This quote from Edward Luce’s recent biography Zbig (about foreign policy guru Zbigniew Brzezinkski) strikes me because it humanizes the pope, a figure revered worldwide and often seen as uniquely above everyday concerns. Zbig, as he was known, was a Polish American foreign policy expert and academic. He had befriended Karol Jozef Wojtyla in the 1970s, the man who would become Pope John Paul II, as a result of their both being prominent Poles. Once he was the pope, he and Zbig communicated regularly, as friends do. To me, this anecdote illustrates that John Paul II was a friend before he became pope–and remained a friend afterward. I think many of us have had daydreams in which we are all powerful and are able to use our unique influence to help our friends and family. I certainly wonder what the church employee who took the call from the Vatican must have thought!

As I write this, we have an American pope, who followed the first pontiff from Latin America. However, when John Paul II became pope in 1978 he was the first non-Italian pope in 455 years, and of course, the first Polish pope. At the time Zbig was serving as president Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor. The odds that Zbig, having risen to his high station, had also befriended a Polish priest that would become the leader of the Catholic church is also quite stunning and serendipitous.

Interestingly, the biography also reveals that Zbig was never a devout Catholic. Indeed, he was cremated and his ashes returned by his family to the earth. No cross, tombstone, or memorial marks his grave–a humble end for a man who once shaped global history (and was often not very humble) and who had a powerful friend who could do his wife a kind favor; one that we’d all love to do for our friends had we the power to do it.