POPE JOHN PAUL II AND THE ROLE OF WORLD RELIGIONS IN POLITICS
Robin Wright
Archbishop Gerety Lecture at Seton Hall University, September 25, 1995
I'm delighted and honored to be here this evening to discuss two of my
favorite subjects: Pope John Paul II and the role of religion in
politics. But I have to be upfront with you. I'm neither Catholic nor a
religious scholar. I came at both subjects as a chronicler of
contemporary history.
But at an early stage in my career as a foreign correspondent, a pattern
clearly began to emerge among many events I covered, from the black
uprising in South Africa and the the Arab-Israeli conflict to the demise
of the Soviet Union and the insurgencies in India's Punjab and Kashmir.
A common denominator in these -- and many of the other major
developments of the past 20 years -- is the extraordinary role of faith
in mobilizing dissent, in defying governments of both left and right
often far more effectively than any secular force, and sometimes even in
justifying violence.
One aspect is illustrated by Pope John Paul II.
THE PAPACY OF JOHN PAUL II
The impact of John Paul II is incalcuable. During his 17-year-reign,
John Paul has been seen by more people than anyone in history--and that
doesn't include television. In a single venue, especially in the early
years, he could draw up to a million people. And it's not going too far
to say that John Paul has virtually been to the moon and back. In more
than 60 trips, he has been to more than 110 countries--many of them not
predominantly Catholic or even mostly Christian--on all six inhabited
continents. All totaled, he's spent more than a year away from the
Vatican. No other state leader, past or present, has ever traveled as
much, or as long, or as far--more than a half million miles, more than
the equivalent of a flight to the moon and back. The last pope to have
such a profound impact on world affairs was probably Innocent III, who
reigned from 1198 to 1215, when medieval Europe was prostrate. He was an
activist pope who helped Europe regroup. In small but signficant ways,
Europe is different today because of him.
In context of the century before his election, John Paul is even more
remarkable. Since the 1870s, when the Holy See lost the last of the
papal states, the reigning pontiff has had limited tangible clout. For
almost 50 years after being stripped of temporal dominion, successive
popes were virtual prisoners in the Vatican, unable or unwilling to
leave, the result of a struggle symbolizing its loss of power in an
increasingly secular world.
A pope - and a revamped modern papacy - didn't formally reemerge until
the Lateran Treaty with Italy in 1929. But the Holy see's territory,
which once spread across thousands of square miles, had by then been
whittled down to just over a hundred acres. Its army of Swiss guards --
the former mercenary force first hired by the Holy See in 1506 and once
numbering more than 12,000 -- is now down to a mere hundred men. They're
better known today for their colorful 16th century uniforms than their
military skills. As Stalin once quipped, "How many divisions does the
pope have?" The bottom line is that, for much of the 20th century, the
Vatican has been a peripheral player in international politics.
John Paul has frequently inferred that's just fine with him. In a 1982
address to King Juan Carlos and Spanish political leaders, he said "The
church is a spiritual type of society with spiritual aims, without any
desire to compete with the civil powers or deal with material or
political affairs, which she recognizes with pleasure are not of her
competence."
Yet, the reign of John Paul II--already almost twice as long as the
eight-year papal average--is likely to be remembered most of all for the
very political involvement he publicly eshews. His chief legacy is
almost certain to be his leadership during what he once described as "an
epoch-making turning point in the world's history." I saw it time and
time again--not just in Poland. Indeed, while the pope is given abundant
credit for changes in Eastern Europe, his impact elsewhere is just as
great. One of my many memories is from Brazil, where John Paul held a
special meeting with workers during his 1980 tour of one of the world's
most inequitous societies. Just a few weeks earlier, the junta had
quashed a groundbreaking strike against the automobile industry. It had
also declared further strikes and strikers' meetings illegal. But the
government couldn't veto a meeting between the workers and the pope, and
interest was so high that it had to be held at Sao Paulo's soccer
stadium. Despite a bitterly cold rain and a nighttime setting, 120,000
workers packed a facility built for far fewer. For twenty minutes after
he arrived, the stadium rocked with cheers and chanting, for the pope's
presence was already interpreted as an indirect endorsement of their
agenda.
But John Paul, who worked day-labor in a quarry during Poland's Nazi
occupation, went further. He declared, "Power must never be used to
protect the interests of one group to the detriment of the others....The
persistence of injustice threatens the existence of society." Such
blatent challenges were unprecedented in Brazil.
"This menace exists when the distribution of goods is grounded only in
the economic laws of growth and a bigger profit," he continued, "when
the results of progress reach only superficially a huge layer of the
population, when there persists a big gap between a minority of the rich
on the one hand and the majority of those who live in want and misery on
the other."
Several times, it appeared John Paul might not get through the speech,
especially as he kept punctuating it with references to the need for
"solidarity" within societies. Spoken at a time Poland's daring young
trade union was challenging another form of authoritarian rule, everyone
listening--not only in the stadium--knew exactly what he meant. With
each reference, the workers responded with ever-louder and longer rounds
of "Solidarity, Solidarity, Solidarity!" The encounter was classic John
Paul, who has repeatedly circumvented rulers to reach out, inspire and
empower people when their own leaders refused and, in practical terms,
in ways no other foreign government or leader could without being
charged with meddling--or worse.
The week before the Baltics trip, one of the more candid archbishops at
the Holy See explained to me, "He empowers people to take their rightful
role in society, to call themselves for reform, to help effect peaceful
change, to insist on human dignity and justice." In Sao Paulo, the pope
empowered trade union workers whose activism, as in Gdansk, turned out
to be a critical component in the subsequent pro-democracy movement that
helped produce change. In 1985, Brazil held its first democratic
election, as Latin America's largest state returned to civilian rule.
Another of my lasting images was his meeting with Philippines dictator
Ferdinand Marcos and spouse Imelda--the "Shoe Lady"--during a 1981 Asian
tour. The formal papal reception at Malacanang Palace was so tightly
orchestrated that all men in attendance had to wear the filmy white
barong shirts and all women the white full-length, puffed-sleeve dresses
replicating Mrs. Marcos' favorite fashion. Attendees in residence in
Manila received packages of material and patterns in advance; for late
arrivals, like those of us on the papal plane, there were racks of used
extras in a palace waiting room. Two throne-like wooden chairs had been
specially carved for the occasion; red cushions were embroidered with
the papal and Marcos crests. The palatial setting and the sea of white
gowns and lacey shirts were a particularly stark contrast to the
tattered poor who had lined the roads to welcome the pontiff to Manila.
In front of Marcos' family, friends and more than a thousand members of
the cabinet, military and judiciary, as well as millions on live
television, John Paul declared, "Even in exceptional situations, one can
never justify any violation of the fundamental dignity of the human
person or of the basic rights that safeguard this dignity." The state,
he made clear, could never justify subverting human rights in the name
of its own security or survival.
He then bluntly called on the Philippines' leadership to enact reforms
so that all men, women and children receive what is due to them to live
in dignity, where especially the poor and the underprivileged are made
the priority concern of all.
The papal speech was a wringing and humiliating rebuke of Marcos'
dictatorship. During Marcos' 21-year rule, no other visiting
chief-of-state, before or after the pope, was ever so publicly candid.
The pontiff then reinforced the message in meetings with small farmers
and sugar cane plantation workers, university students, professionals
and slum-dwellers, in masses, and even to lepers.
He told more than 100,000 desperately poor field hands and tenant
farmers in Bacolod. "In justice reigns when within the same society some
groups hold most of the wealth and power, while large strata of the
population cannot decently provide for the livelihood of their families
even through long hours of backbreaking labor in factories or in
fields."
"The church will not hesitate to take up the cause of the poor and to
become the voice of those who are not listened to when they speak up,
not to demand charity, but to ask for justice." During his visit, the
pope altered the political environment; the Philippines leadership was
publicly held to account. The tone, as well as the content of the
six-day trip, helped to lay the foundation for Marcos' demise five years
later.
Among others who came under papal scrutiny and subsequently lost power
are Chile's Pinochet, Haiti's Duvalier, Paraguay's Stroessner,
Nicaragua's Ortega, and Poland's Jaruzelski. Suggesting papal cause to
explain political effect would be seriously misleading. Indeed, on the
face of it, John Paul has done nothing more on his travels than lay out
millennia-old Christian principles, albeit with shrewd calculation. But
a ranking foreign policy specialist at the Holy See conceded the intent.
"I call his speeches time bombs," he told me, with a wry smile. "They're
intended to transform, but we don't know when they'll explode."
Sometimes he didn't even need words to convey his messages. In Brazil, I
watched as he spontaneously slipped off his gold ring, a gift from Pope
Paul VI upon his elevation to cardinal, and gave it to a Brazilian
parish in a Rio favela to be sold to help the poor. In Hiroshima, he
prayed at Ground Zero, the site of the world's first atomic bomb
explosion, and in Nagasaki he ministered to ailing radiation victims
long forgotten by the rest of the world.
On other trips, he pointedly took his entourage, host officials and the
world's cameras to the prisons from which Africans were shipped off to
slavery in the Americas and to the Belgian city of Ypres, surrounded by
170 cemeteries filled with the dead from World War I's bloodiest
battles. He'd also conducted masses on a former Indonesian killing field
and, defying security concerns, in Peru's Andean city of Ayachucho, a
stronghold of Shining Path guerrillas and ruthless druglords.
And at home, in one of many gestures toward ecumenicalism, he held a
joint ceremony in Rome's main synagogue with the chief rabbi. John Paul
even spoke twice in Hebrew. It was the first time any pope has entered a
Jewish house of worship--a deliberate response to an old Jewish proverb
that "the persecution will end when the pope enters a synogogue." It was
also the most conciliatory gesture by a Catholic leader in the two
millenia of Christianity--and of sporadic tension and hostility between
the two faiths.
It's not going to far to conclude, even in contrast to the activism of
Innocence III, that the entire world is a little different because of
JP.
Today, however, the question for John Paul is whether he can still make
much of a difference. The first Slavic pope--and the first non-Italian
in almost half a millennium, the last one being a Dutchman--was elected
in context of a Cold War and amidst rhetoric about "evil empires." Since
the onset of global change, however, totalitarian rule has been
eliminated in Eastern Europe. In Latin America, dictators have been
replaced by democracies. Even apartheid, a regular theme during his
African sojourns, has been relegated to history. His personal
background--first surviving fascism and then enduring socialism--no
longer seems as relevant in the so-called New World Order.
So, having covered the early years of this papacy, I went back two years
ago to accompany JP to the Baltics--Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia--to
see how relevant he still is at what is clearly the end of his papacy.
The image of the trip was at the Hill of Crosses in Lithuania. Local
legend contends the first crosses were planted here in the fifteenth
century, after Christianity took root in Europe's last pagan country. In
the 1860s, to commemorate a failed uprising against Russian tsarist rule
and the subsequent repression, the crosses began proliferating. Over
time, adding a cross to the hill became a form of celebrating, praying,
giving thanks or grieving. As the tradition grew, the Hill of Crosses
also began to attract pilgrims from all over Europe who, in turn, added
their crosses.
When the Soviet Union absorbed Lithuania, Russian troops repeatedly
tried to destroy the hill and, by then, its thous-ands of crosses. They
tried hauling them away in truckloads. They tried burning them and
throwing them into the river. At least three times, the whole hill was
bulldozed, and once it was strewn with sewage. Police were even posted
to block access to the hill. But nothing worked. For half a century, the
crosses, ten-feet tall or one-inch tiny, plain and ornate, just kept
appearing.
On a cold day of gusting winds that colored his cheeks, John Paul went
to the Hill of Crosses and prayed in front of one secreted erected
during Soviet rule. The inscription on it read, "Christ the King,
protect the pope. On its knees, Lithuania prays." It was dated May 13,
1981, the day Mehmet Ali Agca tried to kill the pontiff. Although
Western intelligence agencies and Italian courts lacked sufficient
evidence to convict three Bulgarians as co-conspirators, many at the
Vatican and in Lithuania still suspect deep Moscow involvement. In that
context, the first of his two message on the trp was surprising. To
indeed create a new world, John Paul used the dramatic Hill of Crosses
to ask Lithuania to forgive Russia and its people for their occupation
of the Baltics.
He presented the second of his two main themes in Latvia, a country
that, during the groundbreaking papal visit, appeared to be doing far
better than poor Lithuania. Since independence, also in 1991, Riga's
quaint old downtown had been revived courtesy of capitalism. The brick
alleys and streets were lined with private antique and handicraft shops,
chic boutiques and open-air art stalls. Drivers could pick from Fiat or
Mercedes dealerships, and diners from quality European restaurants or
new fast-food joints, such as Viking Burger. But as dusk set in, the
hookers with peroxided hair and thigh-high leather boots turned out on
many corners, while young Russians peddled everything from Soviet
military caps and medals to handpainted wooden nesting dolls from their
backpacks. For the first time, beggers, including tiny children, were on
the streets, often late into the night, and often hanging out near
flashy new casinos reputed to have links to a new Baltic mafia. And for
everyone, crime had become a chronic problem. While a few are prospering
economically, the vast majority of Latvians are now worse off than they
were under Soviet rule. Again, it was an apt setting.
In Riga, John Paul took on capitalism. The church, he pronounced, held
the system now dominant in the world responsible for "grave social
injustices." In its worst form, he said, it was ultimately responsible
for creating the totalitarian and authoritarian alternatives that had
divided the world for most of the twentieth century.
He declared, "The needs from which that system had historically arisen
were real and serious. The situation of exploitation to which an
inhumane capitalism had subjected the proletariat since the beginning of
industrialized society was indeed an evil...This, basically, was
Marxism's kernel of truth which enabled it to present itself as an
attractive reality to Western society."
The implication, of course, was that it could happen again in fragile
and volatile new democracies. Perhaps ironically, two weeks after the
Baltics tour, the pontiff's native Poland voted for a new parliament.
After pledging to slow the rapid and inequitous transformation brought
on by free markets, former communists won.
Just as the first decade of his papacy was synonomous with an
unrelenting confrontation to Eastern communism, so the second decade is
shaping up as an equally bold challenge to the inequities and excesses
of capitalism, the abuses of liberty, and what he basically sees as a
return to laws of the jungle. Though he'd issued similar warnings on
earlier trips, the Cold War's end has brought it to the top of his
agenda. In the 1991 encyclical, Centesimus Annus, he warned the world's
new democracies about catching "the virus" of Western consumerism. In
its worst forms, he said, capitalism is a form of "neopaganism." In a
1990 visit to Czechoslovakia, he warned against replacing communism with
"secularism, indifference, hedonistic consumerism, [and] practical
materialism."
He told the local clergy, "The dangers that regaining contacts with the
West can bring must not be underestimated."
In Latvia, however, he went one step further. In a landmark address at
the University of Riga, the pontiff, whose other occupations also
included being a professor of ethics at Poland's Lublin University, laid
out his vision of an ideal society. Although he kept denying that he was
defining the long-illusive "third way" between the twentieth's century
two dominant ideologies, his six principles were effectively a new
model, even the basis of a manifesto for a new era.
The ideal state, he declared, is based on law that guarantees everyone
an orderly existence and assures the most vulnerable enough support to
avoid falling prey "to the arrogance and indifference of the powerful."
The ideal democracy is always in the service of the common good. But,
above and beyond its rules, it also has "a soul made up of the
fundamental values without which it easily turns into openly or thinly
disguised totalitarianism."
Within this ideal democratic state, the distribution of goods is
"universal" and based on "solidarity." Private property is recognized,
but in context of its social rather than its econ-omic purpose. Work,
critical to human dignity, must never reduce the individual "to a
commodity or mere cog in the machinery of production." And all systems
must promote "human ecology, implying respect for every person from
conception to natural death."
Although it is enlightened, bold and ambitious, understanding, much less
achieving, John Paul's utopia is probably beyond the reach of most of
the nearly one-billion Catholic faithful. But whatever anyone concludes
about the nature of JP's message, few could disagree that--in the
broader political sphere--he has made the Vatican a major player again.
He's also given the job he holds more relevance -- at least in the field
of international affairs.
RELIGION IN POLITICS
John Paul is not alone. Nor is he singularly responsible for the changes
in places he's been. His role should not be oversimplified or
overestimated. He emerged in part because of the global environment that
spawned a broader trend. The bottom line: At the end of the 20th
century, arguably the most secular period in human history, religion has
become one of the most dynamic and energetic forces on the world's
political stage. It plays out in many forms, both positive and negative.
On one end of the spectrum are those who have grabbed the biggest and
most sensational headlines--even bigger than John Paul on his global
travels.They represent the REACTIVE side of the movement, which often
plays out in NEGATIVE ways. This is the side so active in the 1980s, the
side we often fear: The Egyptian extremists who blow up the World Trade
Center. The Sikh extremists who bomb an Air India jumbo. The Palestinian
militants who suicide bomb the Israeli military and a Jewish
fundamentalist who massacres worshipping Muslims.
These acts often reflect a reaction, when people turn to their faith in
anger. Because of disillusionment with current systems, because of
impotence or malaise in society about how to change, or because of
problems like overwhelming poverty & limited prospects, more people
today are leaving IDEOLOGY on the road to THEOLOGY in search of
political solutions to the miseries of our time.
I saw it so often when I lived in Beirut from 1981-85, particularly
among the Lebanese Shi'ites. Although they were by far the largest
population group, they were persecuted by Maronite Christian & Sunni
Muslims. They were walked over by Palestinians who created a
state-within-a-state on Shi'ite land. When the Israelis invaded, the
Shi'ite community actually welcomed them with parades. Then the Israelis
went too far and tried to virtually colonize Shi'ite territory. Finally
the U.S. Marines were deployed in Lebanon, also in and around Shi'ite
territory. Not surprisingly, the Shi'ites felt their rights had been
trampled. They mobilized -- and went after all of them.
The story of India's Sikhs is similar. They were promised a Punjabi
speaking province in the 1960s by Indira Gandhi - in exchange for their
votes. But she, and later her son, reneged on the promise, the first and
most serious of several aborted political promises that triggered the
emergence of Sikh activism & then extremism. Sikh violence led the
Indian govt in 1984 to send its army to the Gold Temple, the Sikh's
holiest shrine, killing more than 1,000. Indira Gandhi was then murdered
by her Sikh bodyguards, triggering a backlash in which 2,500 ordinary
Sikhs were killed by Hindu nationalists.
Another reason for the emergence of religion in politics relates to
issues of identity and culture--at a time of dehumanizing influences:
Virtually all the modern ideologies, both major and minor, have
relegated faith to a separate realm. Communism simply erased religion.
Democracy privatized it. Zionism originally separated synogogue from
state. Even apartheid - justified by SA's white Calvinist traditions and
Old Testament quotations - was secular.
At the same time people are coming to understand their rights, they also
have to face unprecedented problems: Life in megacities--with
populations now totaling 12 to 20 million--that don't work; the rampant
breakdown in law and order; overcrowding due to overpopulation;
inadequate or limited leadership, locally & nationally. The 20th century
accounts for the period of the greatest progress in human history,
arguably greater than all other centuries combined. Yet the stark fact
at the end of the 20th century, according to the latest U.N. human
development report, is that the GAP between rich & poor has never been
wider. In this context, religion becomes an important source of identity
and sustenance for massive numbers of people. The turmoil of the world
since the Cold War's end accentuates that need.
Religion is also often the only vehicle for change. Religion can offer
physical or psychological sanctuary, particularly where legitimate
opposition is banned. In one-party states or dictatorshps, the church,
mosque, temple and synagogue is often become the last refuge for those
seeking a better secular life. All major monotheistic religions preach
equality and justice, making them natural allies in oppositing tyranny.
They also usually have the resources, facilities and infrastructure with
which to organize.
In Iran, for example, religion was the only force that had the following
and the legitimacy to take on an authoritarian system of government - a
monarchy - that dated back 2.5 millenia. In Haiti in 1986, the Catholic
church -- through its pulpits, its radio station, its network -- was the
only forum for opponents of the dynasty of Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier.
The bottom line: In the 1980s, many of these reactive forces played
pivotal roles--peacefully and violently--in challenging the status quo
and ultimately changing systems. They were a potent force in bringing us
to the New World.
At the other end of the spectrum are the proactive forces and reasons
for religious activism. In the 1990s, these are the forces that are
increasingly emerging as cultures and societies look not just to shed
totalitarian, corrupt, or ineffective systems, but to help find and
define alternatives.
The growth of politicized religions is part of a broader political,
economic and social upheaval which energetically seeks to address
fundamental questions of existence. Just as diverse and disparate
societies have turned to religion to react against systems -- locally,
nationally or internationally -- so too are increasing numbers using
religion as a proactive force with the long-term goal of looking for new
relationships.
Again, there are several reasons: First, the continuum of various faiths
-- which have survived centuries and outlived hundreds of political
dynasties -- provide ideals and values by which to determine goals. In
the Modern Era particularly, religion is untainted by failure, and thus
supplies a context through which to pursue change. Second, religions
also offer concrete alternatives, either for action or for systems of
govt. This is particularly true, for example, of Islam, which offers a
set of rules by which to govern society. In the 1990s, these proactive
religious forces are going to be the most interesting, the most
important, and arguably the ones leading us into the next round of
global change.
Islam, the other religion I've spent lots of time tracking, is a prime
example. Of all the religious forces active today, Islam is also the
most contentious issue. Throughout most of the 1980s, as many of us
remember painfully, resurgent Islam was most visible in violent ways. In
Beirut, I lost friends during three suicide bombings at two embassies
and the U.S. Marine compound. And Terry Anderson had the office next
door. He was the longest held of some 130 foreign hostages from 22
countries. The names of the groups at the time--such as Islamic Holy War
and Hizbollah or the Party of God, told the story.
But in the 1990s, something very interesting is happening. Some Islamic
groups are abandoning the bullet for the ballot. In Kuwait, three
Islamic groups have held two-thirds of the opposition seats in
parliament since 1993 elections. In Jordan's 1989 and 1993
elections--the first free multiparty polls--the Islamic Action Front and
its sympathizers became the largest bloc in parliament. In Yemen's In
1993 elections, the Islah party came in second of some dozen parties. In
Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, although banned, became the largest
opposition group -- by allying itself with a secular party -- in two
parliamentary elections in the late 1980s. In Isarel, the Islamic
Movement in Israel has won the mayorships in six town and council
members in 16 towns. Israeli pundits now predict they could win up to 12
seats Knesset next year. Even in Lebanon, which held its first elections
in 20 yrs in 1992, Hizbollah won the largest bloc in parliament.
In every Mideast country where Islamist parties have been allowed to
participate in elecitons, they have demonstrated a willingness to work
for peaceful change within system, not to destroy them by violent means
from outside. In each case, they have proven that Islam can be a force
for democracy and constructive, peaceful change. The names again are
telling. In Kuwait, the groups are called the Islamic Constitutional
Movement, the Islamic Grouping, the Heritage Society and the Social
Reform Society.
In the 1990s, the correlation is clear. In societies that allow
Islamists to run, they are peaceful. And Islamic extremism is highest in
countries where Islamic parties are excluded and elections are either
non-existent or government-controlled, such as Algeria and Egypt.
Like their secular counterparts in other parts of the world, Islamists
of all ilk want a way in the way their govts rule. Because Islam is the
most visible political idiom, the outside world tends to focus mainly on
the Islamic component of the crisis rather than the real message:
political participation.
CONCLUSION
To conclude, let me add a strong caveat about religion in politics.
Religion is an increasingly important force in politics well into the
next century, but primarily as a means to an end. The trend, like all
trends, will peak and decline--at least in comparison with its current
intensity. Ultimately, it is likely to be a phenomenon of the current
global transition, an idiom first to reject and then to struggle to find
something new. In places as disparate as Iran and Poland, religion was
the prime means of mobilizing against a monarchy and a communist state
then in defining an alternative, one religious and one secular.
In many ways, religion is arguably even more vulnerable than secular
ideologies, because its promises are even more utopian than the
communist vision. As Iran's failed revolution has proven, it can't live
up to expectations as an alternative in itself. But what are likely to
survive into a new era are religion's values of equality and justice and
human dignity.
Thank you.
