The postulator of the cause for Romero’s beatification, Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, disagrees with Read’s assessment. Archbishop Romero, he argues, “was not without defects,” but Paglia and others who have worked on the cause are “completely agreed” that Romero died a martyr who was not killed simply for political motives. Monsignor Paglia also asserts that Father Sobrino “exploited” his relationship with Romero after the archbishop’s murder in order to put pressure on Archbishop Obando in Nicaragua. [Author’s interview with Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, December 9, 1998. See also the “Informatio” submitted to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on the question of Romero as a martyr, Congregation protocol number 1913.]
39.See OR [EWE], March 31, 1980, p. 1.
40.Letter to the author from Ambassador Deane R. Hinton, January 25, 1998.
41.Obando summed up his case against the regime in 1997:
We wanted a revolution that would be good for the people of Nicaragua, but we could see that the revolution was heading another way. Instead of advancing the interests of the people of Nicaragua, progress was reversed… [as] they [Sandinistas] continued to violate the human rights of our people. A lot of innocent people were arrested, Catholic radio was closed for a year, homilies were censored; sometimes even the texts of Sacred Scripture were censored. In just one day, ten priests were taken out of Managua. The Sandinistas also militarily occupied our publishing house in Managua. [Author’s interview with Cardinal Miguel Obando Bravo, SDB, November 24, 1997.]
The relationship between Archbishop Obando and the Sandinistas had deteriorated quickly after the ouster of Anastasio Somoza in July 1979. By the end of that month, the archbishop had issued a pastoral letter urging the new regime to restore freedom of expression and protesting that the Nicaraguan people were being “compelled to forget their primary respect for life and human values.” Two years later, after meeting John Paul II in Rome, Archbishop Obando publicly accused the regime of becoming Marxist; Nicaraguan state television “promptly pulled the archbishop’s Sunday Mass off the air.” Several days later, the regime shut down the independent newspaper, La Prensa, for two days, “for failing to tell the truth” about relations between the Church and the Sandinista government. [Citations from Robert Kagan, A Twilight Struggle: American Power in Nicaragua, 1977–1990 (New York: Free Press, 1995), pp. 117, 183.]
In light of this pattern of hostility toward the Church, the support for the Sandinista regime by North American Catholics looms as one of the most curious features of the Catholic 1980s. The United States Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the Catholic bishops of the United States, consistently took a soothing line in its congressional testimony on Nicaragua. But this was mild compared to the support the Nicaraguan regime enjoyed among American Catholic intellectuals and political activists. Readers of America, the Jesuit weekly, found praise of the Sandinista neighborhood “defense committees” (which enforced ideological and political orthodoxy through an elaborate spying system and the control of food-ration cards) and were informed that the Sandinista Front was a “flexible” political organization motivated by a “humanistic ethic.” Ernesto Cardenal’s claim that “there need be no separation between Christianity and communism” was reported without demur. America even had room for the argument that Sandinista Nicaragua would eventually evolve into “a far more democratic system than we have in the United States.” [See James Brockman, SJ, “Nicaragua in January,” America, February 24, 1979, p. 138; Chris Gjording, SJ, “Nicaragua’s Unfinished Revolution,” America, October 6, 1979, p. 168; Tennent C. Wright, SJ, “Ernesto Cardenal and the Humane Revolution in Nicaragua,” America, December 15, 1979, 388; Arthur McGovern, “Nicaragua’s Revolution: A Progress Report,” America, December 21, 1981, p. 378.]
The prominence of Jesuits in what was often uncritical adulation for a Marxist regime should be kept in mind in assessing John Paul II’s intervention in the governance of the Society of Jesus in October 1981.
42.Author’s interview with Archbishop Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, November 28, 1997.
43.Author’s interview with Cardinal Miguel Obando Bravo, SDB, November 24, 1997.
44.Author’s interview with Archbishop Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, November 28, 1997.
45.Author’s interview with Roberto Tucci, SJ, September 25, 1997.
46.Author’s interview with Archbishop Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, November 28, 1997.
47.Ibid.
48.See Humberto Belli, Nicaragua: Christians Under Fire (San José, Costa Rica: Instituto Puebla, 1984).
49.See ibid.
50.The Sandinista supporters in front of the altar included the mothers of seventeen Sandinista troops killed by the anti-regime “contras.” The Sandinista excuse for the preplanned mob agitation during the Pope’s sermon was that the crowd had been righteously indignant when the Pope did not condemn the “contras.”
51.Author’s interview with Roberto Tucci, SJ, September 25, 1997.
52.Author’s interview with Cardinal Miguel Obando Bravo, SDB, November 24, 1997.
53.Author’s interview with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, January 18, 1997.
54.In Man of the Century, Jonathan Kwitny, picking up a speculation widely bruited by others before him, suggests that there was a second instruction on liberation theology because John Paul II was displeased with the Instruction on Certain Aspects of the Theology of Liberation. Cardinal Ratzinger flatly denied this in interviews on January 18 and September 20, 1997, noting the essential continuity between the two instructions and the teaching of the Pope at Puebla in 1979 and in Peru in February 1985. At no point in this process, the cardinal said, had the Pope expressed any displeasure that the first instruction had not worked as he had hoped.
Kwitny’s suggestion that Cardinal Roger Etchegaray produced the basic draft of a “corrective” second instruction on the Pope’s instructions is not persuasive. In the development of texts of this sort, drafts from various quarters are solicited by, or independently sent to, the office finally responsible for writing the document in question. Kwitny also suggests that the theory which holds that economic factors are dominant in history is “the essence of Marxist analysis” and that John Paul could not have been all that critical of the use of this “Marxist analysis” in liberation theology because he had adopted this view of history in his Catholic Social Ethics text in 1953—a text that, as previously discussed, hardly reflects John Paul II’s developed social-political views. Moreover, Kwitny seriously misreads both Marxism and John Paul II. The “essence of Marxist analysis” involves far more than economics as a history-shaping force; it includes, for example, class conflict as the chief dynamic of historical change, a view which Karol Wojtyła has always rejected, and could not possibly accept as a Christian. The Pope’s 1980 UNESCO speech, with its intense stress on culture as the most powerful force in the human world, was a powerful critique of any “economy first” theory of history. [See Man of the Century, pp. 514–518 and the relevant endnotes.]
55.See Instruction on Certain Aspects of the Theology of Liberation, X, 5.
56.Ibid., IV, 14–15.
57.Ibid., VIII, 9.
58.Ibid., VIII, 4, 9.
59.Ibid., VIII, 7.
60.Ibid., IX, 10.
61.Ibid, IX, 12.
62.Ibid., X, 12.
63.Ibid., X, 16.
64.Ibid., XI, 17.
65.Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation, 3.
66.Ibid., 5.
67.Ibid., 14, 44.
68.Ibid., 38.
69.Ibid., 89.
70.Ibid., 68.
71.Ibid., 95,
72.Author’s interview with Janusz Onyszkiewicz, June 10, 1991.
73.See Michael Kaufman, Mad Dreams, Saving Graces—Poland: A Nation in Conspiracy (New York: Random House, 1989), p. 5.
74.The “Square of the Defense of the Paris Commune” reverted to its pre-communist name after 1989: “Woodrow Wilson Square.”
76.The young priest’s most quoted sermon summed up his challenge:
Let us put the truth, like a light, on a candlestick, let us make life in truth shine out, if we do not want our consciences to putrefy…. Let us not sell our ideals for a mess of pottage. Let us not sellour ideals by selling our brothers. It depends on our concern for our innocently imprisoned brothers, on our life in truth, how soon that time comes when we shall share our daily bread again in solidarity and love. At this time, when we need so much strength to regain and uphold our freedom, let us pray to God to fill us with the power of His Spirit, to awaken the spirit of true solidarity in our hearts. [Cited in Grazyna Sikorska, A Martyr for the Truth: Jerzy Popiełuszko (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), p. 59.]
77.Antonin Lewek, “New Sanctuary of Poles: The Grave of Martyr-Father Jerzy Popiełuszko” (Warsaw, 1986), pamphlet from St. Stanisław Kostka Church, Warsaw; Father Lewek was a friend and colleague of Father Popiełuszko.
78.Kaufman, Mad Dreams, Saving Graces, p. 141.
79.See ibid., p. 138.
80.See “Pope’s Mass for the 600th Anniversary of Our Lady of Jasna Góra,” OR [EWE], September 6, 1982, pp. 1, 2. John Paul celebrated Mass on the anniversary date, August 26, in the chapel as Castel Gandolfo, beneath the reproduction of the Black Madonna given to Pius XI by the Polish episcopate.
81.Author’s interview with Roberto Tucci, SJ, September 25, 1997. In 1982, the regime’s internal security apparatus had drafted a memo on “dangers to be anticipated in the event of a visit by the Pope to Poland in August 1982,” which spoke of “three hundred fifty terrorist groups” and the “widespread possession of arms munitions, and high explosive”—all part of the continuing smear campaign against Solidarity. The charges of CIA provocations should be understood in the same vein. [See Wałęsa, A Way of Hope, p. 275.]
82.See Timothy Garton Ash, “The Pope in Poland,” in The Uses of Adversity: Essays on the Fate of Central Europe (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), p. 50.
83.Cited in ibid., p. 48.
84.See ibid., p. 48.
85.Cited in ibid., pp. 48–49, 51. As Garton Ash points out, John Paul “effortlessly” expropriated the word odnowa [renewal] from the calcified communist vocabulary, and set it in a true moral context.
86.Author’s interview with Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, October 24, 1996.
87.Author’s interview with Joaquín Navarro-Valls, March 20, 1997.
88.Garton Ash, “The Pope in Poland,” p. 53.
89.See ibid., pp. 57–58.
90.Cited in ibid., p. 58.
91.Ibid.
92.For a more detailed analysis of TCOP and the impact on it of the Vatican consultation, see my Tranquillitas Ordinis: The Present Failure and Future Promise of American Catholic Thought on War and Peace (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 257–285. Information on the Vatican consultation is from the author’s interview with Archbishop Jan Schotte, CICM, May 10, 1991.
93.Letter to the author from Cardinal John J. O’Connor, October 17, 1997.
94.The meeting with Arafat, which caused great controversy in the world Jewish community, had taken place the previous fall, on September 15, 1992.
95.Details on the origins of the IWM and the first Castel Gandolfo seminar are from the author’s interview with Father Józef Tischner, April 23, 1997.
96.Ibid.
97.On the Pontifical Council for Culture, see John Paul II’s letter to Cardinal Casaroli of May 20, 1982, assigning the Secretary of State the responsibility for its organization. [OR (EWE), June 28, 1982, p. 7.]
98.Author’s interview with Vincent O’Keefe, SJ, September 16, 1997.
99.“John Paul II’s Address to the Jesuit Provincials,” OR [EWE], March 15, 1982, pp. 10–12, 20.
100.See, for example, Walsh, John Paul II, p. 104. Father Vincent O’Keefe confirmed that this was a widespread reaction to the address, and that when news of this got back to the Vatican, it “caused problems” when the time came to get final approval for General Congregation 33. “But we got over it.” [Author’s interview with Vincent O’Keefe, SJ, September 16, 1997.]
101.“Pope’s Address to the Thirty-third General Congregation of the Jesuits,” OR [EWE], September 12, 1983, pp. 6, 8.
102.Author’s interview with Giuseppe Pittau, SJ, December 17, 1997. On July 11, 1998, John Paul II named Father Pittau titular archbishop of Castro di Sardegna and Secretary (the second-ranking position) of the Congregation for Catholic Education. Prior to this appointment, Pittau had been rector of the Pontifical Gregorian University.
103.Author’s interview with Roberto Tucci, SJ, September 25, 1997.
104.Ibid.
105.Total membership in the Society was 22,227 in 1996, down from 34,687 in 1960. [See “Public Square,” First Things 75 (August/September 1997), p. 85.]
106.See John Paul II, Tertio Millennio Adveniente, 10.
107.See John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, 1.1.
108.Pilgrims who visit each basilica, pray for the intentions of the Pope, confess their sins, do appropriate penance, and receive Holy Communion are granted a plenary indulgence: a complete pardon from the enduring effects of sin, which, according to Catholic doctrine, require purification in Purgatory in order to make the deceased Christian capable of communion with God and the saints in heaven. [See Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1471–1479.]
109.John Paul II, “Homily on the Inauguration of the Holy Year of the Redemption,” OR [EWE], March 28, 1983, pp. 1, 12.
110.E. M. Jung-Inglessis, The Holy Year in Rome: Past and Present (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1977), p. 296.
111.At the same time, a Joint Roman Catholic Theological Commission, appointed by the Secretariat for Christian Unity and the Lutheran World Federation, completed ten years of work under the co-chairmanship of Bishop Hans Martensen of Copenhagen and Professor George Lindbeck of the Yale Divinity School. The Joint Commission published a common statement, “Martin Luther—Witness to Jesus Christ,” which noted that both communions had achieved “a lessening of outdated, polemically colored images of Luther” who could be “honored in common as a witness to the gospel, a teacher in the faith, and a herald of spiritual renewal.”
112.John Paul’s letter to Cardinal Willebrands, “Martin Luther—Witness to Jesus Christ,” and Cardinal Willebrands’s Leipzig address: Secretariat for Christian Unity Information Service #52 (1983/II), pp. 83–92.
113.Jung-Inglessis, The Holy Year in Rome, pp. 297, 299.
114.See OR [EWE], January 16, 1984, p. 1.
115.See OR [EWE], February 26, 1984, p. 6.
116.Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, which was signed on December 2, 1984, was the first of these Synod-inspired documents to be styled explicitly a “Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation.” In his introduction, John Paul stressed that “the contents of these pages come from the Synod,” including its working papers, its general debates and small group discussions, and the propositions adopted by the Synod Fathers. [Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, 4.13, in Miller, Exhortations.] At the same time, the Pope wove the Synod-generated material together in a distinctively personal framework.
117.Ibid., 7.7.
118.Ibid., 8.5.
119.See ibid., 13.1, 13.2, 15.4.
120.See ibid., 16.1.
121.See ibid., 17.8–17.17.
122.Ibid., 33.3, 29.3.
123.Ibid., 33.3.
124.Author’s interview with Monsignor Andrzej Bardecki, July 11, 1996. Monsignor Bardecki had break-fast with the Pope the morning after the meeting with Agca, and asked whether the Turk had made a confession. John Paul replied, “No, it wasn’t that,” and recounted the story of Agca’s Fatima obsession. Bardecki later published an account of his breakfast conversation with John Paul in Tygodnik Powszechny; the Pope saw it and didn’t object to Bardecki’s rendering of their discussion.
125.John Paul II, Salvifici Doloris, 3, 2.
12
6.Ibid., 7.
127.Ibid., 12.
128.Ibid., 18.
129.Ibid., 14.
130.Ibid., 14, 15.
131.See ibid., 26.
132.See OR [EWE], January 16, 1984, p. 2.
133.See OR [EWE], January 30, 1984, pp. 6–8.
134.See Walsh, John Paul II, p. 132.
135.See OR [EWE], March 20, 1984, p. 1.
136.John Paul II, Redemptionis Anno, OR [EWE], April 30, 1984, p. 6.
137.OR [EWE], October 10, 1984, p. 16.
138.The Congregation for Bishops presents the Pope with nominees for every episcopal see in the world, except those in mission territories (who are nominated by the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples) or Eastern-rite Catholic Churches (which have their own processes for the selection of bishops).
139.The 1975 WCC Assembly in Nairobi had failed to act on a petition from two Russian Orthodox activists, Father Gleb Yakunin and Lev Regelson, asking the WCC’s support for religious freedom in the USSR; when Yakunin was subsequently sentenced to five years imprisonment and five years internal exile, the WCC refused to issue a statement on his behalf. [See Ernest W. Lefever, Nairobi to Vancouver: The World Council of Churches and the World, 1975–1987 (Washington: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1987, pp. 64–67).]
140.See “Resolution on Afghanistan,” in Gathered for Life: Office Report, VI Assembly of the World Council of Churches, ed. David Gill (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), pp. 161–62.
141.See Ernest W. Lefever, Nairobi to Vancouver, pp. 33–45.
142.See ibid., pp. 21–22. The history of the WCC’s politics, based on primary sources, may be found in ibid. and a predecessor volume by the same author, Amsterdam to Nairobi: The World Council of Churches and the Third World (Washington, D.C.: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1979).
143.John Paul II, “Address to the World Council of Churches,” OR [EWE], June 25, 1984, pp. 6–8.
144.Author’s interview with Roberto Tucci, SJ, September 25, 1997.
145.Lewek, “New Sanctuary of Poles.”
146.Cited in Garton Ash, The Polish Revolution: Solidarity, p. 351.
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