Today an unprecedented number of world leaders and dignitaries have gathered in Rome with myriad people from all corners of the world to celebrate the funeral Mass of Karol Wojtyla, the 264th successor of St. Peter as Bishop of Rome and Supreme Pastor of the Catholic Church.

The outpouring of eulogies celebrating the life of Pope John Paul has bridged the world’s religious and political divisions. It is a singular testimony to the impact of the extraordinary global ministry he has carried out these past 26 years. He will be remembered as one who untiringly upheld the rights and dignity of the human person, insisting without compromise upon the real worth and dignity of every person, especially the vulnerable, the disabled, the old and the frail.

As a young man in Poland, Wojtyla lived under the cruel, dehumanizing ideologies of Nazism and post-war communism. While working in a stone quarry, he secretly studied for the priesthood and was ordained in 1946. In 1979, eight months after being elected the first Slavic pope in Church history, he returned to his homeland and galvanized the movement that led to the collapse of communism. At an open-air Mass, ten of thousands of his fellow Poles chanted: “We want God! We want God!”

The assaults on human dignity in the West were no less an object of the pope’s moral message. He decried a “culture of death” that legitimizes abortion, assisted suicide, euthanasia and experimentation on human embryos.

During his last U.S. visit, the pope spoke out against the death penalty. Recent polls show that American Catholic support of the death penalty has significantly declined. Pope John Paul also strongly opposed the Iraq and Persian Gulf wars: “Never again war! No, never again war, which destroys lives of innocent people, teaches how to kill, throws into upheaval even the lives of those who do the killing and leaves behind a trail of resentment and hatred, thus making it all the more difficult to find a just solution of the very problems which provoked the war.”

Pope John Paul issued several major documents that set out a Christian vision of the socioeconomic order in opposition both to state socialism and unfettered libertarian capitalism. Recognizing both the value and the limits of the free market, he wrote that the promotion of human dignity requires workers’ organizations and appropriate international responses to the plight of those who are marginalized, especially in third world nations saddled with massive debt.

Perhaps not as well known has been the pope’s prophetic outcry against the irrational destruction of the natural environment and the call to conversion from a destructive consumerist lifestyle.

Pope John Paul was a tireless advocate of dialogue and peace. He gave a poignant witness when he met with his assassin and forgave him. Three times he brought together at Assisi leaders of the world religions for a World Day of Prayer for Peace. John Paul was the first pope to visit a mosque and the first pope since ancient times to visit a synagogue, calling Jews “our elder brothers.”

In 2000, he placed a prayer for reconciliation in the ancient Temple Wall in Jerusalem. He made many ecumenical gestures toward the other Christian faiths, especially Orthodox Christians.

This year is the 40th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s promulgation of “The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.” Bishop Wojtyla played an important role in the crafting of this document that committed the Church to dialogue with the world and to serve the needs of humanity, especially the poor. I think this document, which Pope John Paul often cited, is key to the understanding of his papal ministry. This document recognizes the universality of God’s grace at work in the hearts of all people of good will and it teaches that “only in the mystery of the incarnate word does the mystery of the person take on light.”

Motivated by his profound faith in Jesus Christ, Pope John Paul visited more than 130 countries. He once was challenged on why he did not spend more time ‘at home’ taking in hand the Curia, the Church’s central administration.

He replied: “The ideal in my life as Pope is to bring the name of Christ to all the people in the world. As long as I am capable, that is what I will do.” He added that the next pope will set his own priorities.

Soon the cardinals will gather in a conclave to decide the kind of leader that the Church needs.

The Rev. Peter J. Bernardi, S.J., is an associate professor of religious studies.