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Remembering John Paul II on His Feast
It’s 40 years to the day since Karol Wojtyla became John Paul II. I wrote about him at the Personalist Project a few years ago:
I am still trying to get my arms around his legacy, and his influence on me and my soul. I suspect I’ll be at it for the rest of my life—trying to sort and catalogue, organize and share my thoughts about his teaching, which seems to me key to everything. At least it is the key to understanding modernity—the mind of the Church in our day and time. I have also found it, mysteriously, key to my understanding myself and my spiritual journey—the meaning and “point” of the particular struggles I’ve faced along the way.
I came of age under John Paul II. I was 12 when he was elected; 39 when he died. Jules and I got to meet him in September of 1989, just weeks after our marriage, when I was already expecting our first baby. (The smile on his face is because I had just told him about her.)
My initial impression of him as Pope, I think, was in the context of the culture wars. He stood for moral absolutes against relativism, and for lively, joyous faith against atheism. In college, I began to study him as an ethical thinker, through a course on the Nature of Love at the beginning of my courtship with Jules, when the impact of his thought was very existential. I came upon his poetry then, too, and his mysticism.
Later, in grad school, I got to know him more as a Cold War hero—an ardent opponent of the evil ideology of Marxism and materialism and a fearless defender of the dignity of the human person.
For decades I would say I interpreted him as a champion of the political and cultural right. And he was. But over the last ten years, I have begun to appreciate him more deeply as a champion also of the good causes of the left. He opposed authoritarianism, militarism, and social injustice of all kinds. He endorsed feminism. He stressed freedom. Above all, he directed attention to the subjectivity of the person.
The miracle is that he did it while at then same time thematizing the objectivity of truth. His personalism subsumed right and left; objectivity and subjectivity; transcendence and immanence; modernity and tradition.
Summarizing his legacy isn’t easy. Often I dislike others’ attempts to do it. I have issues, for instance, with Michael Waldstein’s introduction to the Theology of the Body, which seems to me to paint John Paul II as an anti-modernist, when he was nothing of the kind. But then when I try to capture and convey his contributions myself, I find I too fall short. I can recognize certain definite themes:
1. The relation between freedom and truth
2. The master/slave dynamic
3. The priority of interiority
4. The embodiment of the human person
5. The hermeneutics of the gift
But I’m easily perplexed when I try to present all these in right relation to each other and to the whole of his thought and witness.
One thing I’m sure of though: The Church has hardly begun to realize the gift we had in him.
Saint John Paul II, pray for us.
Published in General
Amen and thank you, Katie! What a treasured photo!
Pardon my skepticism, but there are a great many questions that need to be raised as regards JPII’s pontificate. Take McCarrick for example. We are now told that “everyone knew” about his sexual predation. That would seem to suggest that JPII knew, yet he elevated McCarrick to the College of Cardinals. Indeed, the evidence establishes that the high point of abuse came in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, when JPII was the Pope. What, if anything, did he do about it? In fact, in his last trip to the US a group of Canadian victims asked him to meet with them. He declined, claiming his schedule was too packed. So was cleaning up the mess just not a priority? Or was he worried that his sparkling reputation might suffer if the truth would out.
JPII virtually created the Francis Papacy by appointing known sexual liberalizers to the College. Walter Kasper anyone? Cardinal Bernardin? The Pope’s first responsibility is to protect the integrity of the Church and its members, which means the appointment of solid Bishops and Cardinals is essential.
JPII left a mess for Benedict. Now everyone’s out after Francis, but he inherited the disaster from his predecessors. Yet rarely do we hear a word about JPII’s clear negligence. The reason is obvious. His supporters don’t want to tarnish his standing, but it’s perfectly fine to attack Francis. It seems doctrinal positions are sufficient to dump the whole thing on the current Pope. And by the way, Francis was also created cardinal by JPII.
I was thrilled when JPII was announced, but my enthusiasm waned as I saw him seem to too much enjoy his celebrity.
Opinionated much,@mikerapkoch? Must everything be an excuse for bashing and disputation? Do carry on, if Katie is so inclined, however…
The Church has always been a mess. It always will be, since it’s composed of human beings and continually under assault by the devil. Each Pope can only do so much toward reforming it. In my opinion, what JP II did for the Church and the world was great beyond human accounting. (Among his gigantic achievements was the reconciling of the Tradition and modernity into a new synthesis of the intellectual depth and stature of Aquinas’ Summa.)
Reagan did’t end abortion or eliminate the education department or get rid of corruption in Washington. A leader’s greatness is measured mainly by his accomplishments, not his shortcomings.
As for the sex abuse scandals, I think there’s every reason to believe he didn’t know about them. The stories he heard, he mostly didn’t believe, since false accusations of sexual immorality were a common tactic for destroying the reputation of good priests in the Communist regime he lived under. It was only very late in his pontificate that he learned the truth and began to act on it.
If you read John Paul II: My Beloved Predecessor, you will find how profoundly B XVI loved and admired JP II.
I don’t judge Francis’ papacy as you do either. As I see it, he, too, is a great gift to the world and the Church.
But JP II is and always will be my personal favorite pope.
This is the challenge, to see the good, instead of the flaws. Thank you for highlighting the good.
It is too easy to focus on the flaws.
Bashing? Sorry, there are more than a few very orthodox Catholics who believe that, as regards the scandal, all must be revealed. Are we not to let the light shine? No one seems particularly shy about bashing the current Pope–who has inherited this mess, who is the one being called on to resign, who is the sworn enemy of too many Catholics on the right. They hate him (I’m not referring to katie) so are perfectly content with dismissing any criticism of JPII, and instead turning the anger toward Francis.Paul VI knew–and said–that the smoke of Satan was rising inside the Vatican. by which he meant homosexualism. Surely John Paul II was at least sufficiently aware that he ought to have done something about it. All those years of abuse, all the hushed sounds in the hallways, and it was a secular newspaper, the Boston Globe, that had to unearth the rampant problem. JPII wasn’t exactly naive. He knew the ways the world worked. Yet the infection festered and grew.
I would weigh my orthodox credentials beside anyone else’s. I have very strong concerns over the Francis papacy from the standpoint of dogma. But should I just standby and allow him to take all the blame? Is he not owed some measure of justice?
Katie, my anger arises from what I think are some unjust attacks on the current Pope that essentially suggests that he bears the sole responsibility for the current crisis. This is simply appalling. I have no desire to tarnish JPII, but these are matters that require answers in order for injustices to be avoided.
Furthermore, regardless of Cardinal Vigano’s claim that Francis overrode Benedict’s demands that McCarrick end his public presence, the fact remains that BXVI could have taken definitive steps to remove the wayward Cardinal. He didn’t and I have trouble understanding why. Francis, however, gets all the blame.
I also wonder why Cardinal Vigano waited until this particularly weak moment in the Francis papacy to publish his testimony.
We are never going to get to the bottom of this without candor. We now know that 15 states attorneys generals have open investigations of the Church. The FBI is looking at a RICO investigation. The secular order has now stepped into the Church. What will the long-term effects be? What about the sanctity of the confessional, which has already be compromised in Australia.
None of this needed to happen. The Church always had the authority and power to clean this up. Its leaders failed and the world has found a direct entryway into Her. “For there is not any thing secret that shall not be made manifest, nor hidden, that shall not be known and come abroad. ” Luke 8:17.
And BTW, I am not a persistent Francis hater. I have doctrinal concerns, but I have written in support of Francis several times. Here, for example.
And here.
And elsewhere.
We have a similar picture of our daughter being touched by JP II when they were in Rome on a sabatical/honeymoon.
George Weigel has written another book about writing JP II’s biography. “Lessons in Hope” I think you’ll enjoy it.
JP II is sorely missed. The corruption was so widespread and deep that JP II and Benedict were simply too old and frail to deal with it and Francis may be part of it or simply disinclined or.. who knows?
My impression, maybe it’s just my view, that Weigel believes the homosexual, left wing/modernist, not to mention former Soviet penetration problems are all related. JP II and George Weigel believed they are spiritual problems that must be dealt with in those terms. A way of calling it evil in my view. JP II was not being kept informed nor told how serious it was by the US nuncio. So Weigel wrote JPII a memo in mid 2002 explaining it and stressing it’s fundamental importance.
Have you read Cardinal Oullet’s response to Vigano? I thought it spot on.
Candor is one thing we need. Faith is another. Confidence in the guidance and protection of the Holy Spirit over the Church. Receptivity toward the Holy Father, who alone has the charism of the Petrine Ministry in our particular day and time.
Adam and Eve didn’t need to bite that apple either, but “O happy fault.”
I’m glad you’re not a persistent Francis hater. I wish you would never hate the Pope, this one or his recent predecessors, who are, one and all, men of great faith and holiness, “of whom the world is not worthy.”
I mentioned somewhere else that I’ve recently returned from a wonderful 4-day symposium on the thought of Pope Francis. Among the speakers was an Uruguayan professor who positively radiated Catholic faith and sweetness. He said with great love and ardor that he has worked in the Vatican for 5 popes. He marvels over the beautiful mystery of their distinctness as men, their unity as Peter, and their humanly-uninventable suitableness for the needs of the Church in our day.
The ugly attitude toward our Holy Father being nurtured in American Catholic conservative circles grieves and distresses me. It’s wrong and it’s back-firing.
Blech. (I say it affectionately.) Really, Mike. Credentials? Faith is a gift, not a personal achievement. I’m thinking of that line from Chesterton: “I will not call it my philosophy; for I did not make it. God and humanity made it; and it made me.”
Also, orthodoxy is something utterly elementary, not sophisticated. As soon as we treat it as something special and sophisticated, we’re doing it wrong. We’re skewing it; we’re making it an idol, we’re performing what von Hildebrand called an act of moral substitution, treating an aspect as if it’s the whole, and so distorting our Faith.
Since, according to our Faith, it is the Pope in union with the bishops, who has authority from God to teach dogma, it is very weird and inconsistent for doctrinal conservatives to act and talk as if they, not the Pope, are the arbiters of orthodoxy.
Anyway, I’m convinced they’re wrong on the point, because they haven’t duly appreciated the way doctrine develops over time. Also, many of them have understood JP II in a lop-sided way.
Another speaker at the symposium noted that one of Francis’ key texts is Newman’s Development of Doctrine, which gave this Newman devotee particular joy.
This is really unfair Katie. It should be obvious that I added the statement for the purpose of making it clear that I am not out to promote a left-wing agenda when I criticized Pope Francis. I am full aware that faith is a gift–an undeserved gift at that. But I’ve seen more than enough attacks on Francis to convince me that much of the flat out hatred towards him is doctrinal and personal rather than concern over the scandals. I don’t use twitter much, but I finally blocked Novus Ordo Watch for calling JPII apostate. My complaint is over the issue of abuse. Theologically I see know reason to criticize him.
Nor do I believe that I or any lawman are the final arbiter on doctrine. I am fully aware that the Pope and bishops have authority over doctrine. I worry that Francis is too clever by half, but he is the Pope and I do not believe he is an anti-pope (a term that does not apply to doctrine anyway) or seeks to destroy the Church.
In my view there are significant questions about JPII’s handling of this mess.
Is anyone who criticizes Pope Francis out to promote a left wing agenda? I’m asking sincerely. It looks to me like practically all his critics, in the US at least, are on the right. They set themselves up as literally more Catholic than the Pope. They consider orthodoxy their special area of expertise, and scorn him on the grounds that he doesn’t ratify their personal notions of it, though it is he, not they, who has the right, the grace, and the responsibility to teach truly in the areas of faith and morals.
I agree with you on that point, though I’d express it as political rather than doctrinal and personal. (How many of those heaping public contempt have any personal acquaintance with him at all? They know him only through the distorting lens of the wretchedly ideologized media. They despise him because they think he is a liberal, and they reject his agenda for the Church—as if they know better how to be Pope than the man chosen for the job.
I’m not objecting to mere criticism. I’m objecting to a kind of spurning of his legacy, based on short-comings (which he had in common with the entire Church), when, in truth and taken as a whole, his papacy was an absolute miracle of greatness.
And yet, you make free to find fault with him doctrinally—as if it’s perfectly unproblematic for a layman to regard the Pope’s teaching with skepticism and doubt rather than faith and trust.
Yea, I wasn’t clear in the first sentence. I’m old, gimme a break.
I don’t see anything wrong with laity questioning the pope’s approach to doctrine, but I agree that much of the criticism arises from a lack of thought among them about how he approaches various issues.
To deny the laity a voice on matters of doctrine seems to me at direct odds with Vatican II’s teachings on the need for greater involvement in the Church. Is the Pope so insular that he can refuse to hear the voice of the people? He is free to disregard those voices, but I fail to see a reason to shutdown debate. Debate has always been a means to obtain truth–Peter and Paul had a few disagreements and each had lay supporters and detractors. Things still worked out for the good of the Church.
I very much recognize the greatness of JPII’s papacy. In fact I believe he was singlehandedly successful in bringing the Good News to all the people. But the abuse scandal has wounded the Church, and all the Popes of the last fifty or so years failed in their responsibilities yo one extent or the others. Should we just continue the cover-up? Secular forces are not going to allow this, and the risk to the Church is huge.
I came into full communion with the Church in October 2004, right at the beginning of the Year of the Eucharist. It was a long journey for me, but when I took my youngest son in for his one on one discussion with the priest before his First Holy Communion, I truly saw the verse John 6:53 for the first time and finally knew that I had to be Catholic. And it was through reading JP2, especially the encyclical letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia, and through the witness of Pope John Paul II that I knew this was the most important decision of my life. It was an additional blessing that my maternal grandparents were both born in Poland so I had a special love for this great man. I share that with you. I was also blessed to spend a week in Rome at the end of December 2004/beginning of January 2005 prior to moving to Qatar with my family.
JP2 and B16 have been hugely influential in my life. They were men both larger than life in my opinion.
As we have argued before, this is where I differ. The only gift I see that Francis has given the Church is that he has shined a light on my “ultramontanism” with regards to JP2 and B16. These men were great leaders but they weren’t the whole Church. I spent 4 years in Qatar, in a Wahabist Islamist country where the Catholic faith of the “slave labor” Indian, Filipino, Pakistani, African, etc., etc. Catholics, was greater than I have ever seen. I learned more from them about faith than I did from my heroes JP2 and B16.
So now, when I see Pope Francis lauded by the secular world and those on the port side of the barque of Peter, I see my previous error.
JP2 and B16 both had their faults. JP2 was a poor administrator, B16 (my #1 hero) abandoned us like a deadbeat dad.
And now we have Francis. A man who is doing all he can to throw JP2 and B16 under the bus. With Amoris Laetitia he essentially overruled Familia Consortio, totally ignored Veritatis Splendor, and seems to despise Summorum Pontificum.
Pope Francis is only a gift in that he reminds us that we should not put our trust in princes.
A few words from Melchior Cano, O.P.:
The laity, by virtue of our baptism, have the “sensus fidelium,” an inward ability to recognize religious truth. Newman (following Augustine) describes it as what the whole Church at length serenely accepts. (“Securus judicat orbis terrarum.”) So, for example, during the patristic period there were furious debates and widespread disagreement over basic points of doctrine, but ultimately the true teaching, once formally declared, is peacefully received as such by the faithful and thereby confirmed in its authenticity as religious truth.
What we don’t have is authority to decide and issue doctrinal decisions. That belongs to the Vicar of Christ alone, in union with the bishops. Nor do we have a right to sit in judgment over him as he duly exercises that aspect of his office.
A) We’re not talking about the people here, but a faction within the people, like the Lefebvrites in the wake of Vatican II. They objected to its teaching on conscience and religious liberty as inconsistent with previous teaching. Meanwhile, the Church as a whole accepted it as an organic development of doctrine. The choice for the Lefebvrites then was to go with the Church, go into schism, or follow a middle path of quasi-schism, wherein they don’t formally break with the Church, but continue to foment division and grumbling within her, doing great harm to the Body of Christ, including by leading their adherents to think of themselves as the true faithful while they despise the Pope.
B) The moral problem at issue here is not the Pope’s insularity but his critics’ lack of faith and receptivity toward him. It is the problem of the Lefebvrites.
I have no objection whatsoever to debate or inquiry or sincere concerns brought forward. Neither does the Pope. On the contrary, he consistently solicits all those things.
What I object to is the arrogant and rude rejection of the Pope’s person, his mode, his priorities, and his teaching authority on the part of so many otherwise faithful Catholics, who are acting far worse than armchair quarterbacks. It’s not only that they lack the authority, charism, perspective and experience of the man chosen under grace to sit in Peter’s chair and lead the Church, but in their contumely against him they are neglecting their own urgent moral duties in the Church, which practically begin with reverent receptivity toward the Vicar of Christ.
Anyone who sincerely believes the Pope is teaching heresy is free to say so. Others are free to point out that the opinion is incompatible with Catholic faith and doctrine.
Scott, I enjoy hearing more of your personal story.
Pope Francis’ stress on synodality and his denunciation of clericalism are two of the things I love most about him. His predecessors shared the themes, but he is taking them to a new level in the practical sphere. It’s long overdue, but on the other hand, I don’t think it could have been done well until orthodoxy was first secured from imminent threats by those two intellectual giants. Each Pope builds on the achievements of his predecessors.
I agree with you that a problem stemming from the particular excellences of the JP II and B XVI papacies is that the people of God have become too dependent, too reliant on popes to do the work of the whole Church. We have yet to really take up the call of Vatican II to become agents of Christ’s redemptive mission in the world. We’ve allowed ourselves to be hardly more than passive recipients of papal graces.
But I disagree on the basic moral lesson you draw. It isn’t “put not your trust in popes,” since trust in popes is a central dogma of our faith. It’s more like, don’t treat the Popes and Cardinals like princes and self like a serf. Let the pope be pope, let ourselves be proper protagonists in our own lives and spheres of influence.
I can agree with you here.