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   From: pedro1940@progression.net   
      
          Pope John Paul II and Communism   
      
      
      
             John Paul II has been credited with helping to bring down   
   communism in eastern Europe by sparking what amounted to a peaceful   
   revolution in his Polish homeland...actually,  John Paul II was a catalyst   
   in the collapse of Communism.   
      
             On June 2, 1979: Historic homily of John Paul II at Victory Square   
   in Warsaw: "It is not possible to understand the history of the Polish   
   nation without Christ."   
      
             January 15, 1981: John Paul II receives in audience a delegation   
   headed by Lech Walesa of the Polish Independent Syndicate Solidarnosc.   
      
             Solidarity is the labor movement against Communism that took place   
   in Poland in the 1980s and eventually brought democracy to Poland and the   
   downfall of communism in eastern Europe, including Russia.   
   The Pope with Lech Walesa   
      
             Lech Walesa, the founder of the Solidarity worker movement that   
   ultimately toppled communism, credited John Paul with giving Poles the   
   courage to rise up. "The pope started this chain of events that led to the   
   end of communism," Walesa said. "Before his pontificate, the world was   
   divided into blocs. Nobody knew how to get rid of communism. "He simply   
   said: Don't be afraid, change the image of this land."   
      
             January 13, 1987: John Paul II receives in audience the Communist   
   President of the Council of the People's Republic of Poland, General   
   Wojciech Jaruzelski... click to enlarge   
      
             The struggle to build the Nowa Huta church is one of the great   
   clashes between the Catholic Church and Communists in post-war Poland. Of   
   all the conflicts between the Church and the Communists involving Karol   
   Wojtyla, this story perfectly expresses his growth into political   
   leadership.   
      
             Nowa Huta was a brand new town built by the Communists in the   
   early 50's outside of Krakow. The town was in Wojtyla's jurisdiction. It was   
   meant to be a workers' paradise, built on Communist principles, a visible   
   rebuke to the "decadent," spiritually besotted Krakow. The regime assumed   
   that the workers, of course, would be atheists, so the town would be built   
   without a church. But the people soon made it clear they did want one.   
   Wojtyla communicated their desire, and the regime opposed it... but   
   eventually the church was build and consecrated by bishop Karol Wojtyla.   
      
             Later, as Pope, John Paul II spoke of human dignity, the right to   
   religious freedom and a revolution of the spirit--not insurrection. The   
   people listened. As George Wiegel observed, "It was a lesson in dignity, a   
   national plebiscite, Poland's second baptism."   
      
             John Paul II's 1979 trip was the fulcrum of revolution which led   
   to the collapse of Communism. Timothy Garton Ash put it this way, "Without   
   the Pope, no Solidarity. Without Solidarity, no Gorbachev. Without   
   Gorbachev, no fall of Communism." (In fact, Gorbachev himself gave the   
   Kremlin's long-term enemy this due, "It would have been impossible without   
   the Pope.") It was not just the Pope's hagiographers who told us that his   
   first pilgrimage was the turning point. Skeptics who felt Wojtyla was never   
   a part of the resistance said everything changed as John Paul II brought his   
   message across country to the Poles. And revolutionaries, jealous of their   
   own, also look to the trip as the beginning of the end of Soviet rule.   
      
             The Popeâ?Ts epic June 1979 pilgrimage to his homeland there were   
   nine days on which the history of the 20th century pivoted. In those   
   forty-some sermons, addresses, lectures, and impromptu remarks, the Pope   
   told his fellow-countrymen, in so many words: â?oYou are not who they say   
   you are. Let me remind you who you are.â?� By restoring to the Polish people   
   their authentic history and culture, John Paul created a revolution of   
   conscience that, fourteen months later, produced the nonviolent Solidarity   
   resistance movement, a unique hybrid of workers and intellectuals â?" a   
   â?oforest planed by aroused consciences,â?� as the Popeâ?Ts friend, the   
   philosopher Jozef Tischner once put it. And by restoring to his people a   
   form of freedom and a fearlessness that communism could not reach, John Paul   
   II set in motion the human dynamics that eventually led, over a decade, to   
   what we know as the Revolution of 1989.   
      
             It took time; it took the Pope's support from Rome--some of it   
   financial; it took several more trips in 1983 and 1987. But the flame was   
   lit. It would smolder and flicker before it burned from one end of Poland to   
   the other. Millions of people spread the revolution, but it began with the   
   Pope's trip home in 1979. As General Jaruzelski said, "That was the   
   detonator."   
      
             In 1979, John Paul II receives in audience the Soviet Foreign   
   Minister, Andrei Gromyko. In 1989, the Pontiff arranges the first meeting   
   ever between a Pope and a Kremlin chief. He meets with Mikhail Gorbachev in   
   the Vatican. They announce the Vatican and Moscow will establish diplomatic   
   ties.   
      
             It was Gorbachev himself who acknowledged publicly the role of   
   John Paul II in the fall of Communism. "What has happened in Eastern Europe   
   in recent years would not have been possible without the presence of this   
   Pope, without the great role even political that he has played on the world   
   scene" (quoted in La Stampa, March 3, 1992).   
      
             Perhaps the most significant statement the pope made after the   
   fall of Communism throughout his entire pontificate was that "the claim to   
   build a world without God has been shown to be an illusion" (Prague, April   
   21, 1990). For John Paul II it was only a matter of when and how Communism   
   would fall. Communism as a system, in John Paul IIâ?Ts opinion, fell not   
   only by the hand of divine Providence, but as a consequence of its own   
   mistakes and abuses. John Paul II repeated the content of Christianity, its   
   religious and moral message, its defense of the human person, insisting that   
   this is a principle to be followed. Thus in his estimation, Christianity   
   itself became the determining factor in the fall of Communism.   
      
             The fall of Communism meant that a Europe of the spirit was being   
   reborn. While celebrating the fall of Communism, however, John Paul warned   
   against the dangers of capitalism. "Unfortunately, not everything the West   
   proposes as a theoretical vision or as a concrete lifestyle reflects Gospel   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)