When the Pope came to Ireland, in September 1979, I was just a little girl. His visit made about as much impression on me as his recent death. That is, it made virtually no impression, writes Róisín Ingle
When he was in the Phoenix Park, telling the young people of Ireland he loved them, I was playing in the house of some Protestant friends. His visit didn't distract us from making tents from bed sheets or eating instant noodles from a plastic bowl. The frenzy of yellow and white bunting, of prayers and piety, passed us by.
I remember the day well, and I remember that feeling of being out of step. I was excited because we had a day off school, but the reason for the day off meant nothing. I didn't wave a flag. I didn't say a prayer. I didn't even care about the dinky Popemobile. I have fallen out of step again in the past couple of weeks as, on radio, in newspapers and on television, commentators relayed the latest details about the funeral, our official mourning protocol or the interpretation of John Paul's legacy. This holy show has been impossible to escape.
I'm not a little girl any more. I understand that the vast majority of the billion Catholics around the world view this man as someone who took the papacy to new spiritual heights, and I understand that their love for him is real. It is not my intention to disrespect those feelings. But a few years ago, when millions around the world, myself included, felt genuine sadness at the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, I didn't begrudge those critics who felt the need to examine the validity of that outpouring of grief.
He was the first superstar Pope. The first globetrotting Pope. The first media Pope. He was probably the first Pope to grant an audience to an Irish rock star and an Irish football team. As a historical figure who battled against communism and fought for justice, he was truly great. But he was also a Pope who clung fast to the vital tenets of his church even as many of his followers were calling for rules about women priests, homosexuality and contraception to be relaxed.
Let's be clear. He preached that homosexuality was unacceptable. He rejected all appeals to introduce women priests. He excommunicated one of his flock for writing a document that made Jesus more accessible to other faiths. Catholics who used artificial birth control, he said, were denying the sovereignty of God. With their coils and their condoms, these people were essentially atheists. That's the way the late Pope saw it.
I think a healthy proportion of the billion Catholics around the world would happily admit to pretty much ignoring the moral stipulations that formed part of the late Pope's Christian mission. Even as their Holy Father cautioned against these things, his flock continued to use contraception, to discuss the possibility of women priests, to have sex outside marriage, to tolerate homosexuality.
I can't help wondering whether this unapologetically strict and dogmatic Pope would have wanted the tears of people who live their lives in complete contradiction to the faith they profess to hold.
But this is the part I really don't understand. The Pope travelled the world with a message that poverty should be eradicated while condemning the global imbalance of wealth. Then he would return to the Vatican, the centre of one of the world's richest organisations, to sit on a throne amid the church's vast and priceless art collection. The tradition of poverty and humility present at the founding of the church has long since been abandoned by those at the top of Catholic Church Inc.
John Paul II, if he was serious about poverty, could have done something about this. The late Pope worked hard to change attitudes of the well-off to the poorest among us, but what of the attitude of the senior figures in the church? He could have led by example: sold off the statues, the jewels, the art, the silver and the gold. Yet with one hand he condemned the material world, with the other he gave his blessing to the existence of the church's own incalculable wealth.
Jesus enjoyed none of the trappings of the modern church and had no time for opulence. He didn't need robes or pointy hats or even stained-glass windows. Wherever a few people were gathered in his name, that was enough. It's not enough any more. It hasn't been for centuries. Not in the Vatican. And not around the world, where the church owns vast swathes of land and precious treasures that to me are unjustifiable.
In the US, young Christians wear a bracelet with the initials "WWJD?". It stands for What Would Jesus Do? It's a reminder of the figure true Christians try their best to emulate in their everyday lives.
It's nothing personal against John Paul II, but watching his funeral, seeing the cardinals in their flowing robes and marvelling at the strange uniforms of the Swiss Guards, I felt as if I was watching a very elaborate circus.
Bishops live in palaces. Popes sit on thrones. What would Jesus do?