Fr. Mitchel Zimmerman is a member of the CEF Board of Directors and serves as Director of the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas.
There's nothing like being Catholic. Nothing even close.
I just returned from the World Youth Days in Krakow, Poland. Begun in the 1980s by St. John Paul II, these days provide a chance for the Catholic church to host the youth of the world for unprecedented and incomparable experiences of faith and solidarity. My first World Youth Day was 1993 in Denver, Colorado. It was there I received the sign that I was to become a Catholic priest. I'm still a kid! At age 42, I felt younger than ever at this year's World Youth Day.
The Catholic faith is stronger than anything. More specifically, God's mercy is greater than any evil. The picture above is of John Paul II's cassock the day he was shot in St. Peter's Square in 1981. A bullet that narrowly missed his vital organs now sits in the crown of the Our Lady of Fatima's crown in Portugal. I concelebrated a Mass with Archbishop Naumann just feet from a silver rose that was John Paul's gift to Our Lady of Czestochowa for saving his life.
God's mercy prevails over every evil. The Nazis threatened to stamp out the faith. John Paul II went to seminary underground! The darkness of Auschwitz was not the final word in Poland. The communists then proclaimed a future without God. After recovering from the attempt on his life, John Paul II's preaching and faith proved too much for the communists. The past, present and future of mankind lies in God!
It was an amazing privilege to gather with 3 million young people from 187 countries, and with our Archbishop, seminarians and young people for a grueling but extraordinarily compelling experience of solidarity.
Although millions camped out, sang and celebrated, this was no Catholic Woodstock. It was a celebration that the mercy of the cross can ride into any evil this world can conjure, and emerge victorious. This is the story of St. John Paul II, lived in real time. It is the best news the world has ever received. It is the reason we have Catholic schools, for this encounter between God and man to become real for our little ones. Won't you join CEF in giving our kids a chance to experience Catholicism that they can only get in Catholic schools? We're counting on you.
