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Book
ReviewNazism
and Communism and the Remarkable Life of the Polish PopeMemory and identity: personal reflections.
Pope John Paul II, 2005. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson; ISBN 0297785075X,
198 pp., £12.99, cloth
SAGE Publications, Inc.2006DOI: 10.1177/09675507060140030502
Bernadette Waters
University of Southampton
This
book provides an extraordinary insight into the mind of one of the twentieth-century's
most influential religious leaders. It is not a biogra- phy, but in reflecting
on one of the most turbulent periods of history – the second half of
the twentieth century – and John Paul's own beliefs and experiences,
it nonetheless serves to paint a picture of the remarkable life of the Polish
Pope. The book is actually a collection of personal memoirs and reflections
prompted by a series of interviews held at Castel Gandolfo in 1993. Josef
Tischner and Krzysztof Michalski, two Polish philosophers who had co- founded
the `Institute for Human Sciences' in Vienna, conducted these interviews.
They had requested that the Pontiff undertake a critical analy- sis of the
two opposing dictatorships that marked twentieth-century Polish history, Nazism
and Communism. The Pope had returned to the tran- scripts of the interviews
almost 20 years later with the intention of broad- ening and updating the
discussion and debate contained within the original text. There is a poignancy
and timeliness of the publication of these memoirs coinciding, as they did,
with the year in which John Paul died, 2005. The style of the book is constructed
as a conversation in order that the reader will not misconstrue it as an academic
treatise but, rather, accept it as an informal dialogue. The obvious intention
is that it should be acces- sible to a greater audience than those who would
normally read the writ- ings of the Pope. It must be said, however, that it
only partially succeeds in this ambition since the work is sufficiently dense
to provide an intellec- tual challenge beyond that of most informal dialogues
and it does come across as a series of intensely philosophical monologues
on specific topics. The prose is sometimes difficult to follow and one needs
a certain knowledge of church and political history (not to mention Latin)
to fully
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comprehend
its content. This dissonance between intention and outcome reflects in some
measure that associated with John Paul as arch commu- nicator: the Polish
Pope was a master of modern communications – using the media and Internet
to spread his encyclicals, sermons and opinions. He used the jet age to travel
as no other Pope had done before. Famously kiss- ing the tarmac wherever he
landed, and projecting himself as a genial lib- eral, he would then go on
to preach a staunchly conservative message apparently out of kilter with the
modern world or even, indeed, with the modernists within his own church. Karol
Wojtyla was born in 1920 at a time when Poland had recently been restored
to the map of Europe for the first time since the eighteenth century. The
history and politics of the land of his birth continued to be a major influence
on his ministry throughout his life and in this book he explores notions of
patriotism, the concept of nation and the history and culture of Poland. He
goes on to explore the idea of Europe as a native land in the context of other
continents and the importance of the evange- lization of central and eastern
Europe. In discussing the relationship between church and state, one is left
in no doubt as to how his background served to change the face of modern politics.
He was always an implaca- ble enemy of the Nazi and Communist totalitarian
systems, knowing and suffering both at first hand from his early years as
he grew up in Poland. His university education (he studied Polish literature
at Jagiellonian in Krakow) was interrupted by the Nazi invasion and he was
forced to smash rocks in a stone quarry. Later, he worked as a stoker in an
industrial unit and suffered accidents that left him slightly disabled. These
experiences had an enduring effect, in that they alerted him to the alienation
of the weak and powerless. They also turned his thoughts to a career in the
priesthood, although in his youth he had wished to pursue a career in acting
and was an accomplished poet and writer. In the chapters on The Limit Imposed
Upon Evil, the Pope explores the co-existence of good and evil and uses Nazism
and Communism to illustrate his points concerning the ideologies of evil and
the redemptive nature of God. He offers an insight into his experiences of
evil and the outcomes of his personal reflections on it and he affirms his
belief that the power of good will ulti- mately prevail. Wojtyla was ordained
a priest in 1947 and was created Cardinal of Krakow in 1967. He had a reputation
for being a rarity, a priest who was a philosopher with a solid understanding,
though not approval, of Marxist dialectic. The Communist authorities discovered
what a strong opponent he could be through his defiant sermons and lectures
and his support for industrial workers in their wish to assert their Polish
Catholic identity. In the chapters on Freedom and Responsibility, Pope John
Paul explores his thoughts on the lessons of recent history including his
firm belief that in
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the
process of resisting both Nazism as a system aimed at the destruction of Poland,
and Communism as an oppressive system imposed from the East, the Polish people
had pursued highly positive ideals. He asserts that those years of occupation
and domination saw the recovery and strength- ening of the fundamental values
by which the people lived and to which they wished to remain faithful. His
support and encouragement of the Solidarity movement in Poland in the early
1980s was crucial, as it came at the beginning of the process by which Communism
and the Soviet empire were first undermined and then overthrown. His critique
of atheis- tic materialism contained within `Centesimus Annus' was an important
contribution to the eventual disintegration of the old Marxist and Soviet
hegemonies. At the same time, and to the discomfort of Western leaders, he
was no less critical of what he described as the `unbridled capitalism' of
the West, which he describes as dangerously decadent and destructive. In the
chap- ters on Democracy: Possibilities and Risk, he concurs with the Aristotelian
notion of politics as social ethics and quotes Thomas Aquinas as saying `the
law is a rational ordering promulgated for the sake of the common good by
him who has the care of the community' (p. 151). But he strongly argues that
the law established by man has definite limits, which it should not overstep.
He asserts the primacy of God in safeguard- ing fundamental good and criticizes
modern parliaments for their support for what he considers unethical legislation.
Legalized abortion is cited as the most obvious example of how governments
can exceed what he believes is their proper competence and thus place themselves
in open conflict with God's law and the law of nature. This section typifies
a Pope capable of great gentleness and sympathy but also of great intolerance
and perhaps an ignorance of modern-day pressures. The Epilogue contains a
unique section dealing with the assassination attempt made on Pope John Paul
in 1981. There have always been suspi- cions that the Soviets, enraged by
the stance taken by the Papacy on Communism, and acting through the Bulgarian
Secret Service, were responsible for the shooting of the Pope in St Peter's
Square. It is well known that the Pope had publicly forgiven his attacker,
Ali Agca, and even visited him in prison. It is also well known that the Pope
believed that because the assassination attempt took place on the feast day
of Our Lady of Fatima (13 May) that it might have been the intercession of
Our Lady who had saved him on that day. But he had never spoken publicly on
this topic and so the book's section on this issue is particularly interesting.
In 1991, and significantly whilst giving thanks for the deliverance from Communism,
the Pope released the obscure prophecy known as `The Third Secret of Fatima'.
He obviously believed that this prophecy pre- dicted his assassination attempt.
He also had Agca's bullet – shot at such
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close
quarters and which he says was certainly intended to kill, not just wound – placed in the crown of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima. The book recalls
the events of the shooting and his subsequent treatment and recovery. Pope
John Paul says, `It was all a testimony to divine grace ... Agca knew how
to shoot, and he certainly shot to kill. Yet it was as if someone was guiding
and deflecting that bullet.' He writes that Agca, a professional assassin,
was perplexed by the fact of his intended victim's survival and this had led
him to want to know what the secret of Fatima was. He was apparently insistent
to know what the prophecy had said. The Pope felt that it awakened in him
a sense of religion: `Ali Agca had prob- ably sensed that over and above his
own power, over and above the power of shooting and killing, there was a higher
power. He began to look for it.' In many ways, this episode in the Pope's
life, and his reactions to it, exemplify his stance throughout the text of
this book and the text of his life: he experienced and survived evil; rejected
its basis and understood its limits; explored redemption as a victory and
asserted his belief in a higher power. The book stimulated me to challenge
my own stereotype of the papacy of John Paul II and whilst I strongly disagreed
with some of his assertions, I found much in the book to absorb and reflect
on. It failed in its attempt to be `conversational' (except in the section
on the attempted assassina- tion), but nonetheless was a worthwhile and interesting
book.