And Introducing...

...my brother Mark, who will occcasionally grace this blog with his presence. Mark writes:

TIME's April 11, 2005 commemorative issue dedicated to John Paul II features a 1996 full-spread super-wide-angle photo by Gianni Giansanti taken from behind the Pope as he addresses a crowd gathered at night in the shadow of the Colosseum. Or, to be more accurate, a crowd gathered under huge floodlights that bathe both the crowd and the massive ruin in brilliance, throwing into shadowy relief the intricate textures of multitude and architectural wonder. At the bottom of the photo, the tiny figure of the Pope stands on a stage, overlooking the crowd spread out below him. Toward the top of the photo, framed by the ruins, the full moon—an image of Mother Mary beaming down on her beloved son. And in the center, filling almost the entire frame, stands the Colosseum, that ancient theater of riotous, murderous debauchery, now empty, barren, mute.

And then there is the caption.

“The Gladiator: Never cowed by controversy, the Pope at the Colosseum in Rome in 1996, defended traditional views on abortion, sexuality and contraception.”

The insensitivity is total. Not insensitivity to the feelings of the Catholic readership—for who among the faithful would be sad to hear their Pope described as an undaunted crusader for the truth?—but insensitivity to the meaning, to the dramatic irony, of the image: The lions are dead. The empire is dead. The Church lives. Moreover, the Church, embodied in this tiny figure dwarfed by that giant pagan edifice, is triumphant—and not merely because it has perdured while its oppressor has not. For almost directly above the Pope’s head can be seen inscribed on the face of the Colosseum the Cross, imprinted at the head of a great stone tablet which pays tribute to the Christian martyrs.

And so here is the uber-irony: The Pope was not a gladiator—he did not “conquer” by besting his enemies in combat, intellectual or otherwise. He triumphed as the Holy Martyrs triumphed—by becoming a victim, a victim for love. He conquered the hearts of men and women everywhere by offering himself to them, by giving to the last drop, by going to the ends of his strength and beyond, in order to be with his flock all over the world, that they might be encouraged—that they might hear the Gospel—that they might hear the truth that sets hearts free.