John Paul II, The Great Restorer
Leonardo Boff
Inter Press Service, El Mundo
04/04/05

John Paul II's pontificate has been long and complex. We can only do it justice by considering it within the wide scope of themes that for a long time have concerned the Church.

What is the fundamental characteristic of this papacy? The restoration of and the return to great discipline. John Paul II did not characterize himself as a reformer, but as a counter-reformer. He stood for the attempt to stop the process of modernization that erupted in the Church in the '60s, and which was of interest to all Christendom. This way he delayed the settling of scores the Church has undertaken with regard to two grave problems that have tormented her for four centuries now.

The first is linked to the birth of other churches as a result of the Protestant Reformation of the XVI century, that fractured the unity of the Roman Catholic Church and forced her to tolerate other Christian denominations she considered as schismatic and heretical.

The second great question comes out from the modernity of the lights (Enlightenment), with the insurgency of reason, of techno-science, of civil liberties and democracy. This new culture questioned the revelation of which the Church considers herself the exclusive carrier, and denounced the way in which the Church is institutionally organized: as an absolutist spiritual monarchy, in contradiction with democracy and the status of human rights.

With regard to the evangelical (Protestant) churches, the strategy of the Vatican is to re-convert, with the goal of restoring the ancient ecclesiastical unity under the authority of the Pope.

The relationship towards modern society was one of criticism and condemnation of its emancipatory and secularizing project, seeking to recreate the cultural unity under the aegis of moral Christian values.

Both strategies failed. Other churches grew and became established in every continent. Modern society, with its liberties, its science and technology became the paradigm for the whole world. The Catholic Church saw itself being transformed into a bulwark of religious conservatism and political authoritarianism.

It was the work of the good sense and daring of a Pope, John XXIII, the convocation of an Ecumenical Council to courageously face those two unresolved questions.

In fact, Vatican Council II (1962-65) adopted as a motto, "No more anathema, but understanding; No more condemnation, but dialogue." It began the ecumenical dialogue with other churches, which presupposes acceptance of the existence of other churches. As to the modern world, reconciliation was proposed in the areas of work, science, technology, liberties and religious tolerance.

But there still remained a third settling of the scores: with the poor, who are the great majority of humanity. The Latin American Church must be credited with reminding us that there is not just one developed modern world, but also a world underdeveloped, which raises an uncomfortable question: How to announce God as Father in a world of wretched human beings? It only makes sense to talk of God as a Father if we are capable of helping the poor escape from misery, if we convert this reality from an evil one into a good reality.

This is precisely what more dynamic sectors in Latin America did, encouraged by prophets like Dom Helder Camara. The motto was, "Option for the poor and against poverty."

The change of direction encouraged many Christians to join social movements of liberation and even the armed struggle, while many bishops and cardinals took on important roles in the struggle against military dictatorships and in defense of human rights, primarily understood as the rights of the poor.

John Paul II was elected Pope when this process was going on. His Pontificate was set from the start against these then dominant tendencies. Evidently, important factors in defining his position were his Polish origin and circles of the Roman Curia, marginalized but not defeated by Vatican Council II. In Rome, the new Pope found that the Vatican bureaucracy, conservative by nature, was of the same mindset as he. Thus, a historic Pope-Curia power block was established with the goal of imposing the restoration of the old identity and discipline.

The personal qualities of John Paul II managed to realize that project in the best way, thanks to his charismatic figure, his undeniable magnetism, and his ability to make sweeping, dramatic gestures.

To carry out his restoration design, he created adequate instruments. He rewrote canon law to cover the entire life of the Church, he published The Universal Catechism of the Catholic Church, and with that he made official within the Church a single way of thinking. He took away the power to decide from the Synod of Bishops, totally subjecting them to papal power, and limited the power of the continental conferences of bishops and of the national episcopal conferences as well, of religious conferences at the national and international levels. He marginalized the power of participation and decision of the laity, and denied full ecclesiastic citizenship to women, relegating them to secondary functions, always far from the altar and from the pulpit.

With his principal advisor, cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Pope had an Augustinian vision of history, to which the only thing that really matter is what happens through the mediation of the Church, the bearer of supernatural salvation. According to this vision, what happens through mediation of men and of history does not reach divine altitude and is not enough before God.

This vision brought him to a fundamental inability to understand Latin American liberation theology, which affirms that liberation must be the work of the poor themselves. The Church is only an ally that strengthens and legitimates the struggles of the poor. To Cardinal Ratzinger, this liberation is merely human and thus lacks supernatural relevance.

It is important to emphasize that the Pope had a short and simplistic vision of this type of theology, that he interpreted it through the logic of its detractors and, as now we know, started with reports the CIA provided to the Church, particularly about the influence of liberation theologians on Central America. The Church saw liberation theology as Marxism's Trojan Horse, which the Pope was obliged to denounce, due to his experience with communism in his natal Poland. He convinced himself that Marxism was the danger in Latin America, when the true danger has always been savage and colonialist capitalism with its unpopular and reactionary elites.

In John Paul II it was the religious mission of the Church, not its social mission, that prevailed. If he had said, «let's support the poor and commit the Church to reforms in the name of the Gospels and of prophetic tradition», Latin America's political destiny could have been very different.

To the contrary, he organized the conservative restoration thoughout the continent: he removed prophetic bishops and appointed bishops distanced from the life of the people, closed theological institutions and sanctioned their teachers.

There was a great contradiction between the Pope's actions and his teachings. On the outside, he appeared as a champion of dialogue, of freedom, of tolerance, peace and ecumenism; he asked for forgiveness several times for errors and ecclesiastical condemnations of the past; he joined with leaders of other religions to pray, together, for world peace. But within the Church he silenced the right to expression, forbade dialogue and produced a theology with a strong fundamentalist flavor.

The political-ecclesiastical project assumed by the Pope did not solve its problems with respect to the Reformation, modernity and poverty. Instead, it worsened them, delaying a true settling of the scores.

The limitations of his style of government of the Church did not preclude John Paul II from reaching personal sainthood to an eminent degree. So it was, in the framework of a religion «in the old style» with great devotion to the saints and especially to Our Lady, to relics and to places of pilgrimage. He was a man of profound prayer. When praying, he would be transfigured, and become pale; some times he would moan and shed tears. Once he was surprised in his private chapel lying on the floor in the form of the cross, as in ecstasy, very much like the illuminated Spaniards of the XVI century.

Who has the last word? History and God. We only can have access to history, that will tell us what was his real significance for Christianity and for the world in these times of change of paradigms, and of the dawning of the new millennium.

Leonardo Boff,
Liberation Theologian

Free translation from the Spanish sent by
walterlx@earthlink.net, from El Mundo; done at
REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas.
Some minor alterations by Bob H, Call To Action
www.cta-usa.org (773) 404-0004 877/CTA=HOPE