New Era
Hughes, John Jay
Pope's practical witness to his belief in God in Christ helps an unbelieving and half-believing world to look for ultimate meaning beyond itself. This is why the response of the secular world to...
...Only an electorate so constituted could have found the vision and courage to break so dramatically with tradition as they have done, in the second election espe- cially...
...One example: in 1968, during the brief springtime of the Czech revolution, the old patriot Svoboda unleashed an ovation by opening his inaugural address as the nation's President with "Fellow-citizens" in place of the Communist "Comrades...
...The picture would have given Pius XII the vapors...
...Here was a man from a to- talitarian society, lacking the elemental freedoms taken for granted in Western democracies...
...Every condition of social and national life should be arranged in such a way that this right is not violated...
...The church in Poland boasts a vigorous intellectual life and at Lublin ~the only Catholic university in any Communist country...
...Whereas his predecessor took but two days to confirm all top curial officials in their jobs, John Paul II has deferred action on this crucial matter, until he decides whom to retain and whom to replace...
...Peter's, confines himself to the liturgical formalities of the indulgenced blessing urbi et orbi...
...Actually, on the specific war issue that And now they're doing it again...
...First, the assumption that Polish Catholicism is ultra- conservative requires considerable modification...
...Millions of television watchers clear round the globe heard those nearest the new Pope give the response familiar to every Italian child: "Sempre sia iodato"--"May he be praised forever...
...JOHN JAY HUGHES ing to know that we have a Pope who is open to all that is good in the modern world (his important role in drafting the Coun- (A widely published church historian, Father John Jay Hughes cil's Constitution on the Church in the Modern World appears is Adjunct Professor of History at St...
...And the Polish church has developed a program of liturgiI0 November 1978:709 cal preaching, based on scripture and Vatican II, far in advance to have escaped the journalists), but capable when necessary of of anything in this country...
...Cardinal Wojtyla's administrative and diplomatic skills are respected and feared by Communist functionaries in Poland...
...His pontificate was too brief to permit a confident answer...
...delivered, in his rich baritone, a throwaway Nixon and Kissinger...
...As this development reached its idential power by protesting against it...
...I I II Of several minds: Frank Getlein from an administration that couldn't even pull offa third-class burglary and get away with it, THE DEMOCRATIC DUKES the Nixonians proved equally incompetent at waging the war and at getting out of it: Before his death, such a hawk-on-Ho-record as PRINCIPLES FOLLOW THE ELECTION RETURNS Robert F. Kennedy easily repudiated his quite recent past, and any number of Kennedy sur- vivors seem as completely unaware of Ken- nedy involvement in Indochina as they are of I N THE MIDDLE of the Joe Papp production line that ranks with the all-time classics of Kennedy responsibility for the Bay of Pigs...
...This truth of the free- dom of conscience and worship is proclaimed by everyone: from the Second Vatican Council to the Char- ter of Human Rights established by the UN, and even the Helsinki Conference, recognizes that it is the inviolable right of the person...
...Cardinal Karol Wojtyla said in Cracow in 1976: The principle of freedom of conscience and religion must be interpreted completely...
...This greeting, and the simple Italian speech which followed, were unexpected...
...This opportunity will assuredly be lost however, if we do not have the vision and courage to abandon routine and business-as-usual...
...The cardinals have told us they would have elected country, or cardinals anywhere, could make that claim...
...Any doubts on this score which may have lingered at the outset vanished as the Romans heard their bishop ask them to "correct me, if I make mistakes in your--in our--language...
...He has emphasized the primary impor- tance of what is indisputably the Council's most successful document, the Constitution on the Church, calling it "the Magna Carta of the Council...
...While prediction is hazardous, therefore, it is possi- ble to discern even now certain features of the coming pontifi- cate...
...sinners like the rest of us...
...Peter's to witness the Third, progressive Catholics might ask themselves whether church's joy...
...At a musical cres- inspired the Duke's marvelous about-face, now is not the war, but the burden of taxation cendo, the Duke himself appeared, on an the Democrats did exactly what the Duke did...
...And there is no seminary, like his predecessor...
...The new pope A NEW ERA EXORCISING THE DEMONS OF HISTORY "Sia lodato Gesu Cristo"--"Praised be Jesus Christ...
...of "Two Gentlemen from Verona," political cynicism...
...More significant was John Paul IFs immediate and un-equivocal commitment to fuller implementation of Vatican II than we have yet seen...
...Was it fancy that glimpsed behind Whenever in its history the church has identified itself uncriti- them the sinless one, whom the seer of Patmos beheld seated cally with the society in which it has lived, its spiritual mission upon a throne and saying: "Behold, I make all things newi...
...We have learned since Vatican II the dangers of setting our hopes too high...
...People accustomed to total state regimentation develop a sensitivity of ear and eye un- dreamed of in more open societies...
...While waiting to see how far such fears are jus- tified, those who entertain them might benefit from three reflections...
...The breaking of the Italian monopoly on the church's highest office, and the choice of a man young enough to be Pope at the end of this century, made a statement incapable of misinterpretation...
...As you might expect Those fiscal chickens began coming home Commonweal: 710...
...Mean- while George F. Will (Newsweek, October 30) has suggested that in choosing this Cardinal from Poland, the land which as much as any nation is owed compensation for the calamities of modern history, the church has drawn attention to the unity of European culture and underscored the brutality of all attempts to impose Communism on ancient nations...
...management" of the Soviet missile installa- own, new, even higher crescendo, the Duke They had, to be sure, a lot of help from tions in Cuba...
...and independence have been impaired...
...openness...
...Two days after his election he was photographed standing beside his limousine, his hands cupped to his mouth, shouting to the crowd...
...The rousing chorus went, "Bring As they packed up and went home for the Democrats had no trouble at all in doing the 'em home, Bring 'era home, Bring the boys election, the Democrats here and by extension Ducal demarche, in reverse-field running and back home," endlessly repeated on an as- everywhere, gave ample indication that they scoring electoral touchdowns at both sets of cending scale...
...Did the conclave which elected Albino Luciani realize this...
...Yet, it seems to us that the mind of John Paul II may not work that way...
...Popular participation in the liturgy far exceeds that of the vast majority of American parishes and dioceses both in quality and quan- tity...
...History may yet record the choice of Karol Wojtyla as Paul VI's greatest achievement...
...Paul VI changed this by limiting top curial appointments to five years, and decree- ing that they should lapse with the Pope's death.' Justice demands too that Paul VI be given major credit for the election of both his successors...
...His context was Poland, but his philosophical starting point was not the rights of the institutional church but his humanistic understanding of the nature of man: "For it is necessary to respect what is in man...
...How could there be, when the church is passing through its most serious crisis since the sixteenth century...
...With these words, spoken in flawless Italian, the first nonItalian Bishop of Rome in four centuries, and the first Pole in history to occupy the See of Peter, presented himself to the members of his local church, and to the world...
...21, 5...
...Perhaps the biggest question remaining from the brief pon- tificate of John Paul I concerns his ability to master the at- tempts at bureaucratic domination and manipulation that sur- round all people of great power...
...There was no hint of triumphalism, however, in this Pope's words...
...Traditionally the Pope, in his first appearance on the loggia of St...
...An era when the word 'relevant' may regain its proper dignity--signifying not a rock band to sing the post- communion hymn but the religious dimension of human val- ues...
...No such apprehensions ac- company his successor...
...uttering a firm non possumus to contemporary demands in Second, the new Pope's intellectual background is one of conflict with the Gospel...
...Conceivably we may yet see a Pope skiing at Cortina d'Ampezzo, or climbing in the Dolomites...
...Popes, like American Supreme Court justices, have a way of confounding both the hopes and fears that accompany their selection...
...countryman on the central balcony of St...
...As Archbishop of Krakow he nation anywhere which has shown such tenacious loyalty to was de facto Chancellor of the Catholic University of Lublin...
...Already he has demonstrated his indepen- dence...
...The selection of a non-Italian should help diminish the papacy's entanglement in numerous no-win Italian political controversies (which will increasingly be handled by the Ital- ian Bishops' Conference), thus completing the spiritual libera- tion of the papacy which began with the loss of the Papal States over a century ago...
...But this inviolable right must be considered in an inviolable way...
...In the midst of all the euphoria and rejoicing it would be a disservice, however, to conceal the existence of misgivings...
...It is ground for rejoic- (Rev...
...With the new presence of John Paul II--as a man who so combines human qualities and spiritual depth with sophisticated secular vision--we may very well be entering an era in which the line between the religious and the secular may be more a bond than a barrier...
...That little group, and the crowd of cardinals some of their concerns do not reflect too great a willingness to flanking them on the balconies on each side, were fallible allow the secular world to determine the church's agenda...
...But how fitting a man of great intellectual power, fully aware of the church's that a man so eminently suited to be the church's chief pastor in problems, and capable of broadening his knowledge as re-our day should come from a land whose devotion to the church quired by his wider responsibilities...
...This is the first condition of all social life and of all equality between citizens of the same state...
...And he has been equally firm in promising to work to end" the tragedy of division among Christians, this ground for perplexity and possibly even for scandal...
...Prior to Paul's reform of the curia the top officials of the world's oldest functioning bureaucracy held permanent appointments...
...The church's need for vigorous, fresh leadership in a time of crisis had been recognized--and met...
...caused in great part by the war and by the upper platform, dressed to the nines in a sort Having to all intents and purposes started the ever-escalating burden of armaments we of exaggerated Ton-Ton Macoute style, an war against the Indochinese, they then sus- brought upon ourselves as a result of, among enthusiastic participant in the protest against tained themselves in congressional if not pres- other things, our "brilliant...
...Thus, to some commentators, this election is the Vatican's warni~ng to Mos- cow that the church may have been taking a beating on some of its internal and personal problems, but on the major issues, those that define one's turf--like freedom to worship--the church will not be pushed around...
...he is Karol Wojtyla regardless of his nationality...
...With the exception of European Jewry no people in priest at the latter university, and at Lublin (not in a Tridentine our Century has suffered more than the Poles...
...This allowed them to boast that "Popes come and go, but the curia remains forever...
...This time, however, there could be no doubt...
...Times of crisis are always times of tremendous spiritual oppor- tunity...
...In their tonished both Shakespeare and his North Ital- born to Ducal dissent...
...Paris Match (October 27), quoting Cardinal Corrado Ursi before the Conclave, has called the age of John Paul II the hour of decisive confrontation between Christian humanism and materialism...
...A bishop is nothing without his local church...
...Moreover, since all societies grant to foreigners liberties not conceded to natives, this Pope should find it easier than his predecessor to do so...
...But, is it too much to hope that the moral center of the world, in both the religious and secular sense, may once again be Rome...
...As a young man he had heard the Nazi invaders of his country bark their "Heil Hi- tier...
...And the Manchester Guardian Weekly (October 22) has worded that the Conclave has, in this critical hour, reached out "into the gavotte between Church and State" and given us the Vatican's answer, Zbigniew Brzezinski...
...He is more likely to invite the atheist to dialogue than to combat: a dialogue that might uncover the valid obstacles to an atheist's belief and also ask why Marxism has failed to satisfy man's yearning for the absolute...
...For this Pope to have opened his pastoral ministry thus showed a fine sense of the occasion...
...The protest, naturally, was ad- are becoming an entire party of Dukes of goal posts...
...Mindful of the extreme conservatism of Polish Catholicism, Catholics who in the United States call themselves liberal (elsewhere we are termed progressive) fear the new Pope's future decisions, especially with regard to such questions as clerical celibacy, contraception, the ordination of women, and the readmission to the sacraments of invalidly married Catholics...
...The possessor of tWO earned doctorates, one from Finally, what nation more richly deserves church leadership Rome and the other from Krakow, he taught ethics as a young than his...
...13,8...
...And how thrilling to see personally report that he is by temperament more inclined to the doughty Cardinal Wyszynski standing next to his younger criticize the Establishment than to defend it...
...In a pause in the frenzy of To me, at least, there seems little doubt that popularly known as "Two Gents" to dis- homing sentiment, the Duke spoke directly to had Lyndon B. Johnson survived into the tinguish it from other, more conventional the audience, over his shoulder, hand to .9Nixon nightmare, he, too, would have ended double Veronesi, there occurred an anti-mouth, "I sent 'em over, I can bring 'era up denouncing the war as if it were a pecul- Vietnam-war number which would have as- home," and returned to prancing protest as if iarly hideous product of Nixonism...
...In the days following his election the new Pope spoke several times of the cardinals' "act of trust and great courage...
...so that public life will not create privileges from above for some--unbelievers-- and situations of inferiority for others--believers...
...These pledges are solidly supported by a record of collegial leadership at Krakow, and by his demonstrated interest in ecumenismin a country so overwhelmingly Catholic that the scandal of Chris- tian division is easily overlooked...
...A majority of the cardinals entitled to vote were non-Europeans, over a thihl came from Third World countries previously considered to be on the church's periphery...
...Even in a secular age this little dialogue remains part of the fabric of daily life in Italy: exchanged between priests and passersby in the street, between confessor and penitent in the confessional...
...A frequent visitor to the Vatican for years, he is familiar with curial personalities and methods, and fluent in Italian...
...The issue war, the Duke of Milan...
...This is why the response of the secular world to John Paul II has been most impressive, for so many voices outside the "church seem to want him to be a truly "political" pope, not in the sense of the too familiar Vatican diplomacy and intrigue (exemplified in the kind of infighting and maneuvering that allowed his leading Italian contenders for the job to knock one another off), but as a big man in a world short of big men, a spiritual leader who marshalls his moral "divisions" in the name of justice...
...Those who know him has gone largely unrewarded hitherto...
...It is only fair to recall that it was Paul VI who made this possible...
...the church under hardships undreamed of by Catholics in the Already a master of Marxist theory (how many bishops in this West...
...With his opening greeting, the Italian equivalent of "Hail Jesus Christ," the new Pope was at once exorcising the demons of history, and giving hope to oppressed people everywhere by proclaiming him who has outlasted all political messiahs, ideologies, and empires: "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, yes and forever" (Heb...
...He has pledged to expand collegiality, mentioning in this connection the Synod of Bishops, at the last two meetings of which he played a promi- nent role...
...crisis-himself...
...It is against such a background that the new Pope's first Commonweal: 708 words to the world must be heard...
...Clearly the first necessity for this "foreign" Bishop of Rome, therefore, was to show the members of his church that he was truly theirs...
...The significance of the new Pope's greeting, however, transcends its local importance...
...All but four members of the last two conclaves were Paul's creation...
...handling of the war as a political issue, the ian models...
...Now he was standing in the erstwhile imperial city of Rome, where centuries ago the crowds had shouted "Hail Caesar" as Christians, including many Roman bishops, had gone to their deaths in the same arena...
...dressed to the local tyrant responsible for the Milan...
...Louis University...
...If the selection of yet another pious Italian suggested caution and routine, the winning human qualities immediately displayed by Pope John Paul I argued that the cardinals had been more innovative than at first appeared...
...A single word con- tained a declaration of political faith...
Vol. 105 • November 1978 • No. 22
