The End and the Beginning

by George Weigel

  112. In 1992, for example, John Paul had proposed a “duty” of “humanitarian intervention” in cases of actual or impending genocide in an address to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization in Rome—a not unimportant subject on the world’s agenda, as the collapse of Yugoslavia and the torment of Rwanda would soon demonstrate. Yet the address said nothing about on whom this duty fell or about how it was to be met; little or nothing was done during the pontificate, in either the Vatican “foreign ministry” or the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, to flesh out the Pope’s idea and engage the world’s leaders in a serious examination of an urgent problem.

  113. Author’s conversation with Jean Kitschel, Joyce Little, and Mary Catherine Sommers, September 18, 1998.

  114. See Weigel, Witness to Hope, pp. 473–74.

  115. As a young priest, Piero Marini had been deeply involved in the implementation of Vatican II’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy led by the Italian liturgist Annibale Bugnini. Marini described some of that work in A Challenging Reform: Realizing the Vision of the Liturgical Renewal 1963–1975 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2007), which made clear that Marini understood the Council as having mandated a rather dramatic break in the development of the Roman rite—a position sharply criticized by, among others, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in The Spirit of the Liturgy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000).

  116. On this point, see Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, pp. 22–23.

  On becoming pope, Benedict XVI quickly discovered, at the Synod of October 2005, that many bishops were reluctant to engage in the reform of the liturgy of which Joseph Ratzinger had long been a principal theological protagonist.

  117. The Pope tried to accelerate the reform of English-language liturgical translations through the creation in 2002 of the Vox Clara Committee, which worked under the aegis of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. See John L. Allen, Jr., “ ‘Vox Clara’ Commission to Monitor English Translations; Vatican Congregation Creates Body to Clear Logjam in Review of Liturgical Texts,” National Catholic Reporter, April 5, 2002.

  118. During the final phases of debate over Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Pope Paul VI proposed that the document include the affirmation that the pope is “accountable to the Lord alone.” This formulation was rejected by the Council’s Theological Commission, which pointed out that “the Roman Pontiff is also bound to revelation itself, to the fundamental structure of the Church, to the sacraments, to the definitions of earlier Councils, and other obligations too numerous to mention.” [Cited in Patrick Granfield, The Limitations of the Papacy: Authority and Autonomy in the Church (New York: Crossroad, 1987), pp. 62–63. See also the discussion in Weigel, Witness to Hope, pp. 263–64.

  119. Gasparri negotiated the 1929 Lateran Treaty that created Vatican City State; Pacelli had a major role in writing Pius XI’s 1937 denunciation of Nazism, Mit Brennender Sorge [With Burning Concern]; von Nell-Breuning drafted Pius’s 1931 social encyclical, Quadragesimo Anno, which cemented the principle of subsidiarity into the foundations of modern Catholic social doctrine; LaFarge, at the Pope’s request, drafted an encyclical condemning racism and affirming the unity of the human race, which was left unfinished and unpublished at Pius XI’s death in early 1939.

  120. This point was made by, among others, Thomas J. Reese, S.J., in Inside the Vatican (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 192–201.

  121. See Hans Küng, Infallible? An Unresolved Enquiry, new expanded edition (New York: Continuum, 1994). See also Küng, My Struggle for Freedom: Memoirs (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2003); in his memoirs, Küng set a new low in false and tasteless criticism of Karol Wojtyła, suggesting that the future pope had attended the Angelicum in 1946–48 because he was not sufficiently well-informed theologically to be admitted to the Pontifical Gregorian University.

  122. See Charles E. Curran, Loyal Dissent: Memoir of a Catholic Theologian (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2006).

  123. “Theological Disputes—The List,” National Catholic Reporter, February 25, 2005. See also http://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2005a/022505/022505h.php.

  124. For more on this set of problems, see Weigel, The Courage To Be Catholic, pp. 202–9.

  125. Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J., one of the most astute students of John Paul’s teaching and pastoral accomplishment, shared these concerns; his specific question, in a 2003 essay, addressed the American situation, but clearly touched on an issue of concern throughout the world Church:

  According to the job description in the official directories, the bishop ought to be a man of high culture, firm in faith, solid in orthodoxy, a paragon of holiness, graciously winning in personality, able to assess the talents and weaknesses of others, skilled at managing large corporations and conducting fiscal policy, eloquent in the pulpit, fearless under criticism, indefatigable, and always self-possessed. Do we have in the United States a sufficient supply of priests with all these qualities? Many of the candidates being elevated to the episcopate, it would seem, are men of ordinary abilities, kind and hardworking, but incapable of measuring up to the almost superhuman responsibilities of the office. They run the risk of being morally, psychologically, and spiritually crushed under the burdens. As a prime structural problem, therefore, I would single out for special attention [in considering true and false reform in the Church] the episcopal office. What can be done to restore the priestly and pastoral ministry of bishops to its position of primacy? [Dulles, “True and False Reform in the Church,” in Dulles, Church and Society, p. 411.]

  126. In addition to the articles by Archbishop John Quinn and Cardinal Joseph Bernardin cited at note 85 above, see Rembert G. Weakland, O.S.B., A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church: Memoirs of a Catholic Archbishop (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009).

  127. Author’s interview with Cardinal Jan Schotte, C.I.C.M., March 14, 1997.

  128. Author’s conversation with Cardinal Francis E. George, O.M.I., October 20, 2001.

  According to another authoritative source, a Francophone discussion group during the 2001 Synod spent most of its time debating whether John Paul II should resign, rather than considering the topic at hand—the bishop’s ministry in the twenty-first-century Church.

  129. The papal intervention and its immediate aftermath are described in Weigel, Witness to Hope, pp. 425–30, 468–70.

  130. For an overview of the Jesuit situation in the last years of the pontificate, see Paul Shaughnessy, S.J., “Are the Jesuits Catholic?” Weekly Standard, June 3, 2002. Shaughnessy’s article is a review of Peter McDonough and Eugene C. Bianchi’s Passionate Uncertainty: Inside the American Jesuits (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). Shaughnessy cites the McDonough and Bianchi book to illustrate not untypical U.S. Jesuit attitudes toward John Paul II:

  One of the signal services of Passionate Uncertainty is that it lets us hear influential Jesuits—those who shape policy—speak their minds frankly, in words unsoftened by the public relations personnel in their fund-raising offices. “I am appalled by the direction of the present papacy,” says a university administrator. “I am scandalized by Rome’s intransigent refusal to re-examine its doctrines regarding gender and sex.… Frankly, I think the Church is being governed by thugs.” “The Church as we have known it is dying,” a retreat master insists. “I hope and pray that the Society of Jesus will help facilitate the death and resurrection.” An academic gloats, “The Society has not sold its soul to the ‘Restoration’ of John Paul II.” Another Jesuit scholar, a Church historian, ranks John Paul II as “probably the worst pope of all times”—adding, “He’s not one of the worst popes; he’s the worst. Don’t misquote me.” The respondents made it clear that their contempt for the Pope is based almost entirely on his … unwillingness to imitate their own adaptability in the matter of doctrine.

  Shaughnessy goes on to note the deep tensions (to put it gently)
at work here:

  As do all priests, the speakers above took a solemn oath swearing that they “firmly embrace and accept and everything concerning the doctrine of faith and morals” proposed by the Church. It must not be assumed that they fail to see the discrepancy. Their willed imbecility derives not from a lack of brainpower or ingenuity but from a deliberate decision to ignore the clash of commitments and to suppress insurgent attempts to throw light on what, for tactical reasons, is better left in darkness.

  For an exploration of the formation process that helped produce this situation, see Joseph M. Becker, S.J., The Re-Formed Jesuits: A History of Changes in Jesuit Formation During the Decade 1965–1975, 2 vols. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992, 1997).

  John Paul II’s decision to require Father Robert Drinan, S.J., to terminate his career in the U.S. Congress was one source of U.S. Jesuit animosity toward the Pope. The history of this affair is discussed by James Hitchcock in “The Strange Political Career of Father Drinan,” Catholic World Report, July 1996.

  131. This latter point was made at the 2007 assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, whose keynote speaker, Sister Laurie Brink, O.P., noted that some religious communities, in the course of their “sojourning,” had “grown beyond the bounds of institutional religion.… Religious titles, institutional limitations, ecclesiastical authorities no longer fit [such a] congregation, which in most respects is post-Christian.” Sister Laurie then went on to ask, “Who’s to say that the movement beyond Christ is not, in reality, a movement into the very heart of God?” [Cited in Ann Carey, “Post-Christian Sisters,” Catholic World Report, July 2009, p. 22. Carey’s article offers a useful overview of the evolution of the LCWR and many of its affiliated congregations during the pontificate of John Paul II.]

  132. See Carey, Sisters in Crisis, p. 62.

  133. See ibid., for details. The formal name of what is often referred to as the “Congregation for Religious” is the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

  134. On this point, see George Weigel, “Sisters on a Different Mountaintop,” Denver Catholic Register, April 1, 2009.

  135. There were many reasons, not excluding pusillanimity, why most bishops in the United States preferred to keep the drama of American women’s religious life at a distance. One serious reason was money: for while the communities represented in the LCWR were decreasing in numbers, becoming ever older while failing to attract new members, they also controlled considerable financial assets, which many bishops did not want to see jeopardized in canonical and civil legal contests over who would eventually inherit what was clearly the patrimony of the Church.

  A conspicuous exception to the general laissez-faire stance of the American episcopate toward communities of women religious was Cardinal James A. Hickey, archbishop of Washington, D.C., from 1980 until 2000, who played an important role in supporting the formation of the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious and having it recognized by the Holy See.

  136. Cited in Sandro Magister, “End of the Line for the Founder of the Legionaries of Christ,” http://chiesa.espressonline.repubblica.it/articolo/58361?eng=y.

  137. See Sandro Magister, “The Legion Is in Disarray. Betrayed by its Founder,” http://chiesa.espressonline.repubblica.it/articolo/215098?eng=y.

  138. On November 30, 2004, John Paul II greeted Maciel at an audience in the Vatican attended by thousands of Legionary priests, Legionary seminarians, and Regnum Christi members. Four days earlier, the Pope had given care of the Pontifical Institute of Notre Dame of Jerusalem to the Legionaries of Christ. Throughout the pontificate, Legionary seminarians were called to assist in papal liturgies, and it was widely believed that the Holy See had helped facilitate the construction of the Legion-run Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome by working with Italian authorities to clear certain legal hurdles.

  139. Author’s interview with Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, L.C., February 19, 1998.

  140. See Sandro Magister, “The Legionaries’ Last Stand. An Exclusive Interview with Fr. Thomas Berg,” http://chiesa.espressonline.repubblica.it/articolo/1339296?eng=y; see also George Weigel, “Saving What Can Be Saved,” First Things Web edition, February 2, 2009.

  Marcial Maciel frequently gave monetary gifts to prominent Catholic figures, and like many others (including visiting bishops and heads of Catholic organizations), he sometimes directed gifts of cash to the papal apartment. As John Paul II died with virtually no worldly goods, no plausible charge can be made that he personally benefited from Maciel’s “generosity.”

  Falling prey to Maciel’s deceptions constituted an objective failure in John Paul’s governance of the Church. But this failure was neither willful (he knew something was awry and did nothing about it), nor venal (he was “bought”), nor malicious (he knew of Maciel’s perfidies and didn’t care), and thus does not call into question John Paul II’s heroic virtue.

  141. Hermann Josef Pottmeyer, “The Pope as Church Critic? John Paul II’s Little Noticed Impulses Toward Church Reform” (trans. John Jay Hughes), Pro Ecclesia XTV:3 (Summer 2005), p. 286.

  142. See de Lubac, The Drama of Atheist Humanism, p. 14.

  143. Karol Wojtyła, Sign of Contradiction (New York: Seabury, 1979), p. 124.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  I. Works by Karol Wojtyła/Pope John Paul II

  WORKS BY KAROL WOJTYłA

  The Acting Person. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1979.

  The Collected Plays and Writings on Theater. Translated with introductions by Bolesław Taborski. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.

  Discorsi al Popolo di Dio. Edited by Flavio Felice. Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino Editore, 2006.

  Faith According to St. John of the Cross. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1981.

  I miei amici. Rome: CSEO biblioteca, 1979.

  Love and Responsibility. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993.

  Metafisica della Persona: Tutte le opere filosofiche e saggi intergrativi. Edited by Giovanni Reale and Tadeusz Styczeń. Milan: Bompiani Il Pensiero Occidentale, 2003.

  Osoba i czyn: oraz inne studia antropologiczne. Edited by Tadeusz Styczeń, Wojciech Chudy, Jerzy W. Gałrkowski, Adam Rodziński, and Andrzej Szostek. Lublin: KUL Press, 1994.

  Person and Community: Selected Essays. New York: Peter Lang, 1993.

  Poezje i dramaty. Kraków: Znak, 1979; revised edition, 1998.

  Poezje-: Poems. Translated by Jerzy Peterkiewicz. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1998.

  Sign of Contradiction. New York: Seabury, 1979.

  Sources of Renewal: The Implementation of Vatican II. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980.

  The Way to Christ: Spiritual Exercises. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.

  The Word Made Flesh: The Meaning of the Christmas Season. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.

  Wyklady lubelskie. Edited by Tadeusz Styczeń, Jerzy W. Gałrkowski, Adam Rodziński, and Andrzej Szostek. Lublin: KUL Press, 1986.

  Zagadnienie podmiotu moralnosci. Edited by Tadeusz Styczeń, Jerzy W. Gałrkowski, Adam Rodziński, and Andrzej Szostek. Lublin: KUL Press, 1991.

  WORKS BY POPE JOHN PAUL II

  Ad Limina Addresses: The Addresses of His Holiness Pope John Paul II to the Bishops of the United States During Their Ad Limina Visits, March 5–December 9, 1988. Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1989.

  The Church: Mystery, Sacrament, Community. Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1998.

  Crossing the Threshold of Hope. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.

  Curriculum Philosophicum [unpublished autobiographical memorandum provided to the author].

  The Encyclicals of John Paul II. Edited with introductions by J. Michael Miller, C.S.B. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, 2001.

  Gift and Mystery: On the Fiftieth Anniversary of My Priestly Ordination. New York: Doubleday, 1996.

  God, Father and Creator. Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1996.


  The Holy See at the Service of Peace: Pope John Paul II Addresses to the Diplomatic Corps (1978–1988). Vatican City: Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, 1988.

  Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II. 56 vols. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1978–2005.

  Jesus, Son and Savior. Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1996.

  John Paul II for Peace in the Middle East. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1991.

  John Paul II Speaks to Youth at World Youth Day. San Francisco/Washington, DC: Ignatius Press/Catholic News Service, 1993.

  Letters to My Brother Priests: Holy Thursday (1979–1994). Edited by James P. Socias. Princeton, NJ/Chicago: Scepter Publishers/Midwest Theological Forum, 1994.

  Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body. Translated with an introduction and index by Michael Waldstein. Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 2006.

  Memory and Identity: Personal Reflections. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005.

  Le Mie Preghiere. Rome: Grandi Tascabili Economici Newton, 1995.

  The Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortations of John Paul II. Edited with introductions by J. Michael Miller, C.S.B. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, 1998.