The day Wojtyla said Communism fell by itself John Paul II in Poland JOHN PAUL II IN POLAND The 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is an occasion to remember the crucial role St. John Paul II played in the fight against the totalitarian regimes behind the Iron Curtain. But the Polish Pope warned against a simplistic interpretation of reasons for the fall of communism ANDREA TORNIELLI VATICAN CITY John Paul II undeniably had a role to play in the events which culminated in the fall of the Berlin Wall a quarter of a century ago. He was the first Slavic Pope who was born and raised in a state within the Eastern Bloc. The sheer fact that a pastor from Poland with first-hand experience of life under the communist regime came onto the international scene, was destabilising for the totalitarian regimes of Eastern Europe. At yesterday’s Angelus, Pope Francis commemorated the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall saying: “The fall happened suddenly, but it was the result of the hard and long work of a lot of people, who fought, prayed and suffered for this achievement. Some people also lost their lives for it. Among them, Pope John Paul II played a main role.” In March 1992, Italian newspaper La Stampa published an article by Mikhail Gorbachev. The statesman had already gone down in history as the man who obliterated the Soviet system and although he tried to prolong its lifetime through a series of reforms, he performed one highly significant gesture: he shook John Paul II’s hand on 1 December 1989, just three weeks after the Berlin Wall came down. “Everything that happened in Europe during these past few years would have been impossible without the Pope, without the important – including political – role he was able to play” on the international scene. Some have pointed out that with his teachings on religious freedom and his contribution to the processes set in motion in Poland with the creation of the first free union in a communist country, John Paul II helped ensure that the fall of the various totalitarian systems did not cause any serious traumas or bloodshed and that full-on civil wars were avoided. Wojtyla was a mystic. He read history through the lens of faith and was conscious of his own role, also through the suffering he experienced after the attempt on his life on 13 May 1981. In answer to a question a journalist asked him on the flight to Prague straight after the Velvet Revolution in April 1990, about whether he had really played a fundamental role, the Pope said: “Going to a country that has suffered so much hardship over the past decades … I feel like a servus inutilis. But above all, I humbly and with profound trust kneel down before Divine Providence, which guides the fates of people, of nations, of every person and of all humanity.” John Paul II reiterated this viewpoint in his interview with Vittorio Messori published in the book Crossing the Threshold of Hope (1994). In this interview he recalled Fatima’s prophesy in light of the fall of a power which had once seemed invincible. “Exactly all that they had announced has occurred.” Just before the October Revolution broke out in 1917, the three shepherd children heard the prophetic words: “Russia will be converted”. “Perhaps this is also why the Pope was called from a faraway country, perhaps this is why it was necessary for the assassination attempt to be made in St. Peter’s Square precisely on May 13, 1981, the anniversary of the first apparition at Fatima—so that all could become more transparent and comprehensible, so that the voice of God which speaks in human history through the ‘signs of the times’ could be more easily heard and understood,” Wojtyla stressed. But, particularly in these days of remembrance, it is important to bear in mind just how much John Paul II had to say with regard to the fall of the Berlin Wall and of communism. “It would be simplistic to say that Divine Providence caused the fall of Communism,” the Pope said in his interview with Messori. “In a certain sense Communism as a system fell by itself. It fell as a consequence of its own mistakes and abuses. It proved to be a medicine more dangerous than the disease itself. It did not bring about true social reform, yet it did become a powerful threat and challenge to the entire world. But it fell by itself, because of its own inherent weakness.”
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 20:52:52 +0000
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