For Greek Orthodoxy, centered historically in Constantinople, always claimed that this city (now Istanbul of the Turks) was the Second Rome replacing the First Rome (of the Popes); and Russian Orthodoxy, in its long-distant high days of preeminence, claimed that Moscow was the Third (and Final) Rome, replacing that Second Rome and that First Rome. History has not been kind to either of these delusions of religious grandeur. Yet, in both centers and patriarchates, those claims are still regnant and are the bases of the opposition and enmity John Paul has to deal with from them. Georeligiously, of course, they are not competitors of his. But globally, they oppose him.
The fourth Provincial Globalist situation room holds the special fascination of primitive things. For here is displayed a rendition of the world map that has been suited as well as can be managed to the mind and the outlook of four ancient but still subsistent non-Christian religions: animism, Shintoism, Hinduism and Buddhism. Each of these groups would claim that it possesses a religious outlook that could be georeligious and that it is therefore potentially geopolitical. In John Paul’s view, they do have explanations of man’s cosmos that would be georeligious, had the nations of the world ceased to develop about three thousand years ago. That did not happen, however. And in today’s world, all four groups are at bay and threatened by the encroaching tides of modernism.
Yet they have to be counted by John Paul as a very important assemblage of globalists for the simple reason of their numbers. Between the subcontinent of India, a large proportion of Chinese, and a majority of Southeast Asians, there is a number somewhere in the region of 1.5 to 2 billion human beings involved here. Precisely among this vast population, the wheels of development have begun to churn faster and faster, producing the new “Asian Tigers” (Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand) and promising to accelerate such technotronic development elsewhere throughout the landmass of Asia. Papa Wojtyla can be sure that with that development there will be a fresh development of globalism, always at least tinged if not deeply colored by the original religious and ethical outlook of those peoples. When the time comes that a geopolitical perspective enters their angle of vision, he can envisage an opposition from them to his own geopolitical undertaking.
Already, in the religiously jaded and ethically confused West, there has filtered from Buddhism, and to a lesser degree from Hinduism and animism, a new current of religiosity—belief and cult—which produces minds diametrically opposed to the Christianity John Paul professes and on which his geopolitics is founded.
All of the planning materials open to the Pontiffs view in the fifth situation room reflect real strife, deep contradictions between the globalist groups gathered here and between each of these groups and the wide world with which they are in constant and intense interaction.
For one or more of a variety of reasons, each of these groups maintains an “apartness” from the rest of the world, without standing aside from the world. Each wants to be part of that world, for each must have a globalist influence to achieve its own aims. The anomaly, of course, is that “apartness” is the tie that classifies these groups together in the Pontiffs global analysis of each of them.
The “apartness” involved here can take various forms, depending on the mind-set of each group. But it is most often based upon an established group tradition—usually religious or ethical or cultural but most times riven of necessity with economic and political dimensions.
While the extremism of such “apartness” has resulted in the apartheid system of the Republic of South Africa, fundamentally the same sense of “apartness” is shared by many white nations vis-à-vis the nonwhite nations, by many black nations of Africa, and many yellow nations vis-à-vis those differing ethnically from them. A similar apartness, but marked by a long-standing cultural tradition, is to be found in the people of the Indian subcontinent and of Japan. An identical type of “apartness” strengthened by powerful cultural factors gave rise to the distinction made by the ancient Greeks between themselves and all non-Greeks, whom they called “barbarians.”
Just as the traditional name for China, the Middle Kingdom, indicated how its inhabitants held to the centrality of that country in the world and its “apartness” as the center of the world, so every group known to us as having this sense of special “apartness” from the rest of human society has its own way of looking at the map of countries and nations.
Whatever practical form “apartness” may take in any individual group, and whatever its basis, it is regarded by each group in this situation room as a basic given of its identity. It is lodged deeply in the lives, outlooks and folkways of its participants.
The “apartness” of these groups does not necessarily prompt all of them to seek a territorial integrity for themselves. But there is always a certain limit to the assimilation they will accept. And the ongoing affairs of human society are judged as favorable or inimical according as those affairs impact on the delicate balance each group maintains between the “apartness” it sees as essential to its identity and the interaction with the world essential to its vibrancy and its practical success.
The outstanding groups located in this fifth situation room, Japanese, Chinese and Jews, exhibit the fundamental mark of that genuine apartness which marks them Provincial Globalists. This is the absence of any formal element in them that would drive them to “convert” the world to their own way of life. In fact, as is generally known and acknowledged, a hallmark in all three indicates that they do not want to do so; indeed, that they consider it impossible. No non-Japanese or non-Chinese can really become Japanese or Chinese, even to the extent that men and women of different nations—including Chinese and Japanese—have become, say, thoroughgoing Americans or Frenchmen. It is axiomatic in Judaism that while anyone can and is allowed to convert to Judaism, Jewishness is restricted to those born of a Jewish mother.
In other words, whatever may happen to their members, singly taken, who may be absorbed into non-Japanese, non-Chinese or non-Jewish societies, for the bulk of the populations living in China, Japan and Israel, assimilation—loss of that apartness—is positively excluded. The special problems faced by these Provincial Globalists are best exemplified in the case of Jews.
Jews will assign a preeminence to the Land of Israel, even though they have no intention of living there, and to the Americas, where nearly half of the world Jewish population (fifteen million) live today. This self-consciousness and apartness of Jews has been set in ferroconcrete by the never-to-be-forgotten Hitlerian attempt at total genocide. For that Holocaust and the birth of Israel have, as Bruno Bettelheim pointed out, forever liquidated the old ghetto mentality of Jews. Jews will no longer seek out that type of segregation they once did when they petitioned Christian authorities to set aside a small portion (a borghetto) of the city (the borgo) for their exclusive use. But in no way is this exit from the ghetto mentality to be taken as a desire for assimilation. “Nonsegregation without assimilation, this is the new rule.”
For John Paul, all three of these “apartness” groups are very important because all three have and will have important roles to play in building the geopolitical structure of the new world order. And each group presents different problems and will meet different difficulties. For, in a profound sense, their strengths derive in large part from their apartness. But once their globalism begins to face the transition to a geopolitical viewpoint, the first casualty will be that apartness.
The Provincial Globalists of our age are destined to undergo a series of severe shocks and mutations as, willy-nilly, they adapt themselves to the new globalism emanating from more powerful groups. There is no way that any one of them will be able to maintain itself in any vibrancy and progressive strength unless it allows—or suffers—its provincialism to be enlarged beyond the confines it traditionally observed. Individuals among them may for a while maintain themselves within those confines. But, inevitably, as groups they will have to face dire alternatives. Either they will become thoroughly and realistically gl
obalized and therefore capable of collaborating in the building of a geopolitical structure. Or, as groups, they will remain in place, diminish in numbers and influence, and finally lose their identity as operative parts in a new world order.
John Paul, in his papal travels, has constantly engaged in dialogue with representatives of these groups. In many cases, through the diplomatic arm of his Vatican, he maintains a relationship with them—at least a certain cordiality, sometimes even a mutual collaboration concerning some practical problem or need. He sees their individuality as a valuable asset in a world that tends to organize human beings into a faceless mass of undifferentiated peoples. And he knows that what is best in these Provincial Globalists—their sense of dignity and mission—can be sublimated by the grace of Christ and thus become a potent element in the building of a genuinely God-blessed structure for all nations.
16
The Piggyback Globalists
Within the second broad category of globalist-minded groups contending for supremacy in the millennium endgame, Pope John Paul counts just three entries—three groups of one-world-community builders: the Humanists, the Mega-Religionists and the New Agers.
Unlike the Provincial Globalists, none of the groups involved here has any thought of remaining aloof, or of waiting for the mountain of public opinion to move of its own accord, or of getting caught in some isolated crevass of history. All of these groups, in short, are global activists. Moreover, each has demonstrated from the outset that it appreciates the importance of transnational structures such as the Pope’s worldwide Church and Gorbachev’s global machine. Each has a structure of its own, in fact. But the true genius of each group, operationally speaking, lies in the fact that it has developed to a high art the ability to ride piggyback on the structural setups of everyone else’s organization, whispering sweet universalisms into the ears of their leaders and adherents alike.
It is common knowledge that each of these groups has attracted its share of crackpot visionaries: so much so that the groups themselves are frequently lampooned. But the truth is that the membership in each case is weighty with the names of many highly valued men and women. And even a glance at the strides each group has made toward its own vision of a one-world community is enough to convince any observer that, as a whole, they cannot be dismissed as of no consequence.
The globalist groups within these three categories are strikingly compatible with one another. Indeed, compatibility is a basic watchword for all of them; and it rests primarily on two things.
First, though their ideas about the world differ somewhat, they are in agreement on certain bedrock issues—most especially those concerning the religions of the world, and those having to do with the desirability of a global community. Second, both in their ideas and in their strategies for acting in relation to the world, all of these groups are remarkably well suited to the already generally accepted aims of interdependence and material development among all the nations and cultures.
The similarities among these three groups are so striking, in fact, that John Paul sees them in the long run of historical evolution as neither more nor less than three interfacing programs formed within and locked onto the same ground plan. Reason and imagination lead one to conclude that the ground plan emanated from one intelligence.
Common to the ideas of each of these globalist groups is the conviction that man is even more than the most important figure in the cosmos. For them, man is the only important figure. Each group vindicates the exclusively human.
To one degree or another, albeit with different shadings, each group shares the view that mankind is not called to be holy; it is called to be happy, in the certainty that all the glory of life is right here, and right now. Happiness lies within the ambit of material development. Each of us is called to be a happy consumer of the earth’s goods, living in a bountiful world. That is our supremest right and our only common destiny.
That exclusivity about the importance of material man in a world defined by its material bounty is directed against even the notion of God as worshiped by Christians, Jews and Muslims. It is directed against any notion of divinity that does not make God an integral part of this exclusively human cosmos. Beings loosely called spirits or devils or devas are not necessarily excluded. In fact, they are essential to New Agers. But because they, too, are conceived as constituent parts of man’s universe, they are tolerated even by Humanists.
Concerning the strategy for action by which these globalist groups put their ideas of the world into serious play in the international arena, each of them has hit on a variation of the same action model. They do not seek to get rid of the colorful little diversities among the world’s religions or cultures. That would only be counterproductive; for it would mean dismantling the structures upon whose backs they ride. And in any case, some individual traits turn out to be useful.
Nevertheless, it is not too much to ask in the sweet name of universal reason that all national, religious and cultural groups modify their traits so that everyone—every nation, every religion and every culture—can be accommodated as a division or subdivision of the future one-world community that is both the aim and the justification of each of these three groups.
For such globalist community builders as these, there is no earthly use in perpetuating any element that has historically divided human society into distinct, separate and sometimes warring parts, or that might do so in the future. Their chosen task is to hasten the day when all will be one in a materially comfortable world community, now abuilding, and to assist us all by teaching us how to become members of that global community of contentment.
The maps, action models and documents John Paul peruses in the first of these three situation rooms belong to the Humanists. Everything he sees here brings home to the Pontiff how very far their quiet, bloodless and altogether humanly pleasant revolution has come within a relatively short time. A glance at just one map shows him, for example, that there are sixty Humanist organizations flourishing today, in twenty-three countries.
The opening salvo of this group’s ambitious assault on the world was heard in 1933, with the publication of the Humanist Manifesto I. Given great vogue and credibility by American educational philosopher John Dewey, and by other luminary cosigners of the document, HM-I put forward the basic Humanist proposal: Human perfection is to be attained by human efforts in this cosmos. By any measure, HM-I was a clarion call to work for no less a result than a real revolution. It was Humanist Manifesto II, however, that really made headlines. And with good reason. Written by University of Buffalo philosophy professor Paul Kurtz and published in 1973, HM-II was presented as a mere updating of HM-I. But it was so much more explicit that it deserves a special place among the action models in the Humanist command post.
HM-II clearly stated the goal of the Humanists with regard to all institutions, and with special emphasis on religion. It was not liquidation the Humanists should seek, said Kurtz, but “the transformation, control, and direction of all associations and institutions…. [This] is the purpose and the program of Humanism. Certainly, religious institutions, their ritualistic forms and ecclesiastical methods must be reconstituted as rapidly as experience allows.”
In all their efforts toward such “transformation, control, and direction of all associations and institutions,” Humanists were instructed by Kurtz to advocate “a socialized and cooperative economic order, autonomous and situational ethics, … many varieties of sexual exploration, … and the development of a system of world law and order based on a transnational federal government.”
Piggyback tactics were not merely vindicated by HM-I and HM-II; they were positively mandated and on as global a basis as possible. Humanists everywhere promoted their revolution, as they still do, through the vital arteries of public education; federal, state and municipal administrations; publicity, advertising and entertainment; churches, cultural and political associations, colleges and universities. Nothing could be exempt.
In g
eneral, Humanists have always been adept at making their revolution as pleasant-sounding and as humanly appealing as possible for most of their targets. But when it comes to Christianity, the gloves are off. Pope John Paul read and reread the words of one enthusiastic author published in the January-February 1983 issue of Humanist Magazine: “The classroom must and will become the area of combat between … the rotting corpse of Christianity … and the new faith of Humanism.”
John Paul does not brush such Humanist assaults aside lightly. He has real cause for concern that the Humanists represent a threat to his Church. In fact, he knows that Humanism has made converts even among his highest Church officials.
In 1986, for example, delegates from the Vatican traveled to Paris, without the Pope’s blessing, to attend the World Congress of Humanists. There they joined the general omnium-gatherum of representatives from Soviet-dominated Eastern European countries and from Western Europe and the Americas. For they were all enmeshed in the anti-Catholic drumbeat of Humanism. At the very least, their example caused confusion among the faithful.
In September of 1988, again without papal blessing or by-your-leave, Roman Catholic Cardinals Poupard of Paris and Daneels of Belgium headed an eight-man delegation of Catholic theologians from France, Canada, Yugoslavia, India and Norway to participate with an international group of professional Humanists in a conference in Amsterdam. Among those professional Humanists were Dr. Paul Kurtz himself and the virulently antipapal Robert Tielman of Utrecht University.
There can be no doubt for John Paul that Their Eminences and the Catholic theologians accompanying them had all read and understood HM-II. And, informed as they are, it would seem virtually impossible that they were unaware of one recent and most public enterprise undertaken by Tielman. He had made a special trip to San Francisco during Pope John Paul’s visit there just one year before, in September of 1987, in order to organize, coordinate and sharpen the homosexual demonstrations against the Holy Father’s papal person.
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