Looking forward to the past
Hehir, J. Bryan
WORLD WATCH J. Bryan Hehir LOOKING FORWARD TO THE PAST OLD QUESTIONS FOR A NEW EUROPE Writing on international affairs, and particularly on European politics, is risky business in 1990....
...In the 1980s the pope's comments about a united Europe seemed beyond the reach of political reality, particularly since he often stressed the unity of East and West Europe...
...The recent summit, like its predecessors since 1985, was centered on arms control...
...If there is any truth in this judgment, then there was something especially fitting in the fact that it was in 1989 that the Russian leader and the Polish pope finally met...
...The European synod is likely only the first step John Paul has in mind for the new Europe.r the new Europe...
...In the 1990s his conception is the common property of intellectuals, diplomats, and commentators...
...Gorbachev's "European House" (which has the Soviets in it) and from the current U.S...
...Professor George H. Williams, whose exegesis of papal thinking is unparalleled in its scope and depth, concludes that John Paul's conception of Europe is "a third force between the Soviet Union and North America cultural, spiritual, and necessarily military...
...Today's politics offer opportunities which other generations in the cold war only dreamed of...
...Almost a decade before the Berlin Wall was breached, the pope was calling Europeans of East and West to think and act in terms of a European Europe...
...These twin developments in the security and economic spheres put Europe back at the center of international diplomacy, particularly since both the economic and security future of Europe will be worked out in tandem with the process of political unification of Germany...
...The sign of his intentions is the synod of European bishops which he announced during his visit to Czechoslovakia...
...In the 1980s he addressed European unity as a goal to be held up as a possibility...
...The judgment is captured by Timothy Garton Ash, author of The Uses of Adversity: Essays on the Fate of Central Europe (Random House, 1989) and editor of the recent Daedalus volume on Central Europe (Winter 1990...
...The "old questions" of Europe are being addressed again as the "new Europe" takes shape...
...it has profound cultural, spiritual, and moral dimensions...
...The papal role in Eastern Europe is universally recognized...
...Ash describes the pope's first visit to Poland (1979) as the beginning of the end of Communist rule in Eastern Europe: "The pope's visit was followed just over a year later by the birth of Solidarity, and without the pope's visit it is doubtful there would have been a Solidarity...
...That task is an imperative which should not be cavalierly described as yesterday's business...
...Writing just before the summit in the New York Times, Thomas Friedman reported the comment of one diplomat that arms control is "yesterday's issue...
...at the outset of the 1990s all three promise fundamental developments in the next ten years...
...In the 1990s he is clearly ready to lead the church as a participant in the construction of a new Europe...
...Only these two states can move to cut and contain the nuclear danger in the world...
...There is no question that political changes within the Soviet Union and between the superpowers have reduced the daily danger of the relationship...
...Change in superpower relations generates change in European politics...
...The events which we are witnessing show that this goal can actually be reached...
...The June superpower summit will be followed by a July NATO summit, where the identity, purpose, and structure of the alliance will come under review...
...This process is not and cannot be only a political and economic event...
...Superpower relations are highlighted by summitry...
...But improved political relations have not, as yet, reduced the stock of twenty-four thousand strategic nuclear weapons possessed by the superpowers...
...The new Europe's evolution has been profoundly influenced by an ancient voice of European history the papacy in the person of John Paul U. There is a consensus among analysts about the role of the pope in Eastern Europe...
...What is less noticed in secular commentary is the perspective of John Paul II on the future of Europe...
...Well yes and no...
...in this sense nuclear weapons do not loom as large...
...Neither computers, television, nor FAX technology are insurance against one's best predictions being overtaken by events...
...While the subject-matter of the synod is yet to be determined, the animating vision was perhaps already stated in one of the pope's addresses in Czechoslovakia: "A united Europe is no longer a dream: It is not a Utopian memory from the Middle Ages...
...The European states undertake this review of their security status while simultaneously moving forward with economic integration in a fashion which points toward political change after 1992...
...focus on NATO...
...Without trying to spell out Williams's view of a "third force," it is clear that the papal perspective is distinctive different from Mr...
...The papal conception certainly entails a Europe relating to the superpowers, but it affirms a European independence which has a Gaullist character to its scope and status in the world...
...The major themes of postwar European political life have been simultaneously in flux: superpower relations, political and economic integration, and the German question...
...The pope's addresses for a decade have stressed the historical, cultural, and religious foundations of European unity a preparation for the political and economic integration which would allow Europe to assume again a major diplomatic role in the world...
...In their very different ways, they both started it...
...At the beginning of the 1980s, all three bore the somewhat depressing stability the cold war had imposed upon them...
Vol. 117 • June 1990 • No. 12
