Election day gave “the society” a delicious opportunity to reject “the power” in the most personal way. Inept to the end, the government had decided that voting would be by deletion. Ballots contained all the candidates’ names, and preference was registered by crossing out the names of disfavored candidates. From the Baltic to the Tatras and from Wrocław to Przemyśl, millions of Poles took enormous satisfaction in crossing out the names of the communist candidates, one by one, each stroke of the pen a gesture of disdain for those who had ruled for more than forty years in the name of their superior insight into history.2
It was a complete triumph for Solidarity which, after a second round of runoffs on June 18, won every contested Sejm seat and ninety-nine of the one hundred seats in the new Senate. Parliamentary maneuvering now turned to the question of electing a president. On July 19, in an impressive display of political discipline by the fledgling Solidarity parliamentarians, Wojciech Jaruzelski was elected President according to the agreement reached at the Roundtable—by one vote, deliberately shaved that closely by Solidarity tacticians. Solidarity had kept its side of the bargain while demonstrating that Jaruzelski served at its pleasure. Solidarity, not the Communist Party, had real governing legitimacy in Poland.
A month later, on August 24, after Jaruzelski’s candidate for prime minister, former interior minister General Czesław Kiszczak, had been unable to form a government, the president invited one of the thousands of Solidarity leaders he had jailed almost eight years before, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, to do so. On September 12, after three weeks of intensive negotiations, the first non-communist prime minister of an east central European country in forty years took office.3 Far faster than Solidarity’s leadership had thought possible, Poland was firmly set on the road to freedom.
Across the Carpathians, in Czechoslovakia, the regime still tried to maintain its iron grip by repression. Underneath the neo-Stalinist crust, however, a revolution of conscience was gathering critical mass. A most unlikely revolutionary created one of its important public manifestations.
Beginning in December 1987, a pious Moravian farmer, Augustin Navrátil, organized a national petition for religious freedom, his third such effort since 1976. A simple man of stubbornly held convictions, Navrátil became an activist after being offended by the government’s removal of crosses and roadside shrines from the Moravian countryside. His first two petitions for religious freedom had landed him in psychiatric hospitals. According to the Czechoslovak regime, anyone who did things like this was certifiably mad. In his third petition, Navrátil expanded his demands. In addition to defining the relationship between Church and state in a free society, the Navrtátil petition demanded free speech, freedom of assembly, habeas corpus, freedom of the press, and the legal enforcement of contracts. What had begun as a religious act of defiance against the regime’s atheism had become a rolling, nationwide referendum, with nonbelievers and Protestants joining Catholics in signing the petition throughout 1988 and into 1989. Cardinal Tomáśek urged his people to sign the petition because “cowardice and fear are not becoming to a true Christian.”4
In early 1989, the Czechoslovak regime, refusing to face the facts represented by the 600,000 signatures the petition would eventually garner, sent Augustin Navrátil off for another spell in the psychiatric ward of a prison hospital. On February 21, Václav Havel, the playwright-leader of Charter 77 and the most prominent figure in the Czech human rights resistance, was sentenced to nine months in prison. A month later, on March 25, a peaceful candlelight procession for religious freedom in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, was broken up by water cannons, dogs, truncheons, and tear gas. Although the regime imagined that it was decapitating the movement’s leadership and terrorizing its followers, Havel’s sentencing and the “Good Friday of Bratislava” turned out to be the prologue to the drama that history would remember as the “Velvet Revolution.”
“DO NOT BE AFRAID TO BE SAINTS!”
As the seeds of resistance he had sown in east central Europe began to flower, John Paul II maintained an intense pace of pastoral activity.
Curial Ecumenism
A joint plenarium or formal meeting of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith [CDF] and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity [CU] was held from January 30 through February 1, 1989. There had been tension between the two dicasteries over their respective responsibilities in ecumenism. CDF, for example, had taken the brunt of the criticism for delays in the Holy See’s response to ARCIC-I, the first report of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission. Cardinal Ratzinger’s congregation had its own complaints. CDF felt that it was brought into the ecumenical conversation on serious doctrinal issues only at the last minute. Then, if CDF raised objections, it got all the blame without having been part of the process that had brought things to a point of contention. CU, for its part, felt that bringing CDF into the discussion too early narrowed its range of maneuvering room.5
Beneath these bureaucratic concerns was a deeper, substantive issue. By virtue of its nature and institutional history, CU was sometimes inclined to see ecumenical dialogue as a form of negotiation. CDF, especially under Cardinal Ratzinger, looked on ecumenism as a mutual exploration of the truths of Christian faith, not a bargaining process in which one side’s “gain” was the other’s “loss.” There is no doubt that John Paul II shared the view that the only Christian unity worthy of the name is unity in the truth. It is equally certain that the Pope’s sense of ecumenical urgency was more characteristic of CU than CDF.
In resolving disputes between dicasteries or curial departments, John Paul’s approach has often been to suggest, “Why not have a joint plenary?”6 The Pope not only knew about the tension between CDF and CU, but thought it natural and even good. As he understood it, CU’s job was to probe the limits of the possible, while CDF’s was to decide whether the probing had gone too far (in terms of premature agreement on an issue) or whether the new terrain being explored had raised new questions.7 The point of a joint plenarium, a joint meeting of the two departments’ senior members, was to try to get the two dicasteries to see their built-in tension in that light.
The result of the three-day meeting was a set of internal and unpublished guidelines to govern the interaction between CDF and CU, making sure that CDF was consulted in time about questions of doctrine. The guidelines were subsequently approved by the Pope and tensions eased. Two years later, on March 25, 1993, CU issued its long-awaited Directory for the Applications of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism, a manual for ecumenical activity throughout the Church that had been developed in close consultation with CDF. As all parties recognized, though, stress was a natural part of the relationship between the two, and there would be further occasions in which that stress became visible.8
The Bishop as Witness and Evangelist
Contentions within the Church were by no means confined to the Roman Curia. For years, tension had been building between the leadership of the U.S. Bishops’ Conference and the Holy See.9 Another special three-day meeting took place in the first quarter of 1989, between the archbishops of the United States and the leaders of the Roman Curia. In the minds of some American bishops, conflicting views of Church governance were the root of the problem. In the view of some authorities in Rome, the question was whether the American bishops and their bureaucracies had absorbed so much of the denominational religious culture of their country that the bishops were losing sight of their unique role.
These issues crystallized in the opening remarks of Archbishop John May of St. Louis, the President of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops [NCCB], on March 8, 1989. Archbishop May noted that, in the contemporary United States, “Authoritarianism is suspect in any area of learning or culture…. Therefore, to assert that there is a Church teaching with authority binding and loosing for eternity is truly a sign of contradiction to many Americans who consider the divine right of bishops as outmoded as the divine right of kings.” This, the archbish
op concluded, was the “atmosphere” in which the bishops of the United States lived and worked.10
Cardinal Ratzinger, in response, suggested that what Archbishop May perceived as a uniquely American problem was in fact a difficulty in all modern societies—the inability to distinguish between authoritarian imposition and authoritative doctrine. That incapacity, in turn, was shaped by a defective notion of freedom as personal willfulness. The tendency of modern culture was to turn bishops into moderators of an ongoing discussion, and for a bishop to take an authoritative stand, teaching the mind of the Church, was regarded as “partisan.” But the faith is not a “partisan act,” Ratzinger argued, and the bishop could not call his people to be witnesses to the truth unless he was first such a witness himself: “It is the hallmark of the truth to be worth suffering for. In the deepest sense of the word, the evangelist must also be a martyr. If he is unwilling to be so, he should not lay his hand to the plow.” Bishops, as messengers of the Gospel, had to leave ample room for “intellectual disputation,” and had “to be ready to learn and to accept correction.” But bishops also had to remember that they were guardians of an authoritative tradition.11
In welcoming the Americans to what he hoped would be a “truly open exchange” that would “strengthen our partnership in the Gospel,” John Paul said that he was “fully conscious of the challenges you face in bringing the Gospel message to a world that does not readily accept it.”12 Archbishop May, for his part, said that the bishops had come to Rome in part to learn from the Pope: “No one knows more about spreading the Gospel than you do, Holy Father. In your work here in Rome and in your missionary journeys throughout the world, you have carried the good news of Jesus—in a courageous and loving way.”13 No doubt the sentiments of esteem were honestly stated, in both directions. Yet the special meeting would not have been called had the Pope, senior Vatican officials, and at least some American bishops not believed that something was missing—a sense of evangelical possibility, perhaps—in world Catholicism’s wealthiest and, in some respects, most influential vineyard. The NCCB leadership admitted to difficulties but not to the basic problem perceived in Rome, which involved the self-understanding of the American bishops as trustees and teachers of a tradition. Although the issue that was the occasion for the special meeting was raised, aired, and discussed, it was not resolved.
John Paul is, as Archbishop May noted, a singularly effective evangelist. It might also have been underscored that he had been that in situations far more various and at least as difficult as those faced by the American bishops. Further, John Paul had become a compelling figure by preaching a demanding Gospel, with compassion but also without compromise, convinced that the Gospel message is entirely pertinent to the crisis of modernity. As Cardinal Ratzinger had pointed out, bishops who thought themselves “moderators” between factions and constituencies were unlikely to imitate that bold evangelical style.14 That suggested a lost opportunity in a country on the threshold of becoming the world’s only superpower.
The People’s Book
Closely related to the teaching authority of bishops, and of the Church itself, is the question of biblical authority, which John Paul took up in a major address to the cardinals, bishops, and scholars of the Pontifical Biblical Commission on April 7, 1989. There had been an explosion of Catholic biblical scholarship in the wake of Vatican II and a dramatic increase in Bible study among Catholics.15 Yet just when the Bible was being restored to the people, those same people were being told, openly or subtly, that only scholars could really understand the Bible. The idea of the Bible as the Church’s book, the book of the people, was getting lost.
As the Pontifical Biblical Commission began a multiyear study on biblical interpretation in the life of the Church, the question the Pope wanted to pose was whether a biblical scholarship that largely confined itself to an intense, critical study of the origins of sacred texts risked losing sight of the religious message of those texts.16 The Pope also suggested that biblical scholars avoid the “trap of reflection” into which contemporary philosophers had fallen—in the case of biblical scholarship, by focusing so intently on the rings of particular trees that the entire forest of revelation and the good news of salvation it contained dropped out of sight. Biblical scholars could not treat the Bible as simply another ancient text to be dissected. If biblical scholars stood outside the Bible looking in, rather than looking at the Bible with the tools of critical scholarship from a position inside the believing community, something was awry.17
Africa and Scandinavia
Three weeks after defending the Bible as the people’s book, John Paul took off on his fifth pastoral pilgrimage to Africa, a nine-day journey to Madagascar, La Réunion, Zambia, and Malawi. On April 30, 1989, before a congregation of more than a half-million in Madagascar, he beatified a native of Tananarive, Victoria Rasoamanarivo (1848–1894), whose evangelical work after foreign missionaries had been expelled from the island had earned her the title “Mother of Madagascan Christianity.”18 On May 2, it was the turn of Jean Bernard Rousseau (1797–1867), who had evangelized La Réunion. In Zambia, John Paul marked the centenary of the country’s evangelization. During an ecumenical service in the capital’s Anglican cathedral, the Pope urged Anglicans and Catholics to “avoid all forms of competition and rivalry” in evangelizing Africa.19 In Malawi, he called for dialogue between Christians and Muslims and asked African Catholics “to reject a way of living which does not correspond with the best of your local traditions and your Christian faith.” That implicit critique of consumerism, and the Pope’s questioning in Zambia of the effects of African indebtedness on economic development, suggested that he was thinking, yet again, of a future beyond the Cold War and its possible effects on Africa.20
The pilgrim Pope marked another milestone in early June as he became the first Bishop of Rome to travel to Scandinavia. It was his longest intra-European pilgrimage in terms of distance traveled (some 7,200 miles), and it took him to Norway (0.48 percent Catholic), Iceland, Finland (0.08 percent Catholic), Denmark, and Sweden (1.14 percent Catholic). Ecumenism in lands marked by radical secularism was the pilgrimage theme. In Tromso, Norway, John Paul became the first Pope to preach north of the Arctic Circle, urging Norwegians who, during the summer, lived in perpetual daytime, to be “children of the light.” King Olaf V received him in Oslo, as did Queen Margrethe II in Copenhagen. Given the exceptionally low religious practice of Swedish Lutherans (perhaps 3 percent) and the minuscule Catholic population of the country, the congregation of 10,000 in Uppsala for the Pope’s Mass was considered a great surprise. Things were more difficult in Denmark, where the country’s Lutheran bishops were divided among themselves on whether they would meet with John Paul in the Cathedral of Roskilde. In the event, the Pope was not allowed to speak during the cathedral service, led by Bishop Berthild Wiberg. Afterward, John Paul met the Lutheran bishops willing to do so at Bishop Wiberg’s residence, where there was an exchange of addresses by the Pope and Bishop Ole Bertelsen of Copenhagen. John Paul greeted the Lutherans as “esteemed brothers in Christ” and urged that they pray for the day when they could celebrate the Eucharist together.21
The Scandinavian pilgrimage bore ecumenical fruit two and a half years later, on October 5, 1991, when an unprecedented ecumenical prayer service took place in St. Peter’s Basilica. The occasion was the 600th anniversary of the canonization of St. Bridget of Sweden, venerated by Catholics and Lutherans alike. John Paul II, Archbishop Bertil Werkström, Lutheran Primate of Sweden, and Archbishop John Vikström, Lutheran Primate of Finland, presided over First Vespers of the Twenty-seventh Sunday of the Year. The Catholic bishops of Stockholm and Helsinki participated, as did King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden. The queen offered one of the biblical readings during the service. The basilica was darkened at the beginning of the service, which began with the Pope and the Lutheran celebrants processing together to the high altar, accompanied by Sisters of the Most Holy Savior of St. Bridget, the “Br
idgettine” community founded by the saint, all carrying candles. As the sisters put the candles in the semicircular rail surrounding the tomb of Peter below the papal altar, the congregation sang the hymn “O Joyous Light” together. The basilica’s lights were then turned on. Intercessions were offered in all the Scandinavian languages, the Pope preached, and the two Lutheran primates gave addresses. It was the first time that Catholic and Lutheran leaders had prayed together in St. Peter’s.22
At lunch the next day, one of the Lutheran leaders asked John Paul whether the fact that two Lutheran archbishops had stood with him at the altar meant that he recognized the apostolic validity of their orders. The Pope paused and said, with a twinkle in his eye, “One could also ask whether the two archbishops, by being there on that altar with me, recognized my primacy.” There was general laughter, and the discussion moved on to other questions.23
The Meaning of Heroism
After a ten-day vacation in the mountains of northern Italy, John Paul flew to Spain on August 19, 1989, for the second international World Youth Day, being held at Santiago de Compostela in the country’s far northwest corner. According to a tradition dating from 813, the relics of the apostle James, martyred in Jerusalem c. A.D. 44, came to rest in Compostela, where the saint was said to have been an evangelist before his death. In the Middle Ages, Santiago de Compostela was the most important pilgrimage site in the world after Jerusalem and Rome. Now, 600,000 young people had come to Spanish Galicia by boat, train, car, bus, airplane, bicycle, and, in the great pilgrimage tradition, on foot. They had come from North and South America, Asia, Africa, Oceania and, as John Paul put it, from “all over Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals.”
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