Dauti Kahura
4 April 2005
opinion
Nairobi — Although Pope John Paul (II) was one of the towering figures in the 20th century - thanks to technology and the media - he missed out on the one most coveted prize ever to be created by the human kind: The Nobel (Peace) Prize.
For the last decade or so, his name popped up every year, as a Nobel candidate who had few challengers and whose iconic image propelled him to be the most visible religious persona of the 20th century.
In 2003, when the Pope celebrated his 25th anniversary as one of the longest reigning popes, many Catholics across the globe knew his moment of bagging the Nobel had come.
The anniversary in October coincided with the Nobel Committee's announcements.
When the Norwegian Committee bypassed John Paul II, the Catholics were dismayed and a trifle upset.
Instead, the committee picked on a little known Iranian Human Rights crusader - Shirin Ebadi.
Even the Vatican, which did not want to be seen to anticipate the prize for the Pope, was muted and non-celebratory towards Ebadi- an Iranian lawyer.
All what the Vatican would comment was that Ebadi had done human rights work for Iran for a long time.
Angelo Sodano, the Pope's secretary of State could only say, "the Pope is above these things", although he was clearly agitated by the Norwegian Committee for their "chicanery".
Still, Sodano stated that if the Norwegian Committee in their wisdom saw it fit to honour John Paul, they would receive the prize graciously.
Clearly and subtly, what Sodano was telling the Committee and the larger Catholic community was that the Pope was long overdue for the prize, even though "the Pope was more concerned with serious issues and not necessarily temporal".
When Mother Teresa received the prize in 1979, the Catholic Church was ecstatic and praised the Committee for its foresight and commitment to social justice.
When Monsignor Carlos Belo, a catholic bishop from East Timor won the Nobel in 1996, Vatican accepted the prize and said it was the recognition of the noble work that the church was involved in the tumultuous East Timor on its way to independence.
Other religious leaders who won the Nobel Peace Prize were Desmond Tutu in 1984 and Dalai Lama in 1989.
What worked against the Pope who Catholics the world over believed had insurmountable credentials as a "messenger of peace?"
One of the most evident issues that always dogged the Pope's Nobel candidature was his dual role as a head of state - which is a political job and as a religious leader - which carries with it moral authority.
As both a political and religious leader of the largest community of Christians, the Pope necessarily attracted undue attention from both the secular world and governments and the moral world.
The Nobel Committee was always weary: If it handed the Nobel to John Paul, how many governments would it possibly annoy?
Possibly one and that was the world's policeman - the United States. This was especially in the 1990s when the United States was involved in pre-emptive strikes in Iraq, which finally culminated in the USA invading the Middle East country. John Paul II made his stand clear on the impending Iraq war and sought peaceful means to end the hostile stalemate.
But secular politics aside, the fact that the Pope is the most notable leader of the Christian faith, the Norwegian Committee, experts believe, was reluctant to give the prize to the papacy just in case they annoy Islam, which also has a billion plus adherents globally.
Pope John Paul II in his early years heralded the collapse of the totalitarian regimes of the Eastern Europe that came tumbling 10 year after he made his famous visit Poland sounded the alarm bell on the autocratic regime of Jaruzelski, the then Polish leader.
Throughout his papacy John Paul II sued for peaceful means over physical force to world conflicts.
Yet, the Pope's undoing in getting the prize was his moral stand on two fundamental socio-cultural and religious issues of the 20th century - sex and women.
The Pope's traditional view of sex and women antagonised many liberals in the Church as well as in the secular world.
The feminists for example saw him as a person who did not value the essence of womanhood and his theories about modern human sexuality were just antiquated.
It is believed the decision makers at the Norwegian Committee, coming from a Lutheran tradition that is liberal and forward looking, did not share the Pope's views on both human sexuality and women, especially when he opposed the ordination of female priests.
Lutheran Bishop Gunnar Staalsett, who until 2001 sat on the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said when leaving: "The current Roman Catholic is one that favours death rather than life."
At the end of the day for the Committee, it seems, judged the Pope not as messenger of peace to the conflict prone 20th century world, but as person who held illiberal views on moral Church doctrines.
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