By DONALD DeMARCO
May 18, 1920 is the birthday of Karol Wojtyla, better known to the world as Pope John Paul II. That same day in 2020 marked his hundredth birthday. Of course, we know that John Paul passed away on April 2, 2005 and that only the deceased are eligible for canonization. Be that as it may, his spirit is still very much alive in the minds and hearts of the millions of people who were touched by his love and his wisdom. And he will continue his apostolate, though from afar well into the new millennium.
St. John Paul, therefore, is a centurion in more ways than one. He is, according to the title of Jonathan Kwitny’s book on the life and times of John Paul II, the Man of the Century. His influence was far reaching, if not unparalleled, not only in the field of philosophy, theology, and ecclesiology, but in politics.
“Without this Pope,” said Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, “it would be impossible to understand what happened in Europe at the end of the 1980s.” “Man of the Century” justly applies to this remarkable human being.
But John Paul is also, according to the title of Luigi Accottoli’s biography of the saint, Man of the Millennium. Concerning the former Pope’s Theology of the Body, George Weigel, who authored JP’s definitive biography, predicts that it is “a kind of theological time bomb set to go off, with dramatic consequences, sometime in the third millennium of the Church.”
John Paul’s good friend, Stefan Wyszynski, the great Primate of Poland, told him as he entered his pontificate: “If the Lord has called you, you must lead the Church into the third millennium.” If that is the case, John Paul mused, “I must lead the Church of Christ into the third millennium with prayer and through various activities, but I have also seen that that is not enough. It is also necessary to lead my suffering. . . . The Pope must suffer, so that the world may see that there is a higher gospel, as it were, the gospel of suffering.”
No doubt John Paul would brush aside the high accolades that have been accorded to him. He would defer to his earthly father. In a most personally revealing interview with French journalist André Frossard, he spoke of the lasting influence his father had on him. As John Paul recounted, the loss of his wife, a daughter, and a son, “opened up immense spiritual depths in him” and “his grief found its outlet in prayer,”
“The mere fact of seeing him on his knees had a decisive influence on my early years. He was so hard on himself that he had no need to be hard on his son; his example alone was sufficient to inculcate discipline and a sense of duty.”
Discipline and duty might seem ineffective weapons against people of political power. Joseph Stalin once remarked cynically, “The Pope? And how many divisions has the Pope?” John Paul needed discipline and an unwavering sense of duty in order to fulfill his mission. He would imitate Christ and teach with the frail weaponry of truth.
At the moment of Christ’s arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter drew his sword. However, Christ said to Peter, “Put your sword back into its place (Matt. 26:52); for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” Commenting on this passage, John Paul explained that “the kingdom to which he had been called had to be won with the power of love, and with the power of truth, and only in this way.”
Pope John Paul II’s most definitive encyclical on truth is Veritatis Splendor. The title implies that truth possesses a certain light that makes it visible and recognizable. In other words, truth is discoverable. Pontius Pilate famously said, “What is truth?” That was the end of any discussion on the topic. For John Paul, that same question should be the beginning of a discussion, and one that is fruitful. In writing the encyclical, the Holy Father was clearly aware of the fact that the modern world was siding with Pilate. America, for example, had discarded the notion that “We hold these truths to be self-evident” and turned truth into “what is true for me.” In other words, truth is reduced to something we invent.
Truth and freedom, intimately bound together as they are, are torn asunder so that freedom, it is assumed, can exist independently of truth. Veritatis Splendor explains that “authentic freedom is ordered to truth,” that without truth there can be no freedom. Anarchy results when truth is no longer present to direct freedom to reality. “You will know the truth and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32) indicates that truth is not only knowable, but is an indispensable prerequisite for freedom. It is an illusion of the most pernicious kind to believe that disregarding truth can lead to a meaningful life.
It seems that standing by the banner of truth is a comical posture. John Paul was a “fool for Christ,” but certainly no fool in the conventional sense. John Paul was certainly not lacking in charisma. Therefore he was honored, praised, and applauded. But was he understood? Did his words change hearts and minds? “We live in a postmodern world, where everything is possible and nothing is certain,” he wrote in Evangelium Vitae, “where experts can explain anything in the objective world, yet we understand our own lives less and less.”
The world may not be blessed with another “Man of the Century.” And this is why Saint John Paul II must continue to be a “Man of the Millennium.”
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(Dr. Donald DeMarco is a professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University, and an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College & Seminary. He is a regular columnist for the St. Austin Review. His latest three books are How to Navigate Through Life and Apostles of the Culture of Life [posted on amazon.com], and the soon to be published, A Moral Compass for a World in Confusion.)
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