Champion of Western Civilization

When Pope John Paul I died in 1978 after a reign of merely 34 days, it seemed Western civilization was doomed. The civilization’s presumed champion, the president of the United States, had declared that the West had entered an “era of limits.” The dominant view was capitalism and communism were “converging” so that both would turn into democratic-socialist welfare states dominated by their expert bureaucracies. And, of course, “God was dead.”

The preceding Pope, Paul VI, was a very holy man but he agreed with the pessimism of his American presidential counterpart regarding Christian civilization. The best that could be imagined was to slow the decline. His major social work, Populorum Progressio, was widely cited for its acceptance of convergence. Now, with John Paul’s death, the last Italian cardinal optimistic about the future of the West was gone. With only Italians chosen for the last 450 years, the West’s largest and oldest institution apparently would inevitably join in the civilizational decline.

Suddenly there was Bishop Karol Wojtyla, plucked miraculously from the obscurity of communist Poland, and pessimism died! As early as 1979, this John Paul II strode triumphantly into his homeland and immediately hope was restored for millions and millions behind the Iron Curtain—and, incredibly, raising questions about whether it was communism that was in decline. The same year, the Pope visited the United States to rally the “headquarters” of the civilization from its malaise. The following year, he was joined by another optimist who also thought statism was on the losing side of history, Ronald Reagan. With Margaret Thatcher, the three turned history to their cause. All of a sudden, the East European “satellites” were free, the Wall fell, and even the Soviet Union disappeared.

There was a cost. The Pope was shot in the in the left hand and in the stomach in an assassination attempt at St. Peter’s Square in May 1981. Incredibly, his ally Ronald Reagan was shot too. In July 1992, the Pope had surgery to remove a tumor from his intestine. In 1993, he dislocated his right shoulder. In 1994, he broke his leg. In 1996, he had an appendectomy. Somewhere along the way, he contracted Parkinson’s or something similar, which disabled him ever after. But nothing stopped him. Until now.

It is perhaps not surprising that John Paul II confronted secular “modernism” by confidently proclaiming traditional Christian doctrine as simple truth. Like Paul VI, he also strongly opposed abortion as a “culture of death” and even reiterated opposition to artificial contraception. He was considerate but firm. He opposed female priests. Homosexuality was a sin. He warned against divorce. In sum, he was the epitome of political incorrectness. Against all learned opinion, the people loved him anyway, and not only Catholics. He reached out more to Orthodox, Protestant, Jewish and Moslem leaders and peoples than any previous religious leader.

What was very new was the Pope’s teachings on social and economic matters. He reiterated Pope Leo XIII’s opposition to communism and socialism as immoral assaults on private property but he also went on the offensive to limit what was Caesar’s even in the Western welfare state. In chapter V, section 48 of his encyclical Centesimus Annus he was explicit: “Malfunctions and defects in the Social Assistance State [or welfare state] are the result of an inadequate understanding of the tasks proper to the state. Here… the principle of subsidiarity must be respected: a community of a higher order should not interfere in the inner life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions.... By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending. In fact, it would appear that needs are best understood and satisfied by people who are closest to them and who act as neighbors to those in need. It should be added that certain kinds of demands often call for a response which is not simply material but which is capable of perceiving the deeper human need.”

Ronald Reagan could not have made the political case better. The Pope, however, could go further than a president to make the arrogant, oppressive and spendthrift welfare state a moral as well as a political problem. If the West and its limited governmental system survive the statist onslaughts of the 20th Century, John Paul II will have laid the deeper moral foundations to lead the way. RIP.

Donald Devine, Editor.

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