We have lost a great leader of our modern world. John Paul II was an extraordinary man, one of the greatest popes in the Church’s 2,000-year history. We will remember him for his tireless witness to hope, to freedom, and to the dignity of human life. We will remember him for his courage in reaching across the boundaries of race, religion and ideology; we will remember him for his energy, as well as for his courageous endurance of physical suffering right until the end. John Paul II was always conscious of the drama of human salvation; he reminded us, tirelessly, of our eternal destiny. He showed, in his own life, how human beings are at their greatest and most free when they are most obedient to God’s will. His was a light that burned most strongly wherever the darkness was deepest. The Church will miss him. The world will miss him. I will miss him.