FRANCISCAN UNIVERSITY PRESS RELEASE:

STEUBENVILLE, OHIO—"The entire Franciscan University community joins with the Catholic Church throughout the world in praying for the repose of the soul of our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II," says President Father Terence Henry, TOR. "I am so grateful for his extraordinarily blessed pontificate, for all he did for the Church and particularly for Catholic higher education. His encyclicals and constitutions, especially Ex Corde Ecclesiae, but even more importantly his witness of fidelity to the Church and his dynamic way of living the Gospel have been a true inspiration for all our faculty, students, and staff."

Some, he says, have already begun referring to the pope as "John Paul the Great."  "I think that's an appropriate acknowledgement of his tremendous contribution to our body of theological and philosophical knowledge, his holiness, his example of growing old and suffering gracefully, and his leadership in promoting the culture of life."

Franciscan University has shown its appreciation for the Holy Father in a variety of ways over the years. In 1987, Franciscan University named its new library for Pope John Paul II. In 1999, it honored him with its Shepherd's Award, in absentia, during its twenty-fifth annual national conference for Priests, Deacons, and Seminarians, recognizing his "outstanding service as a pastor and shepherd of the Catholic Church."

This Friday, April 8, Franciscan will unveil a life-sized portrait of John Paul II as a young man, painted for the University by artist Lisa Andrews of California. The painting will hang in the stairwell near the main entrance of the John Paul II Library. The unveiling ceremony will take place at 2:30 p.m. in the library lobby.

University Chancellor Father Michael Scanlan, TOR, credits the pope's proclamation of the "New Evangelization" as a great inspiration in the University's development and says he met the pope several times during his 26-year tenure as president of Franciscan University.

"The most important occasion for the University was when I presented him with an honorary doctoral degree as well as a spiritual bouquet from hundreds of our students, " he says. "The students had been invited to list the special prayers and fasts they would do for him and write them down on a paper given to me before I left for Rome.  The pope read each student's name and kept repeating, 'Ahh, the students, good.' Subsequently on very many occasions he mentioned Franciscan University to people, saying, 'Ahhh, a good university.'"

Numerous other Franciscan University faculty also attended private papal audiences and Masses, including Dr. Scott Hahn, professor of biblical theology at Franciscan University, who became Catholic nearly 20 years ago due, in part, to the writings of Pope John Paul II.

"As a Protestant, I was drawn to him by the beautiful and brilliant way he wove Scripture into everything he did. As a Catholic, I loved him even more for the way he not only taught the faith, but lived it," he says. "John Paul II was a spiritual father, and so we're all mourning as family. He embodied God's fatherhood to a household of more than a billion men and women of different ethnic, cultural, and economic backgrounds. Because he was a father, he witnessed to the unity of all God's family."

"The primary ministry of the Bishop of Rome is the ministry of unity.  Pope John Paul II took that very seriously and did as much as perhaps anyone in history to bring together not only Catholics and Orthodox, but also Catholics and Protestants," says Dr. Max Bonilla, vice president for Academic Affairs at Franciscan. "The unity he sought was not unity at any cost, but unity based on the truths of our faith. Whether this was popular or unpopular, his heart was always trying to fulfill that commandment of Christ's."

Theology Department Chair Dr. Alan Schreck says Pope John Paul II's papacy "must be understood in the context both of world events, such as the downfall of communism, and of the greatest event of the Catholic Church in the twentieth century, the Second Vatican Council. It was his great task to implement the Council's teaching." Schreck also noted the pope's impact on youth, saying, "Regardless of his age, he always will be remembered as a man of youthful spirit and vision, based on the hope that he had, and that we all should have as Christians, in the redeeming love and grace of Jesus Christ."

Franciscan University students, many of whom saw Pope John Paul II at World Youth Days or in Rome as part of their semester abroad in Austria, testify to his appeal to young people worldwide.

Junior theology major and Pre-theologate Program member, John Peirick of Perryville, Missouri, says, "I still have sorrow that this pope who is the model of my faith and the only pope I've ever known has died, but there's a sense of joy. The Church is gaining a new great saint, and he is no longer suffering but passing on to his next great adventure of living in the glory of God."

MA Theology student Emily Stimpson says, "When I was 25 years old, I read Love & Responsibility, John Paul II's book on marriage and relationships. That book and the other writings of his that I later read, changed the way I saw myself, changed the way I saw everything. Through his eyes, I saw for the first time just how precious and how miraculous each human life is. I also came to understand my own dignity, not just as a person, but as a woman. John Paul II opened my eyes to a world of beauty and truth that I never knew existed. He had the mind of a genius, the soul of a saint, and the heart of a poet. There is more loveliness in the world because he lived in it."

If he could speak to young people, to all people now, Barbara Morgan, assistant professor of theology and the director of the Catechetics Program at Franciscan University, says John Paul II would repeat the first words of his papacy, "Be not afraid."

"He would say. 'Don't be afraid of me not being here, and don't be afraid of what is happening in the world," she says. "In Toronto, at World Youth Day 2002, he chronicled for the young people 80 years of dark things: Nazism, communism, terrorism. Yet he went on to say that there is nothing that can crush the hope that the Holy Spirit gives. It doesn't matter what dark things happen. It doesn't matter what dark things are present to us now or in the future. The spirit of hope that comes from the Holy Spirit cannot be crushed. That was coming from a man who was arrested by the Nazis and came within a hair's-breadth of going to a concentration camp."

Echoing her sentiments, Father Henry says, "I hope our students will often reflect on how blessed they are to have spent their whole lives under his pontificate and that they will be as confident as John Paul II was himself that the Holy Spirit is with the Church and will continue to guide the Church in the future."

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