Daily Dish
In October of 2003, during the Catholic Congress at Fatima,
Father Jacques Dupuis and Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, told delegates that Catholics should not seek to convert non-Catholics to the Catholic Church. This is because, according to the new, ecumenical system, non-Catholics are already part of the "Reign of God," and do not have to convert to the Catholic Church for salvation.
This new ecumenical system was established by Pope John Paul II.
When the Congress was opened up, Cardinal Policarpo was asked
Your Eminence, I would like to have some precision. In your speech you said that "each religion when practiced with sincerity was leading to God". Yet Sister Lucy of Fatima in Os Apelos, commenting upon the First Commandment, says that "there is only one God who deserves our adoration, the other divinities are nothing, are worth nothing and can do nothing for us". How are we to reconcile those two visions of God?
And was answered
But, my boy, such a vision is outmoded. What are those divinities Sister Lucy is talking about? We Christians, Muslims, Jews, we all have the same God.
And that's what this Pope meant to me. He dared go where few religious leaders would. He expressed Reality outside the context of sectarianism.
In an Apostolic letter entitled ROSARIUM VIRGINIS MARIAE, Pope John Paul makes a strikingly Sufic point regarding the saying of the Rosary.
Mary's contemplation is above all a remembering. We need to understand this word in the biblical sense of remembrance (zakar) as a making present of the works brought about by God in the history of salvation. ... To some extent this is also true of every other devout approach to those events: to “remember” them in a spirit of faith and love is to be open to the grace which Christ won for us by the mysteries of his life, death and resurrection....
The Rosary belongs among the finest and most praiseworthy traditions of Christian contemplation. Developed in the West, it is a typically meditative prayer, corresponding in some way to the “prayer of the heart” or “Jesus prayer” which took root in the soil of the Christian East.
And later...
In effect, the Rosary is simply a method of contemplation. As a method, it serves as a means to an end and cannot become an end in itself. All the same, as the fruit of centuries of experience, this method should not be undervalued. In its favour one could cite the experience of countless Saints. This is not to say, however, that the method cannot be improved. Such is the intent of the addition of the new series of mysteria lucis to the overall cycle of mysteries and of the few suggestions which I am proposing in this Letter regarding its manner of recitation. These suggestions, while respecting the well-established structure of this prayer, are intended to help the faithful to understand it in the richness of its symbolism and in harmony with the demands of daily life. Otherwise there is a risk that the Rosary would not only fail to produce the intended spiritual effects, but even that the beads, with which it is usually said, could come to be regarded as some kind of amulet or magic object, thereby radically distorting their meaning and function.
Many criticized him for such positions. Some of those were within his own Church. So I, naturally, took note.
For if the definition of Catholic is Universal, then this Pope did much to fulfill that vision. He established the first Vatican nuncio to Israel, visited the Wailing Wall and posted a message there that read
God of our fathers, you chose Abraham and his descendants to bring your Name to the Nations. We are deeply saddened by the behavior of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer and, asking your forgiveness, we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the Covenant.
He visited the Omayyad Mosque of Damascus and said
We are meeting close to what both Christians and Muslims regard as the tomb of John the Baptist, known as Yahya in the Muslim tradition. The son of Zechariah is a figure of prime importance in the history of Christianity, for he was the Precursor who prepared the way for Christ. John’s life, wholly dedicated to God, was crowned by martyrdom. May his witness enlighten all who venerate his memory here, so that they -- and we too -- may understand that life’s great task is to seek God’s truth and justice....
Both Muslims and Christians prize their places of prayer, as oases where they meet the All Merciful God on the journey to eternal life, and where they meet their brothers and sisters in the bond of religion. When, on the occasion of weddings or funerals or other celebrations, Christians and Muslims remain in silent respect at the other’s prayer, they bear witness to what unites them, without disguising or denying the things that separate....
As we make our way through life towards our heavenly destiny, Christians feel the company of Mary, the Mother of Jesus; and Islam too pays tribute to Mary and hails her as "chosen above the women of the world" (Quran, III:42). The Virgin of Nazareth, the Lady of Saydnâya, has taught us that God protects the humble and "scatters the proud in the imagination of their hearts" (Lk 1:51). May the hearts of Christians and Muslims turn to one another with feelings of brotherhood and friendship, so that the Almighty may bless us with the peace which heaven alone can give. To the One, Merciful God be praise and glory for ever. Amen.
He was an ardent opponent of Communism and believed, as did President Reagan, that together they could end the Soviet Empire's grip on Eastern Europe. Arthur Chrenkoff gives a first hand account of how the Pope changed Poland, and history.
As Pope, John Paul II took a firm stand against the communist-based "Liberation Theology" that was infecting the Church when he took office and effectively eradicated it from the Clergy. His visit to Nicaragua (the heartland of Liberation Theology) during the reign of Daniel Ortega dismayed some who thought he should stand up for the poor by endorsing the Sandinistas: but he didn't. And after a Democratic election kicked out the communists with an overwhelming defeat, he returned in triumph.
Those airport greetings neatly summarized the sharp difference between this papal trip and the last. In 1983, with the nation's government controlled by the Maxist Sandinista Party, John Paul's arrival was a chilly scene; the low point of that visit came when Sandinista mobs disrupted a papal Mass by chanting political slogans.
Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the Pope's press spokesman, told reporters had been shocked by that incident-- a government-orchestrated desecration worse than anything he had seen during the years when Poland was controlled by Communist leaders. Therefore, Navarro-Valls continued, the Pope was particularly moved and delighted by the enthusiastic welcome he received in Managua this week.
(John Kerry was not embarrassed, but he should have been).
He stood against Socialist theories as well noting that the concentration of power to the State almost always results in tyranny. And while he recognized that Capitalism was the most effective model, he criticized it as well, not so much for what it provides, but for the corruption that affluence brings. He warned that affluence often leads people to live superficial lives which was the gateway to sealing oneself off from the Real. Raymond J. de Souza, seminarian and economist at the Pontifical North American College in Rome wrote about the Pope and capitalism
It is in this context that John Paul’s repeated and strong condemnations of consumerism should be understood. He regards consumerism as a threat to the freedom of the human person to live according to the higher demands of love rather than to the lower pull of material desires.
(Read the whole thing.)
To Pope John Paul II, the life of humans belongs to God and should be dedicated to Service. In his encyclical EVANGELIUM VITAE, he wrote:
Man's life comes from God; it is his gift, his image and imprint, a sharing in his breath of life. God therefore is the sole Lord of this life: man cannot do with it as he wills.
So while meeting one's material needs is important and right, ignoring one's spiritual nature because of it was not in the plan.
Obviously I have disagreed with the Pope on issues such as the War in Iraq but at this time I chose to focus on the many things with which I agreed and for which I admired the man.
