Witness to Hope

by George Weigel

46.John Paul II, “Homily for the Canonization of Agnes of Bohemia and Albert Chmielowski” [emphasis in original].

  47.Author’s interview with Bishop František Lobkowicz, O.Praem., October 21, 1991.

  48.De Lubac, The Drama of Atheistic Humanism, pp. 11–12.

  49.Cited in ibid., pp. 22–23.

  50.Cited in ibid., pp. 24–25.

  51.Ibid., p 14.

  52.Author’s conversation with Father Michael Maslowski, April 22, 1996; author’s interviews with Daniela Simpson, March 18, 1997, and Joaquín Navarro-Valls, February 18, 1998.

  53.Author’s interview with Daniela Simpson, March 18, 1997.

  54.Author’s interviews with Irina Alberti, April 13 and 16, 1998, and Joaquín Navarro-Valls, February 18,1998.

  55.Author’s interviews with Irina Alberti, April 13 and 16, 1998; author’s conversation with Pope John Paul II, December 13, 1997.

  56.Author’s conversation with Pope John Paul II, December 13, 1997; author’s conversation with Joaquín Navarro-Valls, February 18, 1998.

  57.See Mikhail Gorbachev, Memoirs (New York: Doubleday, 1995), pp. 508–509.

  58.Author’s interview with Joaquín Navarro-Valls, December 17, 1998.

  59.Author’s interview with Daniela Simpson, March 18, 1997.

  60.“John Paul II to President Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union,” OR [EWE], December 4, 1989, pp. 1, 12.

  61.“Mr. Gorbachev’s Greeting to John Paul II,” in ibid., p. 1.

  62.Author’s interviews with Daniela Simpson, March 18, 1997; Victor Simpson, February 17, 1997; and Irina Alberti, April 13 and 16, 1998.

  63.Author’s interview with Irina Alberti, April 13 and 16, 1998.

  64.Author’s interview with Joaquín Navarro-Valls, February 18, 1998.

  65.See Bernstein and Politi, His Holiness, pp. 474–478.

  66.Author’s interview with Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, March 18, 1997.

  67.Cardinal Tomášek’s statement was drafted by Father Otto Mádr, once condemned to death as a “spy,” who had served fifteen years in prisons and labor camps during the worst of Czechoslovak Stalinism. During his time in prison Father Mádr celebrated Mass whenever he could coax ten drops of wine from dried grapes; communion was distributed throughout the camp by the prison barber, who carried bits of consecrated Eucharistic bread to prisoners during his weekly round of shaves and haircuts, using the only ciborium available—a piece of cigarette paper. Father Mádr recited Cardinal Tomásek’s message to the November 24 Wenceslaus Square rally by memory at an interview with the author on October 25, 1991, and subsequently sent me the text of the address in a letter of December 13, 1991. Father Václav Maly declined an invitation to join the new democratic government and became a pastor in Prague. On December 3, 1996, John Paul II named him titular bishop of Marcelliana and auxiliary bishop of Prague.

  68.Author’s interview with Václav Benda, October 22, 1991.

  69.Cited in William H. Luers, “Czechoslovakia: Road to Revolution,” Foreign Affairs 69:2 (Spring 1990),p. 98.

  70.The one exception to the rule of nonviolence was Romania, where the Ceaus,escu regime’s violent attempt to stem the tide of human rights resistance (triggered by the security forces’ attempt to arrest a veteran human rights campaigner, the Baptist minister László Tökes, in Timis,oara on December 16) ended with the regime’s bloody overthrow on December 22 and the execution of Ceausescu and his wife on December 25.

  71.See Bogdan Bociurkiw, “The Ukrainian Catholic Church in Gorbachev’s USSR,” pp. 12–13; author’s interview with Bogdan Bociurkiw, August 10, 1996.

  72.“Communiqué: Archbishop Colasuonno’s journey in Romania,” OR [EWE], January 15, 1990, p. 5.

  73.See Bogdan Bociurkiw, “The Ukrainian Catholic Church in Gorbachev’s USSR,” p. 15; author’s interview with Bogdan Bociurkiw, October 10, 1996. See also OR [EWE], January 22, 1990, pp. 10, 12, and OR [EWE], March 5, 1990, pp. 1, 11.

  74.OR [EWE], February 19, 1990, p. 8.

  75.John Paul II, “Address to the Diplomatic Corps,” OR [EWE], January 29, 1990, pp. 1–2 [emphasis in original].

  76.Ibid., p. 2.

  77.“‘God Won’ in East Europe,” OR [EWE], February 26, 1990, p. 1.

  78.“Truth Has Triumphed,” OR [EWE], April 2, 1990, p. 12.

  79.See John Paul II, “Strength of Solidarity,” OR [EWE], September 30, 1990, p. 11, and John Paul II, “Poles Need to Learn How to Differ,” OR [EWE], November 26, 1990, p. 5.

  80.John Paul II, “Victory of Fidelity,” in OR [EWE], April 23, 1990, p. 2 [emphasis in original].

  81.“Havel: Sharing in a Miracle,” OR [EWE], April 30, 1989, p. 4.

  82.Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, “Helsinki and the New Europe,” OR [EWE], April 2, 1990, pp. 6–7.

  83.Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, “Ostpolitik: Chipping Away At Marxism’s Crumbling House,” OR [EWE], June 18, 1990, pp. 6–7.

  84.Ibid., p. 6.

  85.Those attending were Professors Kenneth J. Arrow of Stanford University (the 1972 Nobel laureate in economics); Anthony Atkinson of the London School of Economics and Political Science; Parta Dasgupta of Stanford; Jacques Dreze of the Université Catholique de Louvain; Peter Hammond of Stanford; Hendrik Houthakker of Harvard University; Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago; Edmond Malinvaud, holder of the chair of economic analysis at the Collège de France; Ignazio Musu of the Università degli Studi di Venezia; Jeffrey Sachs and Amartya Sen of Harvard; Horst Siebert of the Institute of World Economics in Kiel; Witold Trzeciakowski of the Polish government; Hirofumi Uzawa, emeritus at Tokyo University; and Stefano Zamagni of the Università degli Studi di Bologna. [Memorandum to the author from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, November 13, 1997.]

  86.Letter to the author from Robert E. Lucas, Jr., April 9, 1997.

  87.Author’s interview with Archbishop Jorge Mejía, January 20, 1997.

  88.Author’s interview with Rocco Buttiglione, January 21, 1997.

  89.John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 5.4, in Miller, Encyclicals.

  90.Ibid., 6.1–9.1.

  91.See ibid., 12.1, 13.1.

  92.See ibid., 13–14.

  93.Ibid., 23.1–23.3.

  94.“Man is understood in a more complete way when he is situated within the sphere of culture through his language, history, and the position he takes toward the fundamental events of life, such as birth, love, work, and death. At the heart of every culture lies the attitude man takes to the greatest mystery: the mystery of God. Different cultures are basically different ways of facing the question of the meaning of personal existence. When this question is eliminated, the cultural and moral life of nations is corrupted.” [Ibid., 23.3.]

  95.Ibid., 24.2.

  96.Ibid., 43.1.

  97.See Maciej Zięba, OP, Kośčioł wobec Demokratycznego Kapitalizmu w Świetle Encyklik “Centesimus Annus,” unpublished doctoral dissertation (Kraków: Papal Academy of Theology, 1997), and Maciej Zięba, OP, Papieze i kapitalizm: od Rerum Novarum po Centesimus Annus (Kraków: Znak, 1998).

  98.John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 31.2, in Miller, Encyclicals.

  99. Ibid., 32.1.

  100.Author’s interview with Rocco Buttiglione, January 21, 1997.

  101.Ibid.

  102.John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 42.1–42.2, in Miller, Encyclicals.

  103.The dean of the Social Science Faculty at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Sergio Bernal Restrepo, SJ, made this precise argument, in these precise terms, at a seminar sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace to commemorate the centenary of Rerum Novarum on May 14, 1991.

  104.John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 13.2, in Miller, Encyclicals.

  105.Ibid., 32.

  106.See ibid. [emphasis in original].

  107.Ibid., 48.

  108.See ibid., 58.

  109.See ibid.

  110.Ibid., 52.

  111.For a more detailed discussion of these points, see Richard John Neuhaus, Doing Well and Doing G
ood: The Challenge to the Christian Capitalist (New York: Doubleday, 1992), especially chapter eight, “The Potential of the Poor.”

  112.John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 46, in Miller, Encyclicals [emphasis in original].

  113.Author’s interview with Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, March 14, 1997.

  114.John Paul II, “The International Order Is Severely Threatened,” in John Paul II for Peace in the Middle East/War in the Gulf: Gleaning Through the Pages of L’Osservatore Romano (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1991), pp. 11–12.

  115.Author’s interview with Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, March 14, 1997.

  116.John Paul II, “War Is an Adventure with No Return,” in John Paul II for Peace in the Middle East, p. 36 [emphasis in original].

  117.Author’s interview with Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, March 14, 1997.

  118.John Paul II, “Dialogue and Negotiations Must Prevail… ,” in John Paul II for Peace in the Middle East, pp. 40–41.

  119.Cited in ibid., p. 42.

  120.Author’s interview with Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, March 18, 1997.

  121.Cited in John Paul II for Peace in the Middle East, pp. 66–69.

  122.Author’s interview with Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, March 18, 1997.

  123.Ibid. Archbishop Tauran was present when the Pope placed his telephone call to the president. President Bush’s formal reply to the Pope’s January 15 message was delivered to the Vatican on January 16 by U.S. Ambassador Melady. [See Thomas Patrick Melady, The Ambassador’s Story: The United States and the Vatican in World Affairs (Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, p. 95).

  124.“Pontiff Convokes Bishops’ Meeting on Middle East,” OR [EWE], February 25, 1991, p. 1.

  125.The Pope’s opening address to the bishops’ meeting, his closing address, and the meeting’s communiqué all focused primarily on the postwar Middle East. See John Paul II for Peace in the Middle East, pp. 113–129.

  126.For a history of this latter concern, see David-Maria A. Jaeger, OFM, The Roman Pontiffs in Defence of Christian Rights in the Holy Land: From Causa Nobis to Redemptionis Anno (1921–1984), unpublished doctoral dissertation (Rome: Pontifical Athenaeum “Antonianum,” 1989).

  127.This last point is taken from the author’s interview with Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, March 14, 1997.

  128.See James A. Baker, III, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace 1989–1992 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995).

  The Bush administration and the Holy See had already experienced a moment of high tension. Just prior to attending the Pope’s Christmas midnight Mass on the night of December 24, 1989, Ambassador Melady had been instructed to tell the Holy See that the United States did not want Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega granted asylum in the Vatican nunciature in Panama City, which he had entered at 9:17 P.M. Rome time (3:17 P.M. in Panama), four days after the December 20 U.S. invasion of the country. Nonetheless, Noriega remained at the nunciature until January 3, 1990, when he surrendered to U.S. forces after days of negotiation. [See Melady, The Ambassador’s Story, pp. 19–23.]

  129.See Melady, The Ambassador’s Story, pp. 114–115.

  130.Author’s interview with Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, March 14, 1997.

  131.Cited in Melady, The Ambassador’s Story, p. 119. The Catholic population of Iraq was one of the least pressured in the Middle East/Persian Gulf region, and Christians were part of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist Party and government. In the terror state run by Saddam, of course, public protest against the government was almost always suicidal. But Patriarch Bidawid’s defense of the invasion and occupation of Kuwait put him in the position of contradicting the stated position of the Holy See that this had been a clear violation of international law and the UN Charter.

  132.Author’s interview with Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, March 14, 1997.

  133.John P. Langan, SJ, “The Just War Theory After the Gulf War,” in Theological Studies 53:1 (March 1992), pp. 95–112. The original Civiltà Cattolica editorial, “Modern War and the Christian Conscience,” was reprinted in But Was It Just? Reflections on the Morality of the Persian Gulf War, ed. David E. DeCosse (New York: Doubleday, 1992).

  134.James Turner Johnson, “Just Cause Revisited,” in Close Calls: Intervention, Terrorism, Missile Defense, and “Just War” Today, Elliott Abrams, ed. (Washington, D.C.: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1998, p. 27.

  135.Cited in Melady, The Ambassador’s Story, p. 114.

  136.See Efraim Karsh and Inari Rautsi, Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography (New York: Free Press, 1991).

  137.A more rigorous analysis within the Secretariat of State would have also required confronting those shibboleths about the Arab-Islamic world that dominate Italian political circles and work their way into the Vatican from there. These views were particularly evident in L’Osservatore Romano during the crisis.

  138.Just prior to this meeting, which he was to have attended, Father Joseph Zvěřina, a survivor of the Czechoslovakian labor camps who lived to become one of the primary advisers to Cardinal Tomáśek during the 1980s, drowned while swimming at a beach near Rome.

  139.Cited in John Paul II, Spiritual Journey, p. 139. The credential ceremony was another occasion to meditate on the meaning of World War II and the Shoah:

  It was really the Second World War which came to an end on October 3 [John Paul said] and made many people aware of what fate and guilt mean to all peoples and individuals. We think of the millions of people, most of them totally innocent, who died in that war: soldiers, civilians, women, the elderly and children, people of different nationalities and religions.

  In this context we should also mention the tragedy of the Jews. For Christians the heavy burden of guilt for the murder of the Jewish people must be an enduring call to repentance; thereby we can overcome every form of anti-Semitism and establish a new relationship with our kindred nation of the Old Covenant…. Guilt should not oppress and lead to self-agonizing thoughts, but must alwaysbe the point of departure for conversion. [Ibid.]

  140.Author’s interview with Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo, September 22, 1991.

  141.Author’s interviews with Irina Alberti, April 13 and 16, 1998.

  142.The presentation at the press conference was made by Archbishop Pio Laghi, the former nuncio in the United States. Laghi had been appointed Pro-Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education the previous April, succeeding Cardinal William Baum, the former archbishop of Washington, D.C.

  143.Author’s interview with Cardinal William Baum, November 5, 1996.

  144.Ex Corde Ecclesiae, 4.

  145.Ibid., 28.

  146.Ibid., Article 1, 1.

  147.The Profession of Faith may be found in OR [EWE], March 13, 1989, p. 3.

  148.Author’s interview with Monsignor Walter Edyvean, January 16, 1997.

  149.See Philip Gleason, Contending with Modernity: Catholic Higher Education in the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996) and Charles R. Morris, American Catholic: The Saints and Sinners Who Built America’s Most Powerful Church (New York: Times Books, 1997). For a major study of the patterns by which originally religious institutions of higher education lose their religious identity, see James T. Burtchaell, CSC, The Dying of the Light: The Disengagement of Colleges and Universities from the Christian Churches (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998).

  150.Local ordinances applying the general norms of Ex Corde Ecclesiae were to have been submitted to the Holy See by March 1992; only one country managed to meet that deadline. By late 1997, seven years after the document was issued, twelve of the forty-eight countries with Catholic institutions of higher education had developed local norms that had been approved by the Holy See. In the United States, the bishops’ committee charged with devising the local norms asked for extensions on numerous occasions; the norms finally adopted by the U.S. Bishops’ Conference at its November 1996 meeting were not accepted by the Holy See, which sent them back to the
U.S. bishops for further revisions.

  151.On the relationship between local bishops and Catholic colleges and universities, see Francis Cardinal George, OMI, “Universities That Are Truly Catholic and Truly Academic,” Origins 28:18 (October 15,1998).

  CHAPTER 17

  To the Ends of the Earth: Reconciling an Unreconciled World

  1.John Paul II, “Lessons of the Galileo Case,” Origins 22:22 (November 12, 1992, pp. 369–374. See also Cardinal Paul Poupard, “Galileo: Report on Papal Commission Findings,” in ibid., pp. 374–375; and “Galileo, Science and Faith,” in Church & Cultures (Bulletin of the Pontifical Council for Culture), no. 18(1992), pp. 3–4.

  2.Complicating the situation even further, there was no public reckoning with the records of those scholars, commentators, and politicians who had manifestly and grossly misread the nature of communism. Unlike those who had sympathized with fascism in the 1930s, the anti-anti-communists of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s were never called to account for their moral and political blindness. There was a considerable overlap between these men and women and those most fiercely committed to the notion of freedom as radical individual autonomy. The failure to come to grips with the betrayals of the intellectuals during the latter half of the Cold War thus served to strengthen the claim that freedom equaled autonomy, at least indirectly.

  3.See Zbigniew Brzeziński, Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the 21st Century (New York: Scribner’s, 1993).

  4.The Decree is usually known by its Latin title, Ad Gentes [To the nations].

  5.See John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, 62.1, in Miller, Encyclicals.

  6. Author’s interview with Cardinal Jozef Tomko, November 14, 1996.

  7.International Bulletin of Missionary Research 22:1 (January 1998), p. 27.

  8.See Paul Griffiths, “One Jesus, Many Christs?” Pro Ecclesia 7:2 (Spring 1998), pp. 152–171, for an overview of this debate and a useful bibliography.

  9.The Congregation’s official post-conciliar name is almost universally ignored in Rome, where everyone still refers to it as “the Propaganda,” from its old Latin title, Propaganda Fide, the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith.