The Church of St. George in Long Lake shared a letter from their pastor in the church's Aug. 23 bulletin.

The Rev. Mark Juettner wrote about the role of Pope John Paul II and his importance as the head of the church.

“He is referred to as the First Postmodern Pope,” Fr. Juettner said. “A church historian claimed that Pope St. John Paul II was ‘perhaps the most intellectually formidable man ever to ascend the papal throne. It seems that he could do just about anything, and do it well, if he simply set his mind to it.’”

Not just a spiritual man, Pope John Paul II was also an athlete, a poet, an actor, a philosopher, an activist and much more.

He led the church with resilience for almost 26 years; and rather than fighting against modernity, he used the time that he was living in to help people come back to the dream of freedom.

“I attended his first American papal visit to an area outside of Des Moines, Iowa, in 1978,” Juettner said. “He was an ecumenical and inter-religious innovator doing much to reconcile Jews and Christians and ‘to remove the ancient stain of anti-Semitism from the Christian imagination.’ His documents, including 14 encyclicals, addressed many topics including, on the laity, on the dignity of women, on fundamental moral principles, on human life issues, on the link between faith and reason, on human sexuality with the Theology of the Body.”

Remarkably, Pope John Paul II canonized 482 saints and helped to release the new Catechism of the Catholic Church in the 1990s, in addition to surviving an assassination attempt.

Fr. Juettner believes that by observing the popes of the 20th century, we can learn a great deal about remaining faithful to God even in changing times.