired us all."

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