POPE JOHN PAUL II
25 Years
SPECIAL REPORT
Vol. XV
No. 10
November 2003
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Milestones of a Mission
by Lorenzo Carraro
1. The point of departure is his Polish nationality: after more than 400 years of Italian popes, he is the first from Eastern Europe, and from the Communist bloc. The Pope always considered Communism a mere passing cloud and the united destiny of Western and Eastern Europe the real issue. He defined West and East as the two lungs that enable Europe to breathe, and ever since a united Europe became a reality, he has kept powerfully pointing to Europe’s Christian roots.
2. When we turn our attention to the great drama of our time, the fall of Communism, we unlock the remarkable hidden history of John Paul II as one of the dominant figures of the twentieth century. He became the inspiration and protector of Solidarity, a workers’ movement in the heart of the Communist world, and contributed to keeping Solidarity alive underground after Moscow seemed to have succeeded in crushing it.
Exactly what part the Polish Pope played in bringing about the collapse of the Soviet empire with hardly a shot fired - contrary to the predictions of all observers - will be variously estimated by historians. Yet “everything that happened in Eastern Europe would have been impossible without the presence of this Pope,” Mikhail Gorbachev has written. “How many divisions has the Pope?” Stalin once asked contemptuously. Yet in the end it was Pope John Paul II who held the key to the destruction of the Soviet empire.
3. From the beginning of his pontificate in 1978, Pope John Paul understood that his commission from the Lord was to lead the Church into the new millennium. It is said that the Polish primate, Cardinal Wyszinski, told the Pope immediately after his election that this was his task. Since his first encyclical letter, Redemtor Hominis, in the spring of 1979, the Pope has been asking, “What should we do in order that this new advent of the Church, the end of the second millennium, may bring us closer to God, the Everlasting Father?” He wrote then that only one answer possible is that: “Our spirit is set in one direction, towards Christ, the redeemer of man”.
4. At the beginning of the Great Jubilee Year 2000, the Pope proposed the theme of martyrdom and pointed out that the 20th century was the century of martyrs: people killed not only in the name of Christ but because of their defense of human dignity, in the name of charity and justice. The Pope has proclaimed saints scores of martyrs: martyrdom thus became not a thing of the past but a treasure of the present for the whole Christian community.
It is as if the most basic ecumenism were that of the different Christians who spilt their blood in one of the most violent eras of the history of humanity. The Pope writes in Ut unum sint: “The courageous witness of so many martyrs of our times who belong to the different Christian denominations constitutes as it were the vanguard of the ecumenical movement. From the places of their martyrdom, they exhort Christians to speed up the journey towards unity. We can say that they are the prophets of unity: their blood seals the Lord’s appeal for unity. Their blood is not only the seed of new Christians, but also the seed of unity”.
5. One of the signs of the Great Jubilee Year that captured the imagination of the media and of non-Catholics was the purification of memories: the Pope asking forgiveness for the sins and mistakes of the Church committed throughout the past millennia and especially during the last century.
The Pope inserted a written prayer of forgiveness into one of the cracks in the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. He pronounced a prayer of forgiveness in the synagogue of Yad Vashem, the place dedicated to the memory of the Holocaust. These are not improvised gestures, but the mature fruit of the spirit of Vatican II, and one of the most interesting aspects of his entire pontificate, with a prophetic value: the purification of the historical memory opens the Church to the future.
6. The most recent milestone is the Pope’s commitment for peace. Facing the threat of violence triggered by the black cloud of terrorism, John Paul II has embraced the cause of peace with stubborn determination. His absolute condemnation of war put the Holy See at the front line of the vast worldwide pacifist movement opposing the American war in Iraq.
John Paul II called the Meeting in Assisi that had such remarkable prophetic value in October 1986. Again at Assisi, on January 24, 2002, the leaders of most of the world’s major faiths carried lighted oil lamps signifying their hopes for global peace, as they joined Pope John Paul II at a ceremony marking the World Day of Prayer.
Together with the Pope, clerics of faiths ranging from Christianity to Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and traditional African religions called for an end to all war, terror and violence. “Violence never again! War never again! Terrorism never again!” urged the Pope, who had invited the religious leaders to the birthplace of St. Francis to pray for peace, following the September 11 terrorist attack on the United States.
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Missionary Heart
The young Churches are the Pope’s constant concern and he has given the guidelines for the missionary perspective of the Church in the third millennium.
The evangelization of the young Churches is a constant concern for the Holy Father. We can see this not only in his numerous and tiring apostolic journeys, but also in the his detailed knowledge of the 1080 dioceses of the missionary world. It is not unusual for his collaborators to hear the Pope ask out of the blue: “Have the people of Ouahigouya managed to finish their cathedral?” or: “How many priests were ordained in Port Moresby?”
Out of 102 trips outside the Vatican, 42 were to mission territories. From 1978 up to now millions of faithful of the young Churches as well as catechumens have had the chance of seeing the Pope and with them millions of non-Christians as well. His visitations are a blessing: “He puts fresh heart into the disciples, encouraging them to persevere in the faith”(Acts 14:22).
John Paul II is the first missionary of the Church. In his words and action we can sense the same passion that animated San Peter, the fisherman from Bethsaida, when the Holy Spirit sent him to the house of Cornelius: “The truth I have now come to realize is that God doesn’t have favorites, but that anybody of any nationality who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to him”(Acts 10:35).
The Pope has dedicated to mission some of the most profound of his reflections about the future of the Church. His letter Redemporis Missio is considered the Magna Carta of the Church’s missionary strategy in the Third Millennium. According to the Pope, the Church has to start afresh from Mission. After 2000 years, the mission of the Church is still, as it were, at its beginning. In Asia, where more than 60% of the world population lives, the Catholics represent only 2.6 %.
In the last decades the missionary enthusiasm of the Christian community has declined: the crises that hit the Church after Vatican II, the exposure to a pluralistic world; even ecumenism: everything has contributed to the weakening of the missionary drive of the Catholic Church.
John Paul II wants to steer the course back to the deep sea: Duc in altum! Put out into the deep! He is only pointing to the new demands that come from the changed circumstances: inculturation of the faith to avoid the accusation of spiritual colonialism; formation of the leaders, not only the clergy, but the laity, so that the Christian message may become the leaven of tomorrow’s society; and dialogue.
Inculturation and Dialogue
The two most challenging demands of mission are certainly inculturation and dialogue. John Paul II writes about inculturation in Fides et Ratio: “Today, as the Gospel gradually comes into contact with cultural worlds which once lay beyond Christian influence, there are new tasks of inculturation, which mean that our generation faces problems not unlike those faced by the Church in the first centuries.
“My thoughts turn immediately to the lands of the East, so rich in religious and philosophical traditions of great antiquity… A great spiritual impulse leads Indian thought to seek an experience that would liberate the spirit from the shackles of time and space and would therefore acquire absolute value. The dynamic of this quest for liberation provide the context for great metaphysical systems”.
And especially, inter-faith dialogue. Dialogue should be the style within the understanding of the Church as communion; and it is the heart of the ecumenical relationship between Christians. According to what has emerged, especially during the last decade, dialogue is an absolute necessity in the contact between different religions and with people belonging to none. With John Paul II, the Catholic Church has become the stander-bearer of dialogue as the strategy of peaceful coexistence within the pluralistic society of the Third Millennium.
These are the old and new challenges that the Pope has guided us to face with courage but also with serenity, because, after all, the protagonist of mission is the Holy Spirit.<WM
Fr. Lorenzo Carraro MCCJ
Copyright©2003 World Mission
Magazine
A Missionary Pope
John Paul II is a protagonist. While keeping the Church on a steady course, he has performed some of the most original and forward-looking gestures in connection with the great challenges of our time: ecumenism, dialogue between religions, commitment to peace, even geo-politics. His impact not only on the history of the Church but also the world will only be properly assessed in the future.
A Record Pontificate
John Paul II is the 263rd successor of St Peter. His pontificate is becoming one of the three longest in the history of the Church. On October 16 he completed a quarter of a century as Pope. In just five months he will overtake Pope Leo XIII, who died exactly 100 years ago after a pontificate of 25 years and 5 months.
This exceptionally long pontificate has broken many records: for example, 103 journeys outside the Vatican so far, totaling more than one million kilometers (equal to 29 times around the world).
John Paul himself has confessed: “Since my election as Bishop of Rome, Jesus’ command to go to the whole world and preach the Gospel to all creatures has resounded within me with particular intensity and urgency. I thank the Father who has allowed me to meet the men and women of my time in their places of life and work, to tell them that God loves them, the Church loves them and the Pope loves them.”
During his long pontificate, the Pope has seen the number of Catholics worldwide swell from 750 million to 1.1 billion, a 42 percent overall increase. He has nominated more than 1000 new bishops, bringing their number worldwide close to 5000.
John Paul II has broken all records in making so many new saints: he has proclaimed more than 1300 men and women blessed and almost 500 saints. Certainly one of the most striking moments of his pontificate was Mother Teresa of Calcutta’s beatification. He did not fear to bend some of the rules to respond to the universal popular demand for the Albanian nun to be recognized publicly as a saint. John Paul II also made a saint of Daniel Comboni.
No more war!
Pope John Paul at the Angelus on March 16, 2003
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