Witness to Hope Read online

  WITNESS TO HOPE

  The Biography of Pope John Paul II

  GEORGE WEIGEL

  For Joan,

  Gwyneth, Monica, and Stephen

  Contents

  PREFACE

  A BRIEF NOTE ON PRONUNCIATION

  PROLOGUE

  The Disciple

  The drama of Karol Wojtyła’s life • A paradox and a sign of contradiction • The more excellent way • The broadness of a gauge • The subject and the author

  1

  A SON OF FREEDOM

  Poland Semper Fidelis

  Karol Wojtyła’s national, cultural, religious, and family roots • His childhood, his elementary and secondary education, the loss of his mother and brother • The influence of his father on his education and piety • His interests in Polish Romantic literature and in drama • His first undergraduate year at Kraków’s Jagiellonian University

  2

  FROM THE UNDERGROUND

  The Third Reich vs. the Kingdom of Truth

  The Nazi Occupation of Poland • Karol Wojtyła and clandestine cultural resistance • His introduction to Carmelite spirituality and manual labor • The death of his father and the unfolding of a priestly vocation • The underground seminary • An “unbroken prince,” Archbishop Adam Stefan Sapieha • Karol Wojtyła’s ordination and graduate studies in theology in Rome

  3

  “CALL ME Wujek”

  To Be a Priest

  Country curate • Father Karol Wojtyła’s pioneering student chaplaincy in Kraków • His first essays and poems • The temptation of revolutionary violence and Wojtyła’s first mature play • An outdoorsman and a model confessor • The beauty of human love

  4

  SEEING THINGS AS THEY ARE

  The Making of a Philosopher

  A second doctorate, a new philosophical interest, and a new career • Karol Wojtyła at the Catholic University of Lublin • The Lublin challenge to modern skepticism • A book on love and sexuality that raises a few eyebrows

  5

  A NEW PENTECOST

  Vatican II and the Crisis of Humanism

  The youngest bishop in Poland • The Second Vatican Council • Karol Wojtyła is named Archbishop of Kraków • Setting Vatican II’s defense of freedom on a firm philosophical foundation

  6

  SUCCESSOR TO ST. STANISŁAW

  Living the Council in Kraków

  A cardinal at age forty-seven • Wojtyła’s quest for religious freedom in Kraków • An extensive local implementation of Vatican II • The mature essayist, poet, and playwright • A distinctive style and a unique set of friends • Testing the world stage

  7

  A POPE FROM A FAR COUNTRY

  The Election of John Paul II

  The Church at the death of Pope Paul VI • The “September Papacy” of Pope John Paul I • The election of Karol Józef Wojtyła as the first Slavic Pope in history and the first non-Italian in 455 years, to the surprise of many, but not all, concerned

  8

  “BE NOT AFRAID!”

  A Pope for the World

  An earthquake in the papacy and the Vatican • Redefining the public ministry of the Bishop of Rome • An alternative theology of liberation • Program notes for a pontificate • Preventing a war in Latin America • Consternation in the Kremlin

  9

  “HOW MANY DIVISIONS HAS THE POPE?”

  Confronting an Empire of Lies

  The cultural power of the politically powerless • An epic pilgrimage to Poland • Nine days that bent the curve of modern history • A revolution of conscience

  10

  THE WAYS OF FREEDOM

  Truths Personal and Public

  Marital intimacy as an icon of the inner life of God • Denouncing sectarian violence in Ireland • The Pope at the United Nations • Religious freedom as the first human right • Teenagers in a frenzy at Madison Square Garden • Galileo reconsidered • An appeal to Orthodoxy

  11

  PETER AMONG US

  The Universal Pastor as Apostolic Witness

  The pilgrim Pope in Africa, France, Brazil, West Germany, and Asia • Collegiality and crisis management • In defense of the family • A bold appointment in Paris • The mysteries of fatherhood and mercy, divine and human

  12

  IN THE EYE OF THE STORM

  Months of Violence and Dissent

  The birth of Solidarity • An unprecedented letter to Leonid Brezhnev • The assassination attempt • Shock therapy for the Jesuits • The “Gospel of work” • Martial law in Poland • The Falklands/Malvinas War

  13

  LIBERATING LIBERATIONS

  The Limits of Politics and the Promise of Redemption

  Revising Church law • Canonizing a martyr of Auschwitz • Confrontation in Nicaragua • To recognize the saints God has made • Restoring hope in Poland • A seminar with agnostics and atheists • A prison visit to a would-be papal assassin • Suffering as a path to love

  14

  RELIVING THE COUNCIL

  Religion and the Renewal of a World Still Young

  Securing the legacy of Vatican II • The “People Power” revolution in the Philippines • Hosting world religious leaders in Assisi • The first papal visit to the Synagogue of Rome • The irrevocable Catholic commitment to Christian unity • Addressing young Muslims in Casablanca • A letter to the youth of the world • Revamping the Vatican’s press office

  15

  FORWARD TO BASICS

  Freedom Ordered to the Dignity of Duty

  Tear gas and the quest for democracy in Chile • The beatification of Edith Stein • A preview of communism’s demise • Hiking in the Dolomites • The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in Rome • Opening a dialogue with Mikhail Gorbachev • The excommunication of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre • A distinctive feminism • Starting a homeless shelter in the Vatican • Counselor to Andrei Sakharov

  16

  AFTER THE EMPIRE OF LIES

  Miracles and the Mandates of Justice

  John Paul II in Scandinavia • The communist crack-up • A letter to Deng Xiaoping Gorbachev in the Vatican • Defining the meaning of the “Revolution of 1989” • Challenging democracies to live freedom nobly • The Gulf War • The Catholic identity of Catholic universities

  17

  TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH

  Reconciling an Unreconciled World

  The Church is a mission • A storm of controversy with Orthodoxy • The reevangelization of Europe • Priests for a new millennium • Colon surgery • The Catechism of the Catholic Church • Rejecting clericalism in Poland • Defending persecuted Christians in Sudan • Taking on the Mafia in Sicily

  18

  THE THRESHOLD OF HOPE

  Appealing to Our Better Angels

  A surprise in Denver • The renewal of moral theology • Diplomatic relations with Israel • Confronting the U.S. government at the Cairo World Population Conference • More health problems • A convent for contemplative nuns in the Vatican • The debate on women and the priesthood • An international bestseller

  19

  ONLY ONE WORLD

  Human Słolidarity and the Gospel of Life

  The Great Jubilee of 2000 • The largest crowd in human history • Another assassination attempt • The “Gospel of life” • The Vatican and the World Conference on Women in Beijing • Asking Orthodox and Protestant Christians to help devise a papacy that could serve them • A “witness to hope” addresses the United Nations again • Singing in New York’s Central Park • The golden jubilee

  20

  A REASONABLE FAITH

  Beyond a Century of Delusions

  Revising the rules for papal ele
ctions • France and Poland • Sarajevo, Lebanon, and Cuba • The longest-serving pope of the twentieth century • Catholic renewal movements in St. Peter’s Square • John Paul II’s twentieth anniversary • The Church in defense of human reason

  Epilogue

  THE THIRD MILLENNIUM

  To See the Sun Rise

  The critiques of John Paul II are evaluated, his accomplishments are assayed, and a suggestion as to the nature of his greatness is offered

  Afterword

  A CHURCH FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM

  The Great Jubilee of 2000

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Acknowledgments

  Searchable Terms

  About the Author

  Praise

  Also By George Weigel

  Credits

  Cover

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Preface

  When Pope John Paul II died on April 2, 2005, the extraordinary global outpouring of affection and regard for this old and, in recent years, increasingly crippled Polish priest and bishop suggested that Karol Wojtyła had, in fact, influenced more lives in more diverse circumstances than any human being of his time.

  In African villages and Brazilian favellas, in Manhattan office towers and Calcutta slums, in homes and apartments and government offices on every continent, men and women felt that they had lost someone they had loved—someone who had inspired them to live in a different way. Reaching for historical analogies, some proposed that not since Winston Churchill’s death in 1965 had the entire world had such a common sense of an epic life come to an end. The analogy made considerable sense. As Churchill had become a global symbol for the dogged defense of freedom in the face of tyranny, John Paul II had come to embody what admirers and critics alike recognized as genuine nobility of spirit and heart, in his defense of human rights, his passion for truth, and his openness to the truths that others had come to know in their lives.

  His last years were full of pain and suffering. Yet he never tried to hide his deteriorating physical capacities; he seemed unembarrassed by frailty; and by continuing his papal service until the very end, he fulfilled the pledge he believed he had made to the Church, and to the Church’s Lord, at his election on October 16, 1978—the pledge to spend out his life in strengthening his Christian brothers and sisters in their faith. The most remarkable thing about this last period of the Pope’s life, however, was that its distinctive Christian witness touched millions of men and women who were skeptical of Christianity, who had rejected Christianity, or who had never considered the possibility of accepting Christianity.

  Yet that, in a way, summed up the Pope’s achievement. From the day he was elected the 263rd successor to St. Peter, John Paul had taken quite literally Christ’s injunction to Peter in Luke 22.32: that Peter’s special task among the apostles was to be the apostle who confirmed and strengthened his brothers and sisters in their faith. In doing that for the Church, however, John Paul II also became a worldwide symbol of hope for the human future. And in that very specific sense, his was the first truly global pontificate in history—a pontificate that shaped lives and history throughout the worlds within worlds of humanity.

  The leitmotif of his final years in office was set by his January 6, 2001, apostolic letter closing the Great Jubilee of 2000, Novo Millennio Ineunte [Entering the New Millennium]. There, the Pope reaffirmed his long-standing conviction that the third millennium should be a “springtime” for the proclamation of the Gospel, and indeed (as he put it to the United Nations in 1995), a “springtime of the human spirit.” Now, in Novo Millennio Ineunte, he challenged the entire world Church to “put out into the deep” (Luke 5.4) of what he had called since 1992 the “new evangelization.” The Church does not exist for itself, he reminded a billion Catholics around the world. The Church exists for mission and for service, for preaching the good news of God’s passionate love for the world, and for healing the brokenness of a world that had not, with the conclusion of the Cold War, learned how to resolve its problems through reason and dialogue.

  The continuing violence of world affairs was surely a grave disappointment to the Pope in the last dozen years of his life. Having been one of the principal catalysts of the nonviolent Revolution of 1989 in east central Europe, he had looked forward, in the early 1990s, to a twenty-first century less riven by mass violence that its predecessor. It was a hope soon dashed, and analysts will debate for decades, even centuries, whether John Paul II took too universal a view of the meaning of “1989”—an experience that seems, in retrospect, to have been the product of a distinctive set of historical circumstances. No matter how that debate is finally resolved, John Paul’s role in the collapse of communism demonstrated beyond dispute that religious conviction could still shape history. In the last years of his pontificate, however, a far less admirable demonstration of that fact of contemporary life came into view.

  Over more than a quarter-century, the Pope had made the Catholic Church one of the great culture-forming and history-shaping forces in the world, demonstrating in Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, and East Asia than an ancient religious tradition could inspire men and women to take what John Paul had once called “the risk of freedom”—and do so without killing one other. That accomplishment, impressive in its own right, loomed even larger in a world where another rising religious force—radical Islam or, better, the ideology of Islamism—had also shown itself determined to bend history to its purposes, precisely through violence. How John Paul II’s vision of a culture-forming Catholicism promoting human rights, democracy, civil society, and the genuine tolerance of differences engaged respectfully will interact, in the twenty-first century, with the challenge of Islamism is bound to be one of the most pressing issues on his successor’s agenda.

  At the end of one of the longest pontificates in history, the Catholic Church was a vastly complex community of more than one billion members, living in every imaginable human circumstance and condition. The Pope’s relentless world evangelism, which continued until his illnesses made it simply impossible for him to travel long distances, changed the face of the papacy for the twenty-first century. It also met with mixed results. John Paul II’s efforts strengthened the Church in Latin America, which is now the demographic center of world Catholicism. Alone among world leaders in the past two decades, John Paul refused to write off Africa; Africa now finds itself with one of the fastest-growing and most vibrant Catholic populations in the world, even if African Catholicism is often hard-pressed by Islamism and its corrosive effects on civil society in countries like Nigeria and Sudan. Despite the crisis caused by clergy sexual abuse and irresponsible governance by some bishops, the Church in the United States remains the most vital local Church in the developed world.

  The rest of the “First World” presented a rather different picture, however, at the end of the pontificate. Despite the Pope’s efforts, Catholicism in Western Europe, its historical cultural heartland, was even more moribund at the Pope’s death than it had been at his election. Moreover, its unprecedentedly low birthrates suggested that Western Europe was committing a kind of demographic suicide, again despite John Paul’s insistent call to the continent to recover its spiritual roots and move beyond the traumas of the twentieth century; that call was made with special passion in one of the Pope’s last great apostolic exhortations, Ecclesia in Europa [The Church in Europe], published in 2003. That so passionate an advocate of European civilization as John Paul II was largely unable to reverse the tide of secularization in Europe—the one part of the world where the idea that modernization necessarily entails secularization has actually been demonstrated empirically—was another large issue with which the Pope’s successors would have to grapple.