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Many people see the late pope as one of the great figures of the 20th century.

John Paul II will be John Paul the Great. He will be one of the great popes in history. He probably will be among the five or ten greatest [pontiffs], because he's had such an impact on world history, world Christianity, and world evangelization.

What do you see ahead regarding Protestant and Catholic relations as the College of Cardinals selects a new leader?

The future is intrinsically unable to be penetrated. We are spared by the Holy Spirit from actually seeing the future. But I think the Holy Spirit is at work in ways beyond our knowing in the formation of the body of Christ worldwide. And the 1.1 billion Catholics certainly are a very significant part of that worldwide body of Christ.

I don't know how the College of Cardinals will act, but it's quite possible that we will get leadership from South America, which has half a billion Catholics, or from Africa, which has about 125 million, or possibly Asia—although less likely Asia.

But what we will see, I believe, could be the further internationalization of the papacy in the tradition of the election of a Polish pope. Now there could be an Italian pope elected, but that person could not ignore the global church. The arena on which evangelicals and Catholics meet is certainly global in scope. Evangelicals and Catholics in China, evangelicals and Catholics in India, evangelicals and Catholics in Korea—all of these places are areas with lively, interactive dialogues going on between evangelicals and Catholics, often at an informal level. They don't need to be blessed by some official group in order to be used by the Holy Spirit. Where the Spirit will lead us through all of this, I don't think we can see. We can pray for guidance.

And you think that a lot of these dialogues and conversations at least at some level owe their existence to John Paul II?

I think it would be more accurate to say that these recognitions of the unity of the body of Christ owe their existence to the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit has worked powerfully in John Paul II in a way that is almost unprecedented in the last century. He has been the one person who has embodied so much of the courage to face Nazi tyranny and communist tyranny. That's no small matter. He played a very important role in the collapse of the Berlin Wall. I have no doubt about that.

He played a very important role in the emergence and furtherance of ecumenical teaching and thought. So I would say yes, he has been a significant figure in the ecumenizing of—that is, coming into greater oneness—of the one body of Christ the world over.

What other areas does the global church need to address in this young century?

The confrontation with Islam is absolutely fundamental. We are not prepared for it. We must be better informed about ourselves in order to engage it. And the sexuality questions that have emerged in North America are emerging all over the world. Those questions of how God has intended us to be together as man and woman will continue to be a crucial part of the agenda for the worldwide church. The persecuted church will also remain a very, very important aspect of that agenda, because still there are a minority of governments in the world that have what we would regard as decent civil rights, especially for religions.

Do you foresee the major branches of the worldwide church coming together more closely?

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April (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49