When he was elected Bishop of Rome on October 16, 1978, Cardinal Karol Wojtyła had a rather limited experience of the Catholic Church in the United States. He had met American churchmen at the Second Vatican Council, and a few of them visited Poland in the ensuing years. The Cracovian cardinal had made two visits to the United States, one during the national bicentennial in 1976, but the majority of his time during these trips was spent with Polish American communities.
So it’s probably fair to say that John Paul II began his papacy with an impression of American Catholicism not dissimilar from that of other European intellectuals: the U.S. Church had an enviable network of institutions — ranging from parishes to health care and social service facilities to schools, colleges, and universities — but the Church was more wealthy than cultured and lived too comfortably within the American status quo.
In short, while the new pope wasn’t hostile to the Church in the U.S., neither did he see it, in 1978, as one possible template for the Catholic future. That would change dramatically over the next quarter-century, in part because of the renewal that John Paul II helped ignite in American Catholicism and in part because of his growing understanding that the United States, while deeply rooted in Europe, was not simply Europe transplanted.
The change in both papal perceptions and the U.S. church began with John Paul’s first American pilgrimage in October 1979. The extraordinary response he drew in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Des Moines, and Washington suggested that there was considerably more vitality in the Church, not least among young people, than the Pope may have previously thought: vitality that could animate what John Paul would later call the “New Evangelization.” At the same time, the enthusiasm the Pope evoked suggested to more alert U.S. Catholics that it was time to get out of a defensive crouch, abandon the post-Vatican II tong wars, and get on with the council’s summons to sanctify the world.
Over the next two decades, John Paul continued to inspire a renewal of evangelically vital Catholicism in America. Concurrently, he came to understand that his social magisterium was being discussed far more seriously in the United States than anywhere else, and that the defense of life he proclaimed in the 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) found greater public expression in America than in the rest of the so-called “developed” world combined. That, in turn, suggested to John Paul that the American Founding had been rooted in principles of the natural moral law that were congenial to the biblical idea of the inalienable dignity and infinite value of every human life.
After the crack-up of European communism in 1989-1991, two questions posed themselves: Were democracy and the free economy simply political and economic mechanisms that could function well on virtually any cultural foundation? Where might the new democracies of post-communist Europe look for models of how to live freedom nobly? John Paul II answered the first question in the 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus: it takes a certain critical mass of people living certain habits of the heart and mind — certain virtues — so that free politics and free economics support individual human flourishing and social solidarity. And from many hours of conversation with him, I can say that John Paul II hoped that Poland and the other newly self-liberated countries of central and eastern Europe would learn some lessons from the American experience in building their post-communist societies.
Why? Because the Pope saw in the United States a developed democracy in which religious conviction continued to shape the lives of the majority of citizens and in which religiously informed moral argument played a significant role in public life. The United States was not France, where secularism was constitutionally enshrined; nor was the American republic Great Britain or Germany, where biblical religion had long ceased to shape national cultures and public affairs. In the United States, John Paul II hoped, the vision of the free and virtuous society he outlined in Centesimus Annus — a society in which the Church helped shape a vibrant public moral culture directing the enormous energies let loose by political and economic freedom — might be realized, and other countries might see in that realization how freedom and virtue go together.
As America approaches its 250th birthday, it would do well to remember that the emblematic figure of the second half of the twentieth century had such high hopes for us: hopes that now seem a call to a national examination of conscience.
By George Weigel in the Denver Catholic
Saint John Paul II was America’s Pope and that of the whole world. He was the great communicator who spoke over a dozen languages and was fluent in eight. He reached the Catholic youth of the world like no other Pope before him. World Youth Day was instituted by Pope John Paul II in the December of 1985. The first official Youth Day was celebrated on Palm Sunday in Rome, Italy in 1986. After his death the chants of “Santo Subito” could be heard in Vatican Square. I believe he was the greatest Pope in modern times who helped bring down communism and the Berlin Wall during his Pontificate. Chants of John Paul II ‘We love you” could be heard throughout his papacy all around the world. His most famous motto echoed the world over was, “Be not afraid.” Saint John Paul II pray for us.
“Stating that Muslims and followers of Judaism worship the same God as Christians” is just one of many heresies spoken by JP2.
John Paul II wrote that Muslims “profess” to worship the one true God in one of his documents. He did not say that they actually did. There is a difference. I do not have the encyclical handy now, but that was the word used in it. Clearly, he was not saying that they worshiped the one true God in the Trinity as he knew they did not, but that they were monotheistic, and not polytheistic.
Um, the God of the Jewish covenant and revelation is the exact same God as the God of the new Christian covenant and revelation. Yes, Christians and Jews worship the same God. Christianity fulfills the Jewish covenant. Christians revere the Old Testament as the Word of God. The God of Abraham and Moses and David is the same God as the God of Christians. You spout the heresy of Marcionism.
Islam is not in the lineage of Jewish and Christian revelation and is not a revealed religion. The Koran is not inspired scripture. Muslims have some incorrect beliefs about God. Yet insofar as they hold that there is one infinite, supreme creator of the universe they hold partially true belief in the one true God, the same God worshipped and known by Jews and Christians and revealed through Jesus Christ. Muslims worship the true God, the same God as Jews and Christians, but their worship is clouded by false beliefs about God.
On May 14, 1999, Pope St. John Paul II shocked millions, worldwide, by bowing and kissing a gift of a copy of the Qur’an (bowing and kissing a gift is a Middle Eastern tradition) after an audience with an Iraqui delegation of Chaldean Catholic amd Muslim leaders. This was a gesture of peace, friendship and solidarity with Muslims. You can still find the news stories, photos— and public outrage!— in news stories and debates of this incident, on the Internet. The pope took the famous, ecumenical, Vatican II document, “Nostra Aetate,” too far, diminishing and belittling Catholic teachings– the Truth of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior— for the sake of ecumenical friendship, peace and goodwill, among all religions. The Vatican II documents contain too much ambiguity, and diminishing and undermining of Catholic teachings, in many places, for the sake of ecumenism, humanism, and the individual and his rights. That is my belief. How about another Council, to fix things?
Anne TE, Pope St. John Paul II did not write that in one of his Encyclicals. Rather, he read it from a text he prepared for a General Audience talk on May 5, 1999. I don’t know what language His Holiness gave the original speech in, but there are translations of it in 6 different languages on The Vatican’s website. The closest St.John Paul II document with the word “profess” in regards to Muslims is in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, §841.It says: “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.” That wording is in the Catechism promulgated under John Paul II; the Vatican’s General Directory for Catechesis says John Paul II promulgated the Catechism on October 11, 1992, and also describes it as an act of the Pope’s Magisterium.
Jim Sheridan, you need to read all the way from #839 through #849 to understand how “Outside the Church there is no salvation” was taught by Pope John Paul II. I find it no different from what is taught in the Baltimore Catechism and Fr. John Hardon’s and Bishop Schneider’s Catechisms when not taken out of context.
Pope St. John Paul II wrote good documents, good books, and good speeches, and helped end Communism in Poland. But his post-Conciliar Church was a terrible failure. He promoted criminal clerical sex abusers, like Theodore McCarrick, Marcial Maciel, etc. And he consistently refused to meet with victims of clerical sex abuse. His World Youth Days were highly secularized, like a cheap, 3-ring circus act, degraded “hippie” dress and behaviors, styled after large “hippie” “Woodstock,” dope-infested rock “music” shows, kids irreverently screaming “John Paul II, we love you” as if the Holy Father was a cheap, worldly, degraded “rock star.” Good Church structure and discipline completely gone, no proper Catholic atmosphere of respect and reverence before Alnighty God. No proper Catechism training, worldwide, for kids, “Catholic” churches, schools and colleges destroyed by radical liberals– no discipline. Radical liberal immoral clerical leaders, heresy, liturgical abuses– all in the name of “Vatican II.”
I still remember Tony Mellindez, who was born without arms, playing Gospel and other music on his guitar with his feet for Pope John Paul II, and the pope going down and hugging him. John Paul II was prolife to the core. Melendez was born deformed because his mother took thalidomide when she was pregnant with him. The pope made his mistakes, as everyone has, but all in all was holy. That is one reason why many prolife people, and others, were against forcing everyone to take vaccines that might not be right for them at certain times but to find better more ethical methods I have never taken any vaccine related to aborted fetal cells, and I have never gotten covid. Only taken ethically created vaccines.
I grew up a Protestant and watched as the media promoted JP2. It was obvious to me that if he was any good the media would have demonize him, instead they put him on a pedestal. I later converted to (Traditional) Catholicism and was shocked how dumb downed (modern) Catholics are to believe JP2 could be a saint. I believe Vatican2 is a Protestant inspired watered down version of the true Mass and that JP2 would have never passed the traditional canonization process by the Roman Catholic Church; “a rigorous, multi-step judicial and theological investigation. It verifies that a deceased person lived a heroically virtuous life or was martyred and confirms that God has worked two documented miracles through their intercession”. https://www.calefactory.org/misc-v2-heresiesofjp2.htm
If you don’t accept the documents of Vatican II and the liturgical reform, then sorry to tell you but you are still a Protestant, not a true Catholic.
No. The Vatican II documents are famously ambiguous. They should be revised and clarified. They have many similarities to Protestant Reformation reforms. Also, the liturgy document, “Sacrosanctum Concilium” was totally ignored, never implemented. Many faithful Catholics do not fully agree with post-Conciliar Church reforms. At some point, the Church must try to fix these problems. Pope St. John Paul II had tremendous healing gifts, and he worked many beautiful miracles when he was alive– and was known to work more healing miracles, after his death. However, it was very upsetting to me, that he consistently ignored Church discipline, let Catholc education fall to pieces–and refused to meet with suffering clerical sex abuse victims. I attend both forms of the Mass, both are valid.
V2 was a pastoral rather than an ecumenical council and no one is obliged to adhere to it. Religious Liberty and False Economism condemned by previous popes were incorporated in V2. God does not change. Truth does not change. The Church does not change. Protestant is change. V2 is Protestant and I believe should be flushed down the toilet.
You are patently wrong. Vatican II issued two dogmatic constitutions and a liturgical constitution. Those are the highest levels of the extraordinary magisterium’s teaching authority in an ecumenical council.
All Catholics are required to assent to the teachings and documents of Vatican 2. You do not get to set up your own personal or parallel or competing magisterium in opposition to the magisterium of the successors to Peter and the other apostles.
Your stance is plainly heretical, to be blunt. No Catholic may reject an ecumenical council. That’s the chief error of the SSPX.
If you reject Vatican II, you are not Catholic. Period.
Alien, here is my view. I only believe in traditional Catholic teaching of the last 2,000+ years. Modernist prelates are very liberal, and I do not think that they fully accept Catholic teachings. Like Pope Francis, they mess with things wrongly, and abuse their position of power– and try to twist things the way they want. The Holy Spirit cannot operate where there is man’s rebellion, falsehood and deception, and refusal to obey God. Pope Francis and Cardinal Fernandez, to me, are examples of disobedient, bad Catholic leaders. And there are many more bad Catholic leaders! Many were liberal theological dissidents at that silly Council. That is how I see things. I push them all aside and just follow the traditional, true Catholic Faith and Morals.
Pope St. John Paul II is a Saint. Yet, I still believe it was terribly wrong of him, to consistently refuse to meet with poor, suffering victims of clerical child sex abuse. And it was very wrong to heartlessly promote horrific clerical sex abusers like Theodore McCarrick, Marcial Maciel, and many others. How could a Saint do such things? I have no answers.
I couldn’t stop laughing!
Pope John Paul II was lied to by many of those under him about Mc Carrick and others. Remember Pope Bendict XVI sought to prevent McCarrick’s travels, but others covered up for Mc Carrick and did not carry out Benedict’s orders. Later Pope Franics took away the restrictions on Mc Carrick traveling to China and other places.
For those who still insist on believing that silly idea that “the documents of Vatican II were purposefully left ambiguous”, that’s actually a lazy cop-out. Check out the talk “Fr. Curran’s Theology of Dissent part 1.” by the late, great Msgr. William Smith (keepthefaith dot lybsyn dot com). I think he gave it in the late 80s or early 90s. Fast-forward to the 24:18 mark: “Now several writers have noted (that) LUMEN GENTIUM #25 nowhere mentions even the concept-or even the possibility-of dissent from authentic Catholic teaching. Now some people do bring up one little point that needs attention: During the Council, there were many committees and commissions during the Council. But the commission that had the final say was the Theological Commission. Every now and then you run into people who say ‘well I read this sentence, and I don’t know what it means.’ You can’t say that about a Council. There is a way to figure out what it means. Behind this little book of the16 Documents (of Vatican II) there are 25 volumes called the ACTA SYNODOLIA, which are the Acts of the Second Vatican Council. Every draft-in some cases there are 11 drafts-every word which was proposed with amendations, corrections the meaning of every single word in a formal document of an Ecumenical Council of the Church is a matter of record. No one can just come along and say ‘well, no one knows what that means.’ You can find out what it means. You go back to the ACTA of the Council, you go to who is called the Relator (General) who is the President of the Theological Commission, because it was up to the Theological Commission to determine what every single phrase meant, so that it went before the body of the bishops, and they knew what they were voting on. Now of course maybe some were out having coffee or someone else was napping or taking jogging-I don’t know-but nobody can say that ‘we don’t know what they mean.’ There is a way to establish and prove what they mean” (please listen to the rest). Fact for you to look-up: Who was the Relator General of the Theological Commission of the Second Vatican Council?
No, the ambiguities were not “deliberate,” they were there because the ideas were new amd difficult to figure out how to implement them in the 2,000 year-old ancient Church. Lots of shallow modernist liberal Churchmen during that era, not deeply devout Catholic leaders. Ideas such as the “Americanism” of Jesuit Fr. John Courtney Murray (formerly silenced, brought back for the Council’s new directions– hypocritical!) and much more– contributed to the “mess.” Same problem with the Synod on Synodality. “Liberal Churchmen making a big mess.”
“Reply to Jim Sheridan” please direct me to an authoritative source to support your claims, as I provided one to support mine. No one answered my fact check challenge yet on who was the Realtor General of the Theological Commission of Vatican II, so I’ll provide the answer. He was a priest with the name of Fr. Josef Ratzinger. As for Fr. JC Murray-him being “silenced” previously-yes Cardinal Ottaviani did demand for Murray to end both writing on religious freedom and from publishing two articles he had already written on the subject in 1954. But are things like this new in the Church? NO. Check out the case of St. Thomas Aquinas and Bishop Stephanus of Orleans of France, back in the 1277. This was six weeks after Pope John XXI instructed him to investigate his teachings. The bishop went on to condemn Aquinas not once, not twice, but THREE times for being a heretic. To this day, the condemnations HAVE NEVER formally overturned in the sense of being rescinded by a papal or ecclesiastical decree. Instead, the condemnations were effectively neutralized over time as the theological and philosophical climate in the Church evolved. And Aquinas was cannonized in 1312, made a Doctor of the Church in 1567, and his theological system — known as Thomism — was formally recognized as the Church’s official philosophy and theology in 1917 when the Church adopted Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy as its official philosophical framework. This was part of the Liturgical and Ecclesiastical Code promulgated by Pope St. Pius X (d.1914), which reaffirmed the Church’s adherence to the teachings of the Summa Theologiae and other works of Aquinas.
Just read widely. Start with Churcmen who were great big influencers of the Council– like Jesuit Fr. John Courtney Murray. Lots of hypocrisy! Murray, the big, liberal Jesuit “Americanist” was silenced for years by the Church– and brought back to help create the “Vatican II” Church. Etc. Hypocrisy! Read all about Abp. Bugnini and his weird “Consilium” that wrote up the New Mass text. It included input from six Protestant clerics. The “Consilium” ignored “Sacrosanctum Concilium” and wrote up a text for an ecumenical-style Mass, stripped of Catholuc elements. That was not the original intention of the Council Fathers. Lots of liberal Churchnen during that age. The Vatican always does whatever it wants to do. Untrustworthy. Full of “baloney.” Too powerful. Wait ’till they implement the “ultimate” in Vatican II– the Synod on Synodality. Nobody needs all this “baloney.” People need true religious Faith. Pope Leo’s mom and dad were honest practicing Catholics. And their son, the Pope–no. Hypocrisy. Politics. The latest liberal “hip” religious “baloney” of today’s Vatican.
It is true that it took awhile for the works of St. Thomas Aquinas to be accepted by the Catholic Church. He was a great genius, however. When I was young, during Vatican II, a priest at my parish church gave me some books to read, of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the French Jesuit paleontologist. He told me that the works of great Churchnen like Aquinas were now “outdated” in the modern world. I replied that such great Churchmen as Aquinas were incomparable. The modern world is fill of immature, shallow, pseudo-intellectual nonsense. After reading the laughably “airhead” heretical works of Chardin, I gave the priest back his silly books. Chardin was full of lovely heretical poetic nonsense! No wonder he was silenced by the Church! He was a good scientist– but a poor theologian.
Poor Jesuit Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, silenced by the Church even posthumously– would have just loved Pope Francis’ “Laudato Si” and Pope Leo’s blessing of the 20,000-year-old ice block from Greenland, at the 10th anniversary of “Laudato Si” last year, at Castel Gandolfo. An artist brought the ice block to the conference to draw attention to rising sea levels and global climate threats. Fr. Chardin could have read his lovely, mystical “Hymn of the Universe”– very lovely, but not traditional Catholic or Christian theology. As the blessed ice block melted, everyone at the conference took home some blessed water to give to their communities. Sad to say, most of the participants were not Catholic. A very secular conference.