BLESSED POPE JOHN PAUL II

Twenty one years ago I took a plane ride with the man who is one step away from being declared a Catholic Saint, Blessed John Paul II. I flew with a host of network news people and other Vatican officials, aboard the Pope's plane to the former Czechoslovakia. It was both an honor and a privilege to be part of the papal entourage at a time when miracles were unfolding behind the iron curtain.

Being the girl that I am, I wore a suit I bought just for the occasion. A dark blue Ann Klein jacket and pleated skirt, which I dubbed "The Pope's suit." It's still hanging somewhere in my closet.

As you can imagine, it was an exhilerating experience watching this living saint move among the sea of humanity who came to hear his powerful message of solidarity and hope. In fact John Paul had been called the "Hope of the World" for boldly proclaiming the redemptive power of the cross to the suffering everywhere.

When we landed in Prague, I learned very quickly, that this exemplary figure of Christ, led an exhausting schedule. We hit the ground running, working until midnight and rising and shining long before dawn. For security reasons, the news people were required to arrive at least two hours ahead of the Pope at each and every one of his scheduled destinations. We would spend hours waiting for him to appear, because he often stopped-to speak one on one with his faithful followers.

That gave me plenty of time to read and absorb the pages and pages of embargoed speeches. Deeply intuitive and theologically inspiring, the tone of his messages were always based on the Gospel and the Ten Commandments, "May this decade of spiritual renewal for the nation help to form a generation able to appreciate the faith and the values which flow from it as gold tested by fire: as a powerfull force for the future, for the civilization of Love, truth and freedom, for the civilization which is so needed on our planet."

Charismatic and charming, I was amazed at how the Pope's contagious optimism had a way of making everyone feel connected, whether they had grown up in Czechoslovakia or Havana Cuba. He grew up under communism, in Poland, and so he understood oppression-and those forgotten souls who had been imprisoned by the depressive darkness of atheism. Though Czechoslovakia was only 30 percent Catholic, believers and unbelivers loved him, because he felt their pain and their courage.

Historians agree that Pope John Paul II's lasting legacy is the pivotal role he played in the fall of communism all across eastern europe in 1989. And he will long be admired for never abandoning his relentless quest for total freedom, warning the new democracies to avoid catching "the virus" of western consumerism. He told the Czechs they must not replace communisim with "secularism, indifference, hedonistic consumerism and practical materialism."

I followed the Pope to Czechoslovakia, Poland, Croatia, Cuba, Rome and the United States...and I watched this messenger of truth and Love, restore hope to humanity ...by building a path of reconciliation, dialogue and fraternal acceptance in union with the living God.

In life, as in death, he was a saintly man and so for me, canonization-will just be a formality.