Craig Cohen: Celebrating a very Vatican Hannukah

When I told people what I was doing for my winter break, I got a lot of puzzled and amazed looks. "Oh wow!" they'd start. "You're going to midnight mass at the Vatican on Christmas Eve to see the pope? But you're Jewish!"

"So?" I'd reply, often only to be countered with a shrug of the shoulders in return. I have to admit that the concept of going to the heart of Catholicism on Christmas Eve to see a man who holds no significance to me did seem like a strange experience. I'm hardly even an observant Jew. My first night of Hannukah this year consisted of me wearing a paper towel yarmulke and my roommate (a goy, I might add) lighting a menorah that I had gotten from Hillel. This was only after I took his advice to "get one of those Jew things from the Jew place." We certainly have come a long way in understanding one another's cultures.

My family and I arrived at the Vatican several hours before the service, and we were greeted by a group of drunken American exchange students entertaining the crowds with stirring half-renditions of such Christmas classics as "Jingle Bells," "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and Adam Sandler's "Hannukah Song." Thousands of people were assembled in no particular fashion. That seems to be the norm in Italy; no one there understands lines. Instead, everyone just pushes and cuts in front of one another to get inside. I actually saw a senior citizen pull a teenager who was trying to sneak past him down from a ledge. No joke. Mass chaos.

Shortly after midnight, Pope John Paul II made his way into the St. Peter's Basilica greeted by thunderous applause. His procession to the center of the Basilica, an altar of four 30-foot tall gold columns, struck me as sort of tragic. The man appeared to be a shell of his former self. Stricken with Parkinson's disease, he looked frail, sounded even feebler and was no longer able to walk. Nonetheless, millions of people had travelled from all four corners of the globe just to be in the presence of the pontiff and hear him preach of peace on Earth and goodwill toward man. The power that this man has to inspire is truly amazing.

As such experiences tend to do, I started to think about my own faith. I never really considered myself an integral part of the Jewish community at Penn or a particularly religious person in general. I go to temple maybe three times a year for services. Yet, by no stretch of the imagination do I consider my life unfulfilling. I have always been of the belief that people have a right to live their lives however they see fit. Who am I to say any different?

I wondered if the pope would feel the same way. How would he feel if he knew I did not derive spiritual satisfaction from his mass nor share in any of his beliefs (and that I was a little confused as to how he could serve crackers without some cheese or chopped liver)? Would he want me to renounce my religion and embrace his?

Somehow, I doubt he would care. The pope, when you boil it all down, preaches peace and love above all, and he's been remarkably successful at this. He has visited more countries than any other pope, serving one of the longest terms in the history of the Catholic Church. Such determination and dedication to one's cause is an important secular lesson that anyone can learn. After all, this is a man who, after being confined to a hospital for two-and-a-half months because of an assassination attempt, sought out his would-be assassin to speak with him and forgive him.

He has by no means been perfect, and I vehemently oppose some of his positions (gay rights and abortion to name a couple). But ultimately, I have to admire his ability to inspire and captivate. He travels the globe, inspiring millions, preaching his ideals to those who are willing to hear them and sometimes even to those who are not. The message, although religious in origin, is one of universal appeal and one I think that we can all appreciate, regardless of our creed. I for one was glad I got to experience it firsthand.

Craig Cohen is a Wharton sophomore from Woodbury, N.Y.

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