Shaun Kenney | Politics and Religion in Virginia's Public Square


Saturday, January 14, 2006 Pope John Paul II: Marxist? Now this is an interesting article: When a Polish supplementary tribunal for John Paul II?s beatification began work in Krakow this November, a key task was to examine the late Pope's pre-papal writings, for the light they threw on his firmness of faith and loyalty to Catholic doctrine. But there is uncertainty as to how objective the tribunal will be. Evidence exists that the young Karol Wojtyla nursed radical sympathies, and a passionate critique of capitalist injustices, that made him interested in Marxist ideals. Poland?s Catholic Church has discouraged interest in his unpublished texts, insisting they were not fully developed or intended for public consumption. Far from steeping himself in Marxist classics, church leaders insist, Wojtyla took his material from Catholic sources. Those who maintain this might consider a seemingly forgotten collection of Wojtyla?s lectures, bound in a limited typescript edition in the early 1950s. The two-volume Catholic Social Ethics has never been published and is not available at libraries in Poland. But it throws important light on the Pope's background, and calls into question his image as a cradle anti-Communist. Now lectures under a communist regime always might be colored by playing to their concerns - which also means criticising unfettered capitalism. However, no one can read encyclicals such as Centisimmus Annus and say John Paul II was a Marxist. The article continues: Catholic Social Ethics is densely typed on cheap paper, and contains sections on Personalism, Liberalism and Individualism, as well as "Totalism" and "Solidarism". Yet the bulk is written as a conscious response to Marxism. The detailed contents table includes subtitles such as "Communism in its Historical Dimension", "The Issue of Revolution” and “Marxism’s Ethic of Class Struggle". The text confirms that the future Pope was an expert on Marxism by his early 30s. It strongly suggests he had also already thought out the strategy for winning a "moral victory" over Communist power, which he would put to use many years later. "In the contemporary Communist movement, the Church sees and acknowledges an expression of largely ethical goals," Wojtyla concedes. "Pius XI has written that criticism of capitalism, and protest against the system of human exploitation of human work, is undoubtedly ‘the part of the truth’ which Marxism contains." Interesting. posted by Shaun Kenney \| 1/14/2006 02:16:00 PM \| 0 comments 0 Comments: Post a Comment Home
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