Special Edition

Pope was a teacher in more ways than one

WARREN – As a student in moral theology class at Catholic University of Lublin in Poland, Fr. Roman Pasieczny remembers listening to the wisdom of his teacher -- then-Cardinal Karol Wojtyla.

"Yes, he really was my teacher!" Fr. Pasieczny said and laughed, thinking back to his days as a young student in the mid-1970s. Although Cardinal Wojtyla was not a teacher on a regular basis at the university, "he came from time to time "to teach classes including dogma.

Fr. Pasieczny was a fourth-year seminarian and on a retreat in the Zakopane mountains in Poland in the autumn of 1978 with other seminarians when they heard Cardinal Wojtyla had been elected as the next pope.

"When we heard he was pope, we were shouting and screaming. Then we went to the chapel to pray the rosary," recalled Fr. Pasieczny, who was ordained in 1980.

"When he was a cardinal, no one thought he would be a pope," said Fr. Pasieczny, pastor of St. Martin dePorres Parish, Warren. "But he was a very well-known person in Poland. He had great wisdom, good communicator and a sense of humor. A cardinal or pope, he was still the same."

He said many vocations in Poland came about as a result of the Holy Father and his Polish background. "Many followed him because he was such a good example."

Of his devotion to the Blessed Mother, Fr. Pasieczny said it was one of the best things about the Holy Father. "He had a deep, deep faith," he said. "He was the rock for our people."

After he became pope, he came to celebrate Mass at Czestochowa (Poland), and Fr. Pasieczny (who was a deacon at the time) helped to distribute Communion, and remembers it as being a great honor.

"He inspired all of us, from what he said to his knowledge, holiness and goodness," Fr. Pasieczny said. "He was the best example for all of us."