Men and women anointed as great and beloved by the great, unwashed masses in their wonderfully ad hoc way invariably share unique characteristics that create their aura of extraordinary vitality.
Ronald Reagan, a U.S. president, and Karol Wojtyla, known famously as Pope John Paul II, both had these distinctions in excess.
Their lives also followed eerie parallels.
Both were born in small towns and emerged from humble and painful childhood hardships—Reagan's shoe salesman father moving from town to town in search of work, the future Pope losing his mother and brother and suffering through Nazi ordeals of World War II occupation of Poland.
Both had an early passion for theater and acting.
Both excelled at sports—Reagan in football and swimming, John Paul in skiing and soccer.
Both thrived on spontaneous gestures of warmth that seemed out of place for their lofty stations but added to their trust and approachability.
Their supreme skill—understanding the compelling power of modern television to communicate and captivate millions with body language and glittering phrases—was used masterfully.
Both seemed to escape lingering public blame for crises that plagued them—Reagan's Iran-contras weapons scandal that Americans quickly forgot; the U.S. sex molestation epidemic during John Paul's reign that few blamed on him.
Both were incontrovertibly conservative in ideologies, which created large bodies of critics.
As if some mystical power was coordinating the destinies of Reagan and John Paul, both emerged as ardent, decisive victors over communism: Reagan made his celebrated "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" speech at the Berlin Wall. John Paul spreaheaded the downfall of communist rule in his native Poland.
They shared horrific suffering. Both were targets of assassination attempts and both were stricken late in life with devastating, incurable maladies, Reagan with Alzheimer's disease, John Paul with Parkinson disease.
In death, both were accorded funeral rites that were majestic, certainly regal and emotionally moving to millions.
(This son of a biblically strict, thoroughly Protestant, Southern Presbyterian Church upbringing can appreciate the spell-binding effect of papal personality and the pomp surrounding him: I was one of about 50 attending a benediction audience in St. Peter's Sistine Chapel in Rome in 1961 with Pope John XXIII, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, whose twinkling-eyed, teddy-bear persona gave him such special sway over his church.)
Public men who spend lavishly trying to create warm, trusted images but fail must wonder how a Reagan and a John Paul pulled it off.
They were born with the right stuff.
Pat Murphy
