Poet, philosopher, actor, priest, Karol Wojtyla re turned to Poland as Pope John Paul II in 1979. Jonathan Kwitny chronicles the journeys and political activity of this first non-Italian Pope for more than four hundred years.
Kwitny's thesis is that John Paul II played a leading role in the fall of communism. While the USA confronted communism with arms, the Polish people, inspired and led by the Pope, confronted and ultimately overthrew the system by force of words and moral authority. On one level, John Paul II accepted the Marxist analysis of society, but rejected its solution. Violence and the submerging of the individual to the grand design of the State is not compatible with Christianity.
It is legitimate to ask whether communism would have collapsed anyway. Did John Paul II give it the final push? The insight into the Polish underground movement is the most fascinating aspect of Kwitny's book. Wojtyla supported an underground press, largely operated out of citizens' homes, using paper stolen from government supplies. Printing presses in the early days were made from scrap metal, but every citizen was involved. By the time the Solidarity trade union was taking on the State, every Polish citizen seemed to be a member.
Cardinal Wyszynski, John Paul II's predecessor, had pursued a campaign of persistent reasonableness against all provocation by the State. During this time, the church was the unifier of the people. The flying university was set up to provide education in political matters, especially in the area of human rights, history, sociology and economics. It was not only supported by Wyszynski, but he gave weekly classes in his cathedral on the theme of Christian socialism.
Each homily, church celebration, feast day became a rallying point for freedom. The words and liturgies had a double meaning, deeply religious yet subversively political. On the feast of Corpus Christi 1976, Wojtyla, as usual, hung a banner across the main altar: it was a quotation from St Paul's letter to the Corinthians: "Your efforts will not be in vain." The abbreviation in Polish for Corinthians is Kor, which also was the abbreviation of the underground movement. The significance was not lost on the congregation.
Why, therefore, did this advocate of political liberation and human rights treat theologians and priests - especially in the less developed countries - with such harshness, when they were also seeking to challenge similar oppressive regimes? Why did John Paul II support the demand for democracy in Poland, and take a different line in Latin America? It is a pity that Kwitny did not explore this difference at greater length; it is left to the reader to draw her own conclusions. Could it be that the Polish Church in fighting tyranny was completely ad idem with itself, whereas the Church in Latin America had two different perspectives, one from the side of the haves and one from the side of the have-nots? John Paul II put great value on unity: the Polish Church up to 1989 was totally unified in its opposition to its political rulers. In Latin America, this task fell to the liberation theologians and their communities. John Paul II told the Polish clergy to stand up for justice, but told the Latin American clergy to mind their manners.
In 1989, the Papacy changed direction. The threat of communism was replaced by the new problem of secularisation - a world that denied God. John Paul II's vision of democracy was gone. Money from the West began to arrive in Poland, and with it came Western demands for how it was to be used. While John Paul's encyclicals castigated the denial of liberty under communism, he also consistently criticised unbridled capitalism. Solidarity with our fellow human beings, justice in international relations and human rights are the main themes of his social encyclicals. His teachings on morality, like his treatment of liberation theology, shows an anxiety to enforce uniformity at all costs.
Poland's successful dismantling of communism was attained in part because of a unified people under a unified church, led by John Paul II. Politically, it was a resounding success. "The Word of God in the Polish situation proved to be sharper than any two-edged sword."
Gina Menzies is a critic