. . . and the Soviets

...In the Third World and Latin America, where close to half of the world's 700 million Catholics live, a progressive "outsider" pope is likely to strengthen the resolve of clergy committed to significant social reform...

...In any case, socially active Latin American, African, and Asian priests will probably pressure John Paul II to play a large role in resolving the problems of their continents...

...Moreover, he may help bring about a rapprochement between radical regimes and their respective churches and in this manner point to a religiously sanctioned, and therefore all the more powerful, way of implementing revolutionary change...

...At the young age of 58 Pope John Paul II can very possibly pose an effective challenge to the Soviets on social, economic, and spiritual questions both in the Eastern bloc and in the Third World...

...and the Soviets WHEN a "worker cardinal," as Catholics in Poland refer to the former Archbishop of Krakow, becomes pope, this means much more than the breaking of a 450-year-old tradition of only Italians serving in that office...

...That this may produce significant changes in the balance of East-West and North-South relations and result in concrete gains for democratic forces committed to social reform is obvious...

...he is also, and far more importantly, a Pole and a Slav whose experience with Communism has made him "very sensitive to problems of workers," as Zbigniew Brzezinski put it...

...What is more, the Ukrainian- and Russian-speaking John Paul II must be familiar with the problems of the Soviet Union's estimated 10 million Catholics...

...His selection raises fundamental political questions and may have profound implications for both North-South and East-West relations...

...The vigorous exiled head of the Uniate Church, Josef Cardinal Slipyj, can be counted on to raise this issue with the new pope...

...For Karol Cardinal Wojtyla is not only a non-Italian...

...It may also be argued that what the Soviet Union fears most is a struggle not with the ideologists of the capitalist West who can be outflanked on their insensitivity to social questions, but rather with committed defenders of democratic and social rights who are firmly opposed to totalitarianism of all kinds...

...Alexander Motyl has written on Eastern Europe and Eurocommunism for Dissent, Slavic Review and the Toronto Globe and Mail...

...For the Soviets the selection of a Pole is particularly destabilizing because it raises feelings of national pride and independence among his unruly countrymen, strengthens the church in Poland as well as in all of Eastern Europe, and is certain to boost opposition to Russian dominance in all parts of the Soviet bloc...

...It is not at all unlikely that he may raise the question of the several million Ukrainian Catholic Uniates, whose church was forced underground after being declared illegal by the Soviets in 1947...

...Nor will the Soviets draw comfort from the fact that the Polish cardinal has been quoted as saying that "national and human rights are inseparable"—a statement that is especially of relevance to the Soviet Union, where more than half the population consists of dissatisfied non-Russian nationalities...

...ADRIAN KARATNYCKY & ALEXANDER MOTYL (Adrian Karatnycky is at work on a study of the ideological currents in the Soviet opposition to be published by Basic Books...

...It is in the Soviet bloc, however, that the selection of a progressive Polish pope will have the greatest resonance...