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Pope
John Paul II
Gallant Soldier in God’s Army...
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Carol Platt Liebau - Columnist
Carol
Platt Liebau is editorial director and a senior member of theOneRepublic and CaliforniaRepublic editorial
board. She is an attorney, political analyst and commentator
based in San Marino, CA, and has appeared on the Fox News
Channel, MSNBC, CNN, Orange County News Channel, Cox Cable
and a variety of radio programs throughout the United States.
A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School,
Carol Platt Liebau also served as the first female managing
editor of the Harvard Law Review. Her web log can be found
at CarolLiebau.blogspot.com
[go to Liebau index]
 Pope
John Paul II
Gallant Soldier in God’s Army...
[Carol
Platt Liebau] 4/4/05
“How
many divisions has the Pope?”
With this mocking
question, Josef Stalin summarily dismissed the importance of
Papal influence in Europe and elsewhere. But
only thirty years after Stalin’s own death, a Pole – who
himself had suffered under the oppression of Communism – would
ascend the throne of St. Peter. And together with Ronald Reagan,
he would change the world.
Others are more qualified
to discuss the Pope’s theology,
his historical importance, and the impact of his undoubtedly
charismatic personality. But as the world mourns the death of
Pope John Paul II, people of all faiths recall with thanksgiving
the enormous contribution he made to ridding the world of the
evil of atheistic Communism.
With the safe distance
that the passage of time brings, it’s
become all too easy to forget the aggressive hostility to religion
manifested by Communist doctrine. But according to documented
accounts in Paul Kengor’s God and Ronald Reagan, Soviet
children were encouraged to turn in their parents if they were
taught about God. Communist bloc states likewise forbade religious
practice, jailed the faithful and their priests, and tortured
Christians harshly to force them to renounce their religion.
Such repression lasted from the birth of the Communist states
until the ‘80’s.
When Karol Wojtyla
was named a cardinal, the government of Poland was not entirely
displeased, as he had a reputation for being “less
inflexible” than some of his predecessors. But when he
was named Pope in 1978, Yuri Andropov, head of the KGB, predicted
that he could become a problem. Andropov’s warning proved
prescient.
Shortly after being
elevated to the papacy, Pope John Paul II returned to his native
Poland, thereby serving as a catalyst
for the Solidarity movement that would later prove instrumental
in ridding the country of Communism. Poles later reported that
the crowds elicited by his presence served to remind the repressed
people that they, in fact, outnumbered the Communists who dominated
them. And the Pope’s support extended beyond the moral
or the rhetorical – around 1982, Pope John Paul II funnelled
$32 million to Solidarity from the Vatican treasury.
When Ronald Reagan
was elected President in 1980, the Pope welcomed him with open
arms. The feeling was reciprocal; Reagan was the
first president to institute formal diplomatic relations with
the Vatican. Like Ronald Reagan, the Pope was an implacable enemy
of Communism. According to a 1992 Time magazine article by Carl
Bernstein, both the Pope and President Reagan shared a sense
that God had spared them from assassination for a special task – as
well as a mutual conviction that in the divine plan, right would
ultimately triumph over the darkness of the Soviet empire. Indeed,
after they met on June 7, 1982, the Pope explicitly collaborated
with President Reagan to bring about the Soviet Union’s
demise – and met numerous times with William Casey, Reagan-era
Director of the CIA, to share intelligence.
Through the years,
some made the error of mistaking the Pope’s
beneficence for weakness – to their detriment. On a 1983
visit to Nicaragua, the Pope faced down Sandinista and Soviet
instrument Daniel Ortega, along with the hecklers who sought
to desecrate the mass he celebrated. Five years later, he returned
to Nicaragua to celebrate with the free Contra government headed
by Violetta Chamorro. But whether among friends or adversaries,
the Pope always spoke frankly about the importance of religious
freedom and life itself – heedless of the popularity of
his views.
Why did the Pope care so much about freedom, and display such
animosity toward totalitarian government? Perhaps better than
anyone, C.S. Lewis has explained the intersection between Christianity
and political liberty:
If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a
nation, or a civilization,
which may last for a thousand years, is more important than an individual.
But if Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important
but
incomparably more important, for he is everlasting and the life of a state
or civilization, compared with his, is only a moment.
Certainly Pope John
Paul II has gone on to eternal life. But he leaves behind him
a legacy of fierce principle, unyielding
conviction, and great love. On one of his trips to his beleaguered
native land, the Pope told his fellow Poles: "Before I go
away, I beg you: Never lose your trust, do not be defeated, do
not be discouraged."
And that is the message
from him that we carry on today. Wherever he is, Stalin knows
now – as do we – that this Pope,
indeed, had many legions. They are comprised of all the company
of Heaven. May he rejoice with them for eternity. tOR
Columnist
Carol Platt Liebau is a political analyst, commentator and
theOneRepublic / CaliforniaRepublic.org editorial
director based in San Marino, CA. Ms. Liebau also served
as the first female managing editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Her web log can be found at CarolLiebau.blogspot.com
copyright
2005
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