On 27 April last we had the canonisations of two Second Vatican Council popes, John XXIII and John Paul II. I would like to take the occasion to dwell on the figure of Saint John Paul II and, in particular, to show how he was closely connected to the Pontifical Council for the Laity from the time of its creation.

Much continues to be written and said about John Paul II. There is an impressive number of biographies published in different languages and written by Catholics and non-Catholics alike, believers and even non-believers. Each of them was attracted to this extraordinary figure. It is not for nothing that a journalist said that he was “a pope who never dies”! It is true that this pope continues to be alive and present in the Church. Now, with his canonisation, we have a model of Christian life to follow and a powerful intercessor to whom we can entrust every spiritual and material need. How is it that Pope John Paul II continues to fascinate people all over the world? What does he mean for the Church and for humanity?

In John Paul II we were able to contemplate the face of Christ the Good Shepherd. I think that this was the “secret” that made him so extraordinary. He was really a good shepherd who knew his sheep. He walked ahead of them with courage, undaunted by the risks. He was prepared to give his life for his sheep, even to shedding his blood.

During his life he had two great passions, two great loves that defined his personality and his work. They were his passion for God and his passion for humanity. His passion for God was foremost. John Paul II was truly a “homo Dei” – a man of God. He was a contemplative, a mystic with his roots in God, totally immersed in his relationship with God. You could see that if you observed him at prayer. He led the Church “on his knees”, in constant conversation with the Lord. His pontificate was profoundly marked by the mystery of the Cross. First there was the attempt on his life, then his illness and the signs of old age, all lived out under the gaze of the world and with full confidence in God and Our Lady.

It was his passion for God that gave him the courage to fight for God’s cause in the world and that made him an untiring pilgrim of the Gospel. He made 104 international apostolic journeys, visited 138 countries, travelled over a million kilometres and gave about three thousand speeches. There is no doubt that John Paul II’s passion for God found its culmination in proclaiming the divine mercy. It was he who instituted the feast of divine mercy in the Church. It was he who made the significant gesture of consecrating the world to the divine mercy at the Shrine of the Merciful Jesus of Łagiewniki in Krakow in 2002. John Paul II was the apostle of divine mercy. Pope Francis referred to that when he said: “This was an intuition of Blessed John Paul II. He ‘sensed’ that this was the time of mercy” (Address to the parish priests of Rome, 6 March 2014).

John Paul II’s other great passion was for humanity. He had an elevated and fascinating vision of the human person. He said that the human being “is the primary and fundamental way for the Church, the way traced out by Christ himself...” (Redemptor Hominis, no. 14). Inspired by this truth, he became an intrepid defender of the dignity and rights of human beings, including the fundamental right to life from conception to natural death. He also vigorously defended the institution of marriage and the family. He wrote in Familiaris Consortio: “Family, be what you are!”. It is not by chance that Pope Francis called him “the pope of the family” (Homily at the canonisation of Blesseds John XXIII and John Paul II, 27 April 2014).

There is yet another aspect of Saint John Paul II that deserves particular attention: his efforts on behalf of the laity. He was an author of the apostolic exhortation Christifideles Laici, the magna charta of the Catholic laity. It still remains very valid now over twenty-five years after its publication. His attentiveness to issues concerning the vocation and mission of the laity in the Church also grew while he was consultor to the Council of the Laity. He was appointed to that role when he was archbishop of Krakow and this dicastery was just being created. Cardinal Wotyla took an active part with his reflections and studies in defining the identity of the Consiliun de Laicis. In the plenary sessions, he maintained that the new dicastery of the Roman Curia that had emerged in the wake of Vatican II should encourage the participation of the laity in the various forms of apostolate. In our archives we have a document by Cardinal Wotyla dated 2 December 1968 with the significant title “Consilium de Laicis, quid dicis de teipso?”. We note here that our dicastery was originally called Consilium de Laicis and only afterwards became Pontificium Consilium pro Laicis.

In choosing this title, the then-archbishop of Krakow was referring to the well-known phrase that inspired the work of Vatican II: “Ecclesia quid dicis de teipsa?”. This unpublished document was written at the time when our dicastery was looking for its identity and was trying to find the meaning of its mission and the best way to operate in the Church. Already at that time they began to outline areas of particular interest for the dicastery: the family, youth, lay spirituality and dialogue within the Church. In this document, Cardinal Wojtyla starts with the scholastic adage “operari sequitur esse” (action follows being). He said that the main task of the dicastery is to safeguard the essence of the laity in the Church: “In undertaking any form of activity this council must look primarily to this characteristic ‘esse’ of the laity in the Church”. He explained that “it has a threefold dynamism, which is merely a consequence of participation in the threefold mission of Christ the Messiah. We find the explanation of this prophetic, priestly and royal mission primarily in the Constitution Lumen Gentium”.

The archbishop of Krakow emphasised forcefully that the activities of the Council of the Laity should regulate the genuine nature of lay activity in the world. It is from here that our dicastery derives a great responsibility concerning the nature of the laity in the structure of the Church. Their activity in the world is apostolate only to the extent that it arises from their original nature as baptised people.

Now, over forty years later, we ask the same question that Cardinal Wotyla addressed to the new dicastery: “Consilium de Laicis, quid dicis de teipso?”. Pontifical Council for the Laity, what do you say for yourself now in 2014? What are you doing? What point have you reached? John Paul II, now as in the past, continues to challenge us. Let us pray to the Lord, through the intercession of Saint John Paul II, the patron of our dicastery, that his question may always be with us and urge us to find ever new ways of helping the lay faithful to discover the beauty of their vocation and mission in the Church and in the world.