c. 2005 Religion News Service
(Raymond A. Schroth, a Jesuit priest who teaches at Saint Peter’s College in Jersey City, N.J., wrote this review for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.)
(UNDATED) Since his funeral on April 8, three interpretations have emerged of Pope John Paul II and his career. In the first he is John Paul the Great, the superstar who tore down the Iron Curtain, worthy of instant sainthood by the proclamation of the millions who flooded to Rome for his funeral.
In the second _ disregarding those who hated him simply because they hate religion _ he is a strong, gifted personality who nevertheless failed in his mission to strengthen the church. By stifling the voices of loyal but critical theologians, he is responsible for the decline of Catholicism in the United States and Western Europe.
In the third, John Paul as pope is worthy of special respect, but he is a man like all men. He gets up in the morning, shaves, etc., prays, goes to work, comes home, has dinner _ maybe watches some TV? _ prays, and goes to bed. He travels around the world, endures an assassination attempt, and is widely admired. But, like all of us _ even the saints and the apostles _ he has limitations. Because of these limitations, he understands some things better than others. Yet, because of his position, he must speak of many things.
“Memory and Identity,” (Rizzoli, 192 pages, $19.95) an expansion of recorded conversations between John Paul and two Polish philosophers at his country home at Castel Gandolfo in 1993, is a book for this third group.
It is far from, but the closest thing we have to, a pope sitting down with journalists and answering heavy questions. He deserves credit for publishing this, partly because he was speaking not as an authority figure but as just another pastor. There is no moral obligation to agree with everything he had to say _ or to admire his poetry, of which there are several samples.
Each chapter begins with a question: “Tell us, Holy Father, … what are the roots of Nazism and Communism?” Or, “What is the relationship between redemption and human freedom?” Or “What is the future of Europe?”
The answers make a short book but a slow read, partly because we must follow his line of thought carefully to do this slim volume justice. And the answers are not in dialogue form but in separate essays _ homilies, really _ in which he sometimes seems to ignore the question, insert a passage from Genesis or the Gospels, and analyze it as if he were teaching a basic seminary class.
What themes recur? First, Polish history as a touchstone. Remember: Poland halted the Mongol invasion of Europe in 1241 and John Sobieski III saved Europe from the Ottoman invasion at Vienna in 1683. After all, the book is a conversation among Poles.
Second, the French Revolution and the Enlightenment, in spite of their excesses, did contribute _ through liberty, equality and fraternity _ to the tradition of human rights; but the real source of human rights are the Gospels.
Third, democracy is a mixed good. For the most part it seems superior to monarchy and aristocracy; but a democratic process brought Hitler to power, and democratic assemblies have legalized abortion.
Fourth, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe _ Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary _ can best serve greater Europe by preserving their identity. These countries, John Paul thought, value human life more than those in the West. They must not submit to Western “negative cultural models.”
The best chapter is the epilogue, reminiscing on the 1981 assassination attempt. It was touch-and-go, and the pope was not expected to live. Much has been made of his conviction, stated here, that since it was the 60th anniversary of the Virgin Mary’s apparitions to three peasant children at Fatima, Portugal, Mary guided the bullet in order to save him.
The logic of that kind of piety inevitably raises questions. Where was God or Mary when the planes headed toward the World Trade Center, or when the government assassins in El Salvador shot down Archbishop Romero 25 years ago at Mass? More significant is the account of the doctors in the operation room who donated their own blood to the pope when the first transfusion didn’t work, and of John Paul’s forgiveness of his assassin before the would-be killer asked to be forgiven.
KRE/JL/RR END SCHROTH
