Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to the man of the century, my hero, a man who will no doubt come to be known in our lifetime as St. John Paul the Great.
We are moved to see how even in death this man of God can evoke such an outpouring of love. During the 26 years of his pontificate, he attracted the largest crowds in human history and was encountered by more people than any man or woman who has ever lived. He did so because he was an icon of self-giving love and a constant and courageous voice of moral clarity.
In every field of human endeavour, in every language and on every continent, he preached and lived the fundamental Christian truth about the human person: that every human life, from the moment of conception to natural death, is created in the image and likeness of God and therefore possesses an inviolable dignity.
He preached this truth in the face of the inhuman ideologies of what he called the century of tears. In the face of the terror of Communism and Nazism, he relentlessly defended the freedoms of conscience and religion.
He was a man whose memory we will always hold dearly. Requiescat in pace.