David Quinn
The Polish Pontiff’s reluctance to believe abuse allegation is a black mark against him, but it does not take from the greatness of his papacy, writes David Quinn
Pope St John Paul II does not emerge well from the recently published Vatican investigation into Theodore McCarrick, the former and now disgraced cardinal archbishop of Washington DC [Pictured below with the Pontiff]. His long career flourished under the pontificate of the Slavic Pope. But does this mean there is now such a black mark against his papacy that all his achievements must now be discarded and forgotten about? Emphatically not.
Let’s first of all examine what John Paul knew about Theodore McCarrick, or rather, what he heard about him.
In 1981, John Paul made Fr McCarrick Bishop of Metuchen, followed by Newark in 1986, both dioceses in New Jersey. At this point no allegations against Archbishop McCarrick were known to the Vatican.
His big appointment came in 2000, when he was moved to Washington DC, becoming a cardinal the following year.
By this time, allegations that Cardinal McCarrick had engaged in sexual relations with seminarians were known to the Vatican and the Pope. There were also allegations that he was guilty of paedophilia with his ‘nephews’.
In the end, John Paul chose not to believe any of the allegations, just as he chose not to believe allegations of abuse made against the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, Fr Marcial Maciel, who was a monstrous figure who abused men, women and childen.
Believing
This is, of course, very different to believing the allegations, and turning a blind eye, which is what occurred again and again in the Church worldwide making the clerical sex abuse scandals even worse than they already were.
Is John Paul’s reluctance to believes the allegations against former-cardinal McCarrick and Fr Maciel a black mark against him? Yes. Does it call into question his personal sanctity or discredit his entire pontificate? No, because personal holiness does not protect a person against terrible, damaging errors of judgement. Sainthood is not the same as perfection, it is instead confirmation that a particular individual led a life of holiness and great personal virtue and service to others.
As his for overall pontificate, beginning in 1978, let’s review it again and remind ourselves of its achievements. The first thing to remember is that John Paul II was Polish, and was elected Pope when Poland was still a communist country. Half of Europe still languished behind the Iron Curtain under the domination of the Soviet Union.
At this point, it was by no means certain how long this situation would persist. The Cold War still raged, and in many ways intensified. The Polish Pope helped to set in motion the events that would help to bring about the fall of European communism. His epoch-making, historical visits as Pope to his native country galvanised resistance to the communist government in Poland and added huge impetus to the Solidarity movement.
Communism
Within a few short years, communist rule in Poland had been fatally undermined and this helped to undermine communist rule in the rest of Eastern Europe and then the Soviet Union itself. The Berlin Wall came down in 1989, and the Soviet Union was no more by 1991. The speed of the fall was incredible in the end.
Not long after that, the countries of Eastern Europe were members of the European Union, ardently supported by Pope John Paul.
Was he alone responsible for the fall of European communism? Obviously not. But he played a very important role, and for this alone his place in history is assured.
He also lent his assistance to democratic movements in other parts of the world, not least in South Korea, the Philippines and South America. The Catholic Church helped to bring about the fall of the military dictatorship in South Korea, Marcos in the Philippines and Pinochet in Chile.
Ahead of a visit by John Paul to Chile in 1987, he told reporters that the church should play the same role in Chile as it did in the Philippines.
The paper pointed out: “In Chile, as in the Philippines before President Ferdinand E. Marcos’s overthrow last year, the Church has forcefully denounced human-rights violations and limitations on political freedoms by the government.”
What is not heard often enough is the key role the Catholic Church, actively encouraged by John Paul, played in advancing the cause of democracy worldwide in the 1980s.
Within the Church, John Paul is remembered, among many other things, for some of his great encyclicals including Veritatis Splendor, a very necessary rebuttal of moral and theological relativism, and Evangelium Vitae, in which he coined the phrase, ‘the culture of death’, and gave massive impetus to the pro-life movement with his leadership.
Historic
He inaugurated World Youth Days and World Meetings on the Family, the former galvanising millions of young people, and the latter drawing attention to the Church’s key teachings on the family, a matter dear to John Paul’s heart.
He is remembered in Ireland for his visit here in 1979, which drew enormous crowds, even if what happened that year was wider than it was deep.
But in other countries, his visits had long-lasting effects, not least those to Poland, already mentioned, the Philippines, various parts of Latin America as well as Africa.
In France, he revealed the Church to be more alive than it looked to many people when a crowd of over one million young people gathered in Longchamp racecourse outside Paris for the final Mass of World Youth Day in 1997.
A firm believer in ecumenism, he further improved relations with various of the Protestant Churches, the Orthodox Churches, as well as with the non-Christian faiths, in particular Judaism. Who can forget the image of him praying at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem in March 2000, the Millennium Year?
This has only been the briefest review of his papacy, but even this ought to be enough to remind us of its epochal, historic and overwhelmingly positive impact on the world, which is one reason why so many people, including so many world leaders, flocked to Rome for his funeral in 2005. John Paul should not be consigned to history because he helped to make history.