On Sunday, the United States Navy Seals lifted an albatross from the national conscience. After a decade of brigades, bombing and bullets, two gunshots finally sent Osama bin Laden to meet his maker.

We knew the horrors of bin Laden and have lived in the world that he created since most of us were in elementary or junior high school. We saw his evil on our television screens as the nation was under attack, our eyes filled with anger, fear and patriotism. The world was forever changed for us that Tuesday morning, and not for the better. It took 10 years, but now a killer is gone.

And so it’s only fitting, as the country spontaneously celebrated the demise of a mass murderer of innocent civilians and the symbolic villain of the unholy War on Terror, that a man who bin Laden’s organization once targeted for assassination, Pope John Paul II, was beatified by the Catholic Church.

The front page of the “Austin American-Statesman” on Monday showed two stories above the fold: bin Laden’s death and the step in the symbolic rebirth of John Paul II as a saint. While the end of John Paul II’s reign as pope was rightfully marred by a lack of institutional control and a seeming unwillingness to act in the right during the sex scandals that shook the Church to its core, his legacy will forever be as the pope who dared speak against the evils of tyranny and oppression behind the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union.

For many Catholics, the pope represented hope and a renewal of faith that had been rocked through tumultuous times.

Most students at St. Edward’s University never saw the pope as he was during the height of the Cold War. They never heard his speeches. They never worried about the Red Menace. But they have enjoyed and benefitted from the peace that later resulted from his actions.

Now both John Paul II and bin Laden are gone from this world — one regrettably so, the other long overdue. They respectively represented the paths of the righteous and the wicked that people can take, both claiming a mandate from God along the way. John Paul II served his God and will likely be remembered as a saint. Bin Laden was brought to justice, and his remains were set to sea with little ceremony or fanfare.

Today, we celebrate the life of John Paul II. His legacy will endure in a world shaped by the forces of good and evil, by people like the pope and people like bin Laden.

Even in a time where it feels natural to celebrate the death of someone who caused so much pain and grief, the peace that John Paul II fostered leads us to a different reaction.

The Church released a statement shortly after the news of bin Laden’s death broke. “Faced with the death of a man, a Christian never rejoices, but reflects on the serious responsibility of everyone before God and man, and hopes and pledges that every event is not an opportunity for further growth of hatred, but of peace.”