What does surprise is the near virginal conviction of this sophisticated Pole that Providence has kept a watchful eye on him. His recovery in 1981 from an assassin's bullet the Pope would probably not term miraculous only because fastidious Catholic theology frowns on the use of that word, except when the theological department of weights and measures has been there with all its paraphernalia of skepticism and given an O.K. Still, he is known to believe that the good Lord had a hand in his survival, and he is said to believe that he is fated to be Pope right up through Jan. l, 2000, formally escorting the church into its third millennium. If this should prove so, if he is alive 18 months from now, there are probably a few medical observers who will be willing to use the word miraculous.

In any case, people will ask, what is it that Pope John Paul II uniquely brings to the millennium? Almost all who have experienced him at close quarters understand the special luminosity he radiates when surrounded live by a million people. But the great historical backdrop of his splendor fades. He was the student and manual laborer from Wadowice in Poland who became the first non-Italian Pope in 450 years. His was the dominant spiritual presence in the final round of the great revolutionary challenge that began soon after the turn of the century and sought no less than to alter Western assumptions about human life. But that role is not really what the critics want to dwell upon. What's on their mind is the stands Pope John Paul has taken on women. On their right to take holy orders, to abort a fetus, to frustrate insemination by artificial means. And they want to talk about the overexercise of papal authority, about the discipline he has exercised over dissident theologians.

The Rev. Richard P. McBrien is one of the most widely known U.S. theologians, a professor at Notre Dame and the author of numerous books. The most recent of these is Lives of the Popes. At the end of the book, he undertakes a ranking. There is, first, "Outstanding Popes," followed by "Good or Above Average Popes." John Paul II makes neither of these categories. Father McBrien rates him as less than great because he did not flesh out Vatican II. But he rates him as "Historically Important," as Gorbachev would confirm.

That he is at least that is not questionable, even if one anticipates a millennium of wrangling about women's rights at the altar, the distribution of hierarchical power and allocutory nuance. But there are many thousands who will live well into the next century with photographic memories of John Paul II. The late-teenage boys and girls who gathered in great numbers to see him in Denver in 1993 will, many of them, be alive when John Paul II is dead in 50 years, and their recall will be sensual. I saw him in January, with the usual million people, including Fidel Castro. There was some trepidation about the Pope's health at the Sunday Mass. The Pope was cautiously introduced by Havana's Jaime Cardinal Ortega. We heard then the voice of the Pope. Not very expressive, but the Spanish he spoke was well turned and clearly enunciated. In a matter of seconds he communicated his special, penetrating, transcendent warmth. Close-up we could see the ravages of his apparent affliction (Parkinson's), his age (77) and his gun wound (1981). The cumulative result of it all is a stoop and the listless expression on his face — the hangdog look. But then intermittently the great light within flashes, and one sees the most radiant face on the public scene, a presence so commanding as to have arrested a generation of humankind, who wonder gratefully whether the Lord Himself had a hand in shaping the special charisma of this servant of the servants of God.

William F. Buckley Jr. is editor-at-large of The National Review and the author of Nearer, My God

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