Following anti-government protests, Stroessner was overthrown in February 1989, just nine months after the pope s visit. In news reports, the Paraguayan people saw not Stroessner the invincible tyrant but instead an old man shuffling onto a plane into exile, looking as bewildered as if he were the Wizard of Oz dragged out from behind the curtain.
The new regime was not headed by a choirboy, but instead by another general with close ties to Stroessner and a long history of smuggling. Nevertheless, Andrés Rodríguez, who claimed to be a deeply religious man and by all accounts had his finger on the nation s pulse, established a modern democracy. After serving one elected term as president, Rodríguez died in 1997 and today is considered a national hero.
But many believe that the real hero who brought democracy to Paraguay was Pope John Paul II. He bid the country farewell forever after spending only 72 rain-soaked hours there. When he arrived, it was one of the last entrenched redoubts of right-wing totalitarianism in the hemisphere. In his wake, 5 million souls were free, and still are.