The John Paul Papacy: A Mixed Legacy

A statue in Gdansk, Poland, shows Pope John Paul
and President Ronald Reagan walking together as
joint architects of the collapse of the former Soviet
bloc.  

I mentioned in yesterday’s posting the “complex ambiguities of Pope John Paul’s papacy” and I want to clarify what I meant.  John Paul II was an extremely popular pope and in many circles his papacy is glossed over without careful examination as one of the brighter spots of the Church in the last century, but truth demands that a more critical look be taken and a more balanced appreciation be rendered. 

I was living in Rome in the final years of Pope John Paul’s papacy and was, in fact, in Saint Peter’s Square earlier in the afternoon of the day he died.  An interviewer from the BBC randomly picked me out of the crowd, knowing only that I was an English speaker, and asked to talk with me.  (When he found out that I am a professional historian and was a Romanista, I ended up being taken on by the BBC and several other networks as a commentator during the funeral of the Holy Father and the election and installation of Pope Benedict.)   The reporter asked me for my evaluation of the Holy Father’s reign and I answered by quoting Dickens: “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” 

It was the best of times in terms of John Pauls’ incredible ability to move world-wide audiences to be able to see possibilities for human betterment.   In particular it was the best of times because it marked the collapse of the Marxist ideology which had ensnared hundreds of millions of people in totalitarian regimes that could offer their citizens nothing worth having in this mundane sphere and no hope for the eternal sphere.  The remarkable events of his 1979, 1983, and 1987 visits to Poland chipped away at the first of the dominoes to fall.  John Paul’s battle cry was “Solidarity” by which he advanced the socio-economic-political idea—in contradistinction to both Marxist and capitalist ideologies—that members of society have a set of mutual responsibilities towards one another that require a collaboration in which those who have act to alleviate the distress of those who lack, not merely by relieving the needs but by creating just social structures that work to mutual benefit.  Such solidarity not only undermines the “class struggle” of Marxism but also the “income inequalities” of free market capitalism.  The Pope’s ideal of “Solidarity” was taken up by the Poles and became the battle cry to topple the Marxist regime there.  Unfortunately it has yet to be heard in the income-inequality nations of the West but Pope Francis is working to change that—much to Rush Limbaugh’s and Ken Lagone’s annoyance.  (You go, Francis.) 

It was no one less than Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Communist premier of the Soviet Union, who has said that Pope John Paul was the principal architect of the collapse of the Marxist dictatorships of the former Soviet Bloc.  But Pope John Paul is also credited with a significant role in bringing down the dictatorships in Paraguay, Haiti and Chile and there is no doubt that he was a major player in the arena of human rights in the second half of the twentieth century. 

John Paul was also remarkable in the strides the Catholic Church made in ecumenism during his pontificate.  His particular interest was with the Orthodox Churches of the East and while—and probably because of the Polish-Russian tensions arising from the stress being put on the Soviet Empire by John Paul in working for Polish autonomy—the Russian Orthodox Church was never brought into closer ties with Catholicism, John Paul made some remarkable progress with the other Churches of Orthodoxy.  More remarkable, however, was his subtle recognition of Anglicanism.  I remember seeing him come to the Holy Doors of the Pauline Basilica escorted on the one side by Metropolitan Athanasias of the Greek Orthodox Church and on the other by Archbishop George Carey of Canterbury.  Pope John Paul consistently treated the Archbishop of Canterbury on a par with the Orthodox.  While the Catholic Church still officially  has not recognized Anglican Orders, the protocols established by John Paul (and not later followed by Pope Benedict XVI) gave an implicit acceptance of Anglicanism.  A similar breakthrough came on October 5, 1991 when Pope John Paul celebrated Vespers with the Lutheran primates of Sweden and Finland and the Lutheran Bishop of Oslo.  All sat in copes and miters, the Bishop of Rome and his separated brother Bishops, in front of the papal altar in the Vatican Basilica.  Lex orandi, lex credendi:  liturgical praxis establishes the doctrine we hold in belief.  Without yet giving official recognition to the valid orders of these separated brethren, the Pope showed that we can begin to construct a path through the complex issues of restoring full unity to the Church.

In short, I think we can say that as far as “foreign policy” went, John Paul’s papacy was hugely successful.  As far as “domestic policy”: well, that is a different story. 

The internal governance of the Church in the papacy of John Paul II was a disaster.  While he was extremely popular personally, his teaching went unheeded by most Catholics.  During his funeral, while I was doing consulting for the BBC and other news outlets, I had the opportunity to speak with hundreds who had come to Rome (among the four million pilgrims who came to Rome for the funeral).  It was an overwhelmingly young audience—mostly in their twenties and thirties.  “Yes,” they assured me they “love this Pope.”  “He was a great Pope.”  “It is like losing a grandfather.”  “Do you agree with this Pope,” I asked “on homosexuality?”  “Do you follow his teaching on pre-marital sex?,” “On contraception?,” On marriage in the Church?”  The answer was overwhelmingly, “No—but we loved him.  We don’t agree with him, but we love him.” 

John Paul was without impact on the consciences of the vast majority of his followers—not only on contraception or same-sex relationships, but on the very issues where he found success in his program of smashing Marxism.   Westerners in general and Americans in particular cheered on his attacks on Marxism, but did they embrace his theory of “Solidarity?”  Nothing could be further from “Solidarity” than the Trickle Down Economics of the Reagan Presidency or the Thatcher Ministry.  To push his campaign against Communism to victory in the Soviet Bloc, John Paul formed a political alliance with the Reagan White House that compromised the papal integrity when it came to economic morality.  The symbiotic relationship of the Reagan administration and the John Paul Papacy resulted in the fact that the Catholic Church could hardly be believed in its call for economic justice.  The heritage of John XXIII and Mater et Magistra and Paul VI and Popolorum Progressio  was squandered and Catholicism became identified with the radical selfishness of Reaganomics. 

Furthermore, after the American Bishops’ pastoral letters on the nuclear arms race (The Challenge of Peace, 1983) and economic justice (Economic Justice for All, 1986) there was a very sharp change in the sort of men who were appointed to be bishops in the United States.  In 1984 the Reagan administration established formal diplomatic relations with the Holy See—something the Vatican had long sought but which had always met with much opposition in the United States from those non-Catholics who saw such relations as giving formal recognition to one religious body over others in violation of the American Constitution.  Such favors came at a price and that price was bishops who would not ruffle the political right.  The Social Justice wing of the Catholic Church in the United States was pushed more and more to the margins and the Jadot Bishops (those bishops appointed during the time Archbishop Jean Jadot was Apostolic Delegate, 1973-1980) who were the voice of “Vatican II” Catholicism melted into obscurity as the new breed of John Paul bishops replaced them.  The Church’s social activism –that is the Social Gospel—was more and more in the hands of brave and committed laity who felt cut-off from their own bishops who ignored the grave structural injustices in our society and “obsessed” (to use a current word) on select issues that reinforced the right-wing agenda and distracted the faithful from an integral approach to Christian moral life. 

John Paul paid a heavy price for selling out to the political right.  When he cried out against the Gulf Wars—I and II (1990-91 and 2003-2011), the American bishops did not echo the cry.  Far from it.  Editorials appeared in many Catholic diocesan newspapers on how these wars met the criterion for “just war.”  No, the focus remained on abortion and the rising “threat” of gay rights.  The fear was universal health care and the implications that would have for Catholic institutions.  Catholics were admonished for not falling in line behind their “shepherds” and a political agenda that was morally a very mixed bag.   “Cafeteria Catholics” were denounced for their selective agreement with Church policy, while those who accused them themselves were picky eaters at the magisterial table. 

In the end, John Paul left—as far as the American Church goes—a dispirited faithful who felt alienated from their bishops and caught in the crossfire of the culture wars that have been undermining the larger American society.  Is he John Paul the Great?  Only time will tell—this title has only been awarded to three popes so far, and it takes centuries before history grants it.  Will it do so for John Paul?  Hmm.   John Paul was an enigmatic Pope.  It was an ambiguous papacy.  It was the best of times and it was the worst of times.  

Faith Lost, Faith To Be Regained

Quinn Abbey, County Clare

I have been in Ireland this past week.  I came for meetings—I come often and know the country well.  I have quite a few contacts here, both professional and personal.  And Friday evening where I was “down in the country”—meaning in the west of Ireland—with people I have known for some forty years we had a fascinating discussion regarding the challenges facing the Church here.  Now this small group of seven or eight are all still practicing Catholics—which, I must admit, surprised me somewhat.  As I said I have known them for decades and heard their gripes and complaints about the Church—gripes and complaints that I would say are quite justified in the particular situations that they had described—but here they are still going to Mass regularly and friends with their various parish priests (the term for pastor both here in Ireland and in canon law).  But they had some very insightful comments nonetheless.
Even a generation ago Ireland was strongly Catholic.  Two generations ago vocations were not only plentiful but now empty seminaries and convents were then swarming.  Was it the economic boom that killed the faith—I asked—the Celtic Tigre?  Well, they opined, that did play a role in it; the current recession has seen a slight rise in Mass attendance.  But they offered several other suggestions.  One is that while the practices of the faith: Mass attendance, meatless Fridays, family rosary, etc. were well defined, there was never good catechesis.  People knew what to do but they never understood what it was about. Even in the glory days of Catholic Ireland it was cultural but not deeply rooted.  They talked about going to Mass as youngsters.  The men, they said, would stand outside smoking until the Sanctus bell and duck inside the back until the priest’s communion and then were back outside lighted up.  The women would say their rosaries with rapid speed—making three and four tours around the beads in the course of a single Mass—but pay no attention at all to the Mass itself.  Priests were praised for the speed with which they could say Mass.  And after Mass on the way home the discussion was “Did you see that one?  And how does she have the nerve to come to Mass with her being out all night with her man from Doolin?   And him—and he was going to communion after he was in the pub last night and carrying on as if he weren’t a married man?”  It was a remarkably frank conversation about how shallow the faith sometimes was even where it was supposedly healthy.
One of my academic colleagues is from Krakow and he happens to be a priest. Now I have often been to Poland as well, though not as often as to Ireland, and remarked to him how strong the faith is in Poland.  He is quite cynical about the Polish situation and believes that for most it is only a cultural attachment.  He claims that while Church attendance is still strong, when it comes to issues from abortion to alcohol abuse to domestic violence the Catholic faith makes little impact on the church-going Pole.  “There is a ‘wall of separation’ between religion and daily life.  We are Catholics because we are Poles and aren’t like the Evangelical Germans or the Orthodox Russians—but if it weren’t that our historic enemies were either Lutherans or Russians, we would have no idea what it means to be Catholic.”
I think this points to the need for us to look long and hard at catechetics and the most effective ways to catechize the youth we still have.  I still believe the most effective catechetical tool we have is the liturgy itself.  This doesn’t mean that the priest should use the homily at mass to “teach.”  There is a world of difference between teaching and preaching and for my money there is nothing more deadly than an academic homily.  A homily is meant to relate the scriptures read at Mass to daily Christian living.  But I think if the liturgy were celebrated with great thought being given to the music selected, to the petitions being written, and to clear and honest ritual without the distracting fuss and bother so many priests overlay it with these days, the basic elements of our faith would be imprinted on our mind week after week.  Neither the happy-clappy liturgies of the left nor the ceremonial rigid pomposity of the right wing clergy does this but what we need is a good, prayerful, focus on the key truth of our faith: that God so loved the world that he sent his only Son that whoever believes him may not perish but may have eternal life for God did not send his son to condemn the world but rather so that the world may be saved through him.        

200 Years Behind:??? How Did That Happen?

Cardinal Wyszinski, Polish Patriot and  

mentor to John Paul II

I had mentioned in the previous post that John Paul II at the beginning of his reign appointed liberals such as the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini SJ to the Sacred College (and, in Martini’s case, to a key diocese, Milan) because John Paul seemed to have wanted to develop a consensus among the episcopate to support his planned “corrections” to the Vatican II course the Church was on.  I also wrote that there was, at least in Martini’s case, another agenda item and that was to move the liberal Jesuit out of the leadership role in the two leading Roman theological faculties: the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Pontifical Biblical Institute.  Martini was “kicked upstairs” as it were from academia where he had a very definite liberal influence to the busy life of the leader of a huge diocese that demanded all his attention.  This second reason, while perhaps the more pressing, doesn’t overshadow the first, however.  The elevation of Americans Roger Mahony and Joseph Bernardin and the French Henri de Lubac are other cases of liberals being advanced to positions of power and influence in the first ten years or so of John Paul’s pontificate.

John Paul, as Karol Wojtyla,  had been a participant in the Second Vatican Council, in the first three sessions as the auxiliary bishop of Krakow and in the final session as the Archbishop of that city.  He was not an enthusiastic supporter of the Council and its agenda, however.  It is important to keep in mind that from the time Wojtyla was nineteen his country had been under the thumb of two of the most ruthless totalitarian regimes of the 20^th century—the Nazi occupation of Poland from 1939-45 and the Soviet dominated Communist government that succeeded the Nazi regime and which fell only in 1989.  As difficult as the Communist years were for the Church, the Nazi occupation was actually worse.  The Poles—and the Polish Church—survived only by forging an unshakeable unity of the Polish people around the Church and the Church around the Primate, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski.  Because this consolidation of People and Church depended on the total identification of Polish Culture and Identity with their Roman Catholic faith where the Church was Poland and Poland was the Church, there was great resistance to any change lest the change provide a crack in the impenetrable façade of Catholic Polonialism/Polish Catholicism.   Liturgical changes were minimal and certainly the pre-conciliar pieties were preserved intact.  Ecumenism and inter-religious relationships were somewhat of a moot point in Poland.  There were few, almost no Protestants.  The Orthodox were identified with the Russians and relationships were cool at best with no desire to build ties with a Church that was seen as “Russian.”  And the Jewish population had been all but wiped out in the Nazi years—not, incidentally, without the support of many of the Polish people for whom anti-Semitism was part of their Catholic faith.  The Social Justice message which had flowered with John XXIII’s Mater et Magistra and then went into full bloom with the Council’s Gaudium et Spes never reached Poland where Wyszynski feared it could be distorted to support the Marxist regime’s policies.  Vatican II, for the greater part, never penetrated the Polish Church during those years under communism. At the Council, the Polish participants hung back from an enthusiastic support for the new programs of John XXIIII and Paul VI because they feared the effects of change on their homeland and the solidarity of the Poles with the Church in resisting the political tyranny under which they lived. 

When John Paul was elected to the papacy he seems to have wanted from the beginning to put a different “spin” on the Council.  Certainly the final years of the pontificate of his predecessor but one, Paul VI, had been painful—both for Paul and for the Church.  Humanae Vitae, the encyclical repeating the Church’s proscription of contraception had crashed the Vatican II optimism into the wall of ugly ecclesial reality and the carnage was complete.  Paul VI was bewildered by his loss of popularity.  Bishops, in an orgy of loyalty to the Holy See, were crushing any objections to the Encyclical from the Catholic intelligentsia.  The theological idols of Vatican II—scholars such as Bernard Häring and Hans Kung who had been major players at the Council—were falling from their pedestals. Moreover, the reactionaries were in open revolt under dissident French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.  John Paul wanted to reverse the damage and put the Church back onto a major key sound-track.  He couldn’t annul the Council—that would undermine all authority and credibility—and nor did he want to, but he did want to give its decrees a new interpretation. 

John Paul wasn’t totally wrong.  In some ways the Council was out of step.  In a globalizing world, the Council wanted to decentralize Church authority, giving more authority to local bishops at cost to the power of the central administration in Rome.  In a world of totalitarian governments, the Church seemed to want to democratize with greater roles and responsibility for the laity.  In a culture where people were becoming increasingly passive in their entertainment, the Church’s liturgy was demanding increased participation.   

The election of John Paul took the world by surprise, but it probably didn’t take Karol Wojtyla by surprise.  Biographers say that at various times throughout his life people had foretold he would one day be pope and he apparently began to take this message with some seriousness.  He was not an ambitious man and I don’t think it could be said that he sought the office, but he had a preternatural bent to his personality.  He was no mystic—the demands of having to outwit the communist regime at every turn kept him a “feet on the ground” sort of fellow—and I hesitate to use the word superstitious as he was both intelligent and educated, but he was a believer in destiny and I think he came to believe the papacy was in his destiny.  His strong showing in the election that chose his predecessor, John Paul I, probably “sealed the deal” though I doubt he realized just how soon it would be before he sat in the Chair of Peter himself.  But I think he came to that chair with a mission.  He had that single-mindedness, that focus, of the Polish temperament and I believe he was determined from the beginning to refashion the Council into something that he could believe in, a Church that was a global macrocosm of the Polish Church he knew—a Church that was internally strong and united against its external opponents.  It would be, as he was used to in Poland, authoritarian in its internal discipline and populist the face it showed to the world.  John Paul found a Curia anxious to work with this agenda so that it could take back its power from “the College of Bishops” and be even stronger than it was before the Council.  Unfortunately, the pressure of the authoritarianism, instead of forging unity has revealed cracks in the foundation—cracks that need to be fixed before they can no longer bear the weight they are under.  Neither John Paul nor Benedict has been able to close those fissures nor do they seem to know how.

One final anecdote about John Paul and his re-vision of Vatican II.   One of the people I was privileged to come to know in his final years was Denis Hurley, the retired Archbishop of Durban, South Africa.  When Hurley was named a bishop at age 31, he had been the youngest bishop in the world.  When I knew him he was an old man in his 80’s.  He was the voice against Apartheid in South Africa when Desmond Tutu was only a young priest.  He had served on the preparatory Commission for Vatican II.  He was a founder of ICEL.  The last time I saw him was just two weeks or so before his death.  He was in Rome for some meetings with the Communità di Sant’Egidio and I had lunch with him.   He said to me: “I met with the Holy Father (John Paul, just a year before his own death) this morning.  I said to him ‘Holy Father, you and I are both old men.  You know how it is when we get old.  We forget things.  But I distinctly remember that we had a Council.  What did you do with it’?”  They say that Archbishop Hurley, despite his early and prophetic voice against apartheid and his tireless work at Vatican II, had never had been made a Cardinal because he refused to congratulate Paul VI on Humanae Vitae.  It is probably true.  Right to the end he spoke his mind.  What had happened to Vatican II? 

200 Years Out of Date --Who Turned Back the Clock?

I had mentioned in the previous post that John Paul II at the beginning of his reign appointed liberals such as the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini SJ to the Sacred College (and, in Martini’s case, to a key diocese, Milan) because John Paul seemed to have wanted to develop a consensus among the episcopate to support his planned “corrections” to the Vatican II course the Church was on.  I also wrote that there was, at least in Martini’s case, another agenda item and that was to move the liberal Jesuit out of the leadership role in the two leading Roman theological faculties: the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Pontifical Biblical Institute.  Martini was “kicked upstairs” as it were from academia where he had a very definite liberal influence to the busy life of the leader of a huge diocese that demanded all his attention.  This second reason, while perhaps the more pressing, doesn’t overshadow the first, however.  The elevation of Americans Roger Mahony and Joseph Bernardin and the French Henri de Lubac are other cases of liberals being advanced to positions of power and influence in the first ten years or so of John Paul’s pontificate.

John Paul, as Karol Wojtyla,  had been a participant in the Second Vatican Council, in the first three sessions as the auxiliary bishop of Krakow and in the final session as the Archbishop of that city.  He was not an enthusiastic supporter of the Council and its agenda, however.  It is important to keep in mind that from the time Wojtyla was nineteen his country had been under the thumb of two of the most ruthless totalitarian regimes of the 20^th century—the Nazi occupation of Poland from 1939-45 and the Soviet dominated Communist government that succeeded the Nazi regime and which fell only in 1989.  As difficult as the Communist years were for the Church, the Nazi occupation was actually worse.  The Poles—and the Polish Church—survived only by forging an unshakeable unity of the Polish people around the Church and the Church around the Primate, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski.  Because this consolidation of People and Church depended on the total identification of Polish Culture and Identity with their Roman Catholic faith where the Church was Poland and Poland was the Church, there was great resistance to any change lest the change provide a crack in the impenetrable façade of Catholic Polonialism/Polish Catholicism.   Liturgical changes were minimal and certainly the pre-conciliar pieties were preserved intact.  Ecumenism and inter-religious relationships were somewhat of a moot point in Poland.  There were few, almost no Protestants.  The Orthodox were identified with the Russians and relationships were cool at best with no desire to build ties with a Church that was seen as “Russian.”  And the Jewish population had been all but wiped out in the Nazi years—not, incidentally, without the support of many of the Polish people for whom anti-Semitism was part of their Catholic faith.  The Social Justice message which had flowered with John XXIII’s Mater et Magistra and then went into full bloom with the Council’s Gaudium et Spes never reached Poland where Wyszynski feared it could be distorted to support the Marxist regime’s policies.  Vatican II, for the greater part, never penetrated the Polish Church during those years under communism. At the Council, the Polish participants hung back from an enthusiastic support for the new programs of John XXIIII and Paul VI because they feared the effects of change on their homeland and the solidarity of the Poles with the Church in resisting the political tyranny under which they lived. 

When John Paul was elected to the papacy he seems to have wanted from the beginning to put a different “spin” on the Council.  Certainly the final years of the pontificate of his predecessor but one, Paul VI, had been painful—both for Paul and for the Church.  Humanae Vitae, the encyclical repeating the Church’s proscription of contraception had crashed the Vatican II optimism into the wall of ugly ecclesial reality and the carnage was complete.  Paul VI was bewildered by his loss of popularity.  Bishops, in an orgy of loyalty to the Holy See, were crushing any objections to the Encyclical from the Catholic intelligentsia.  The theological idols of Vatican II—scholars such as Bernard Häring and Hans Kung who had been major players at the Council—were falling from their pedestals. Moreover, the reactionaries were in open revolt under dissident French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.  John Paul wanted to reverse the damage and put the Church back onto a major key sound-track.  He couldn’t annul the Council—that would undermine all authority and credibility—and nor did he want to, but he did want to give its decrees a new interpretation. 

John Paul wasn’t totally wrong.  In some ways the Council was out of step.  In a globalizing world, the Council wanted to decentralize Church authority, giving more authority to local bishops at cost to the power of the central administration in Rome.  In a world of totalitarian governments, the Church seemed to want to democratize with greater roles and responsibility for the laity.  In a culture where people were becoming increasingly passive in their entertainment, the Church’s liturgy was demanding increased participation.   

The election of John Paul took the world by surprise, but it probably didn’t take Karol Wojtyla by surprise.  Biographers say that at various times throughout his life people had foretold he would one day be pope and he apparently began to take this message with some seriousness.  He was not an ambitious man and I don’t think it could be said that he sought the office, but he had a preternatural bent to his personality.  He was no mystic—the demands of having to outwit the communist regime at every turn kept him a “feet on the ground” sort of fellow—and I hesitate to use the word superstitious as he was both intelligent and educated, but he was a believer in destiny and I think he came to believe the papacy was in his destiny.  His strong showing in the election that chose his predecessor, John Paul I, probably “sealed the deal” though I doubt he realized just how soon it would be before he sat in the Chair of Peter himself.  But I think he came to that chair with a mission.  He had that single-mindedness, that focus, of the Polish temperament and I believe he was determined from the beginning to refashion the Council into something that he could believe in, a Church that was a global macrocosm of the Polish Church he knew—a Church that was internally strong and united against its external opponents.  It would be, as he was used to in Poland, authoritarian in its internal discipline and populist the face it showed to the world.  John Paul found a Curia anxious to work with this agenda so that it could take back its power from “the College of Bishops” and be even stronger than it was before the Council.  Unfortunately, the pressure of the authoritarianism, instead of forging unity has revealed cracks in the foundation—cracks that need to be fixed before they can no longer bear the weight they are under.  Neither John Paul nor Benedict has been able to close those fissures nor do they seem to know how.

One final anecdote about John Paul and his re-vision of Vatican II.   One of the people I was privileged to come to know in his final years was Denis Hurley, the retired Archbishop of Durban, South Africa.  When Hurley was named a bishop at age 31, he had been the youngest bishop in the world.  When I knew him he was an old man in his 80’s.  He was the voice against Apartheid in South Africa when Desmond Tutu was only a young priest.  He had served on the preparatory Commission for Vatican II.  He was a founder of ICEL.  The last time I saw him was just two weeks or so before his death.  He was in Rome for some meetings with the Communità di Sant’Egidio and I had lunch with him.   He said to me: “I met with the Holy Father (John Paul, just a year before his own death) this morning.  I said to him ‘Holy Father, you and I are both old men.  You know how it is when we get old.  We forget things.  But I distinctly remember that we had a Council.  What did you do with it’?”  They say that Archbishop Hurley, despite his early and prophetic voice against apartheid and his tireless work at Vatican II, had never had been made a Cardinal because he refused to congratulate Paul VI on Humanae Vitae.  It is probably true.  Right to the end he spoke his mind.  What had happened to Vatican II? 

Holy Week III

Sorry I missed a couple of days there; I had really wanted to do an entry each day in Holy Week on various Holy Week celebrations.  I think my favorite place to celebrate Holy Week has been in Krakow.  I have only limited experience of Poland—Krakow and Czestochowa—and while I have made the pilgrimage to Czestochowa several times, I have actually spent Holy Week twice in Krakow.  Krakow is a particularly charming city—one of the loveliest in Europe.  It is a city of deep tradition with the Mariacki Church in the city’s central square, the Jagiellonian University, and the Wawel Castle where once the Kings of Poland reined and where Krakow’s somewhat unique cathedral stands. 
      Holy Week and Easter is a time of great tradition in Krakow.  As for most Slavic Peoples, Easter is even more a focus of their religious emotions than is Christmas.  (It may be that after the rigorous Slavic winters, Poles, Russians, Ukranians, and other Slavic people are just so happy to see the signs of spring!!!)  The Poles flood the churches with long lines for confessions around the clock.  Services are well attended.  The Holy Thursday Liturgy is the same as we celebrate in the States though the traditional Polish songs and carols are at the same time both more joyous and melancholy, giving an emotional intensity that is strange to us Americans.  The churches each construct a magnificent altar of repose for the Blessed Sacrament and the faithful make the rounds of the churches throughout the night. 
     Outdoor processions with Stations of the Cross celebrated along the route are very common Good Friday evening.  Huge numbers of people gather in each parish for this ceremony and police escorts guides the processions along their route assisted boy and girl scouts carrying torches.  The singing is magnificent and moving.  The Good Friday service itself is usually celebrated in the afternoon and the churches are packed. 
      There is an unique ceremony in Poland that once was part of the liturgy of the Western Church but which was suppressed at the Council of Trent.   For some reason it has survived in Poland.  At the end of the Good Friday service the Blessed Sacrament is placed in a monstrance, covered with a transparent veil, and carried in solemn procession to the “sepulcher”—a second altar of repose where it remains until Easter morning.  Easter morning, about 4:30 or 5:00, it is brought back to the High Altar with a huge procession, a brass band, girls in traditional costume scattering flowers, and hundreds of the faithful.   Easter Morning Mass, a sort of Sunrise Service, is then celebrated.  The ceremony is lovely though it totally overshadows the Easter Vigil of Saturday night. 
      While all this is quite lovely, one of my Polish priest friends says that beneath the surface all is not well for the faith in Poland.  While people attend Church in considerable numbers, it is out of a sense of custom rather than devotion.  Father Jan says that only about 20% of the people confess or receive Holy Communion more than once or twice a year.  Vocations are fewer than before and what he calls “western materialism” has replaced Catholicism in the hearts of the people.  I don’t know—it looks awfully healthy to me.  I did notice however, that on Good Friday there are large grilles set up in the central square, beneath the towers of the Mariacki Church where a trumpeter sounds a fanfare every hour, and kielbasas and kebabs are grilled in great quantities.  On this most holy day, the same crowd that has just filled the churches, now sits with their platters of meat, pitchers of beer, and laugh and tell stories.  And even I, sinner that I am, succumbed and ate a grilled kielbasa Good Friday evening after Stations.  Maybe because it was Good Friday, it was the best kielbasa I have ever eaten.