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No plans to curtail papal schedule
Fatigue as part of a legacy
Although he clearly showed the signs of physical fatigue during his latest international trip, Pope John Paul II has no plans to curtail his travel schedule, his spokesman has revealed.
As the Pope arrived in Malta for the last leg of his May trip (see coverage), Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the head of the Vatican press office, told reporters that the Holy Father was pleased with the results of his previous stops in Greece and Syria. He observed that the Pope had already been scheduled to visit Ukraine in June, and a September trip to Armenia is now likely. [The Vatican confirmed plans for a papal trip to Armenia just as CWR went to press.]
“The Pope has no intention of stopping his trips,” Navarro-Valls said. “He will not stop his travels until God calls him home.”
Later, enlarging on the same theme in another conference with reporters, the papal spokesman said that John Paul’s willingness to keep working despite his obvious fatigue “will remain in the heritage of the Church” and an example for future pontiffs to follow. Responding to media questions about the Pope’s physical condition, Navarro-Valls acknowledged that the Pope was exhausted. “The Pope does not hide it, and we all know about it, we all can see it.”
However, the papal spokesman continued, John Paul’s example tells the world that “this blessed fatigue is worth it.” This, Navarro-Valls observed, is part of the legacy of this papacy. Future popes, the said, would recall the witness of John Paul II and the implicit message that, despite the pain and fatigue he suffered, “they will see how much God allowed him to accomplish.”
Divine Mercy Sunday
First observance of new feast
Pope John Paul II presided at the first official celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday on April 22, with a ceremony in St. Peter’s Square attended by about 40,000 people.
The Divine Mercy observance, to be celebrated on the Sunday following Easter, was officially entered into the liturgical calendar last May 5, with a decree issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship. That decree came at the direction of Pope John Paul, who had announced the establishment of the new feast day during the April 30 canonization ceremonies of St. Faustina Kowalska, the Polish nun who introduced the Divine Mercy devotions.
“Mankind will never find peace until we turn with confidence to the Divine Mercy,” the Pope said in his homily. He said that “a simple act of abandonment will break down the barriers of confusion and sorrow, doubt and despair.”
In introducing the Divine Mercy devotions, the Pope said, St. Faustina had brought a gift “not only for Poland but for all mankind.” However, he did offer special greetings to the many Polish pilgrims who had traveled to Rome for the occasion, as well as those who followed the Mass by satellite broadcast from the Divine Mercy shrine in Lagiewniki, Poland.
Lay movement needs formal statutes
Discernment process for Neocatechumenate Way
Pope John Paul II has cautioned the Neocatechumenate Way about the importance of “submission” to the authority of the Church.
The papal message came in a letter addressed to Cardinal James Francis Stafford, the president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, and made public by the Vatican on April 17. Cardinal Stafford has been charged with the responsibility for supervising the preparation of new statutes to govern the lay movement, so that it can receive full canonical approval.
The preparation of those governing statutes had been a “delicate” process, the Pontiff disclosed, but the process is now entering a “conclusive phase.” The Neocatechumenate Way, founded in 1967 by the Spanish layman Kiko Arguello, is now active in 100 countries around the world. The Pope indicated that the group should now be ready for an official recognition which would come not through an “easy process” but through a “profound discernment” on the part of the ecclesial community.
The reason for this process, the Pope explained, is to submit the movement to “judgment regarding the authenticity of charisms.” Such judgment is the duty of the Catholic hierarchy, he added, and no lay movement, regardless of its success or its founding charism, can dispense itself from the obligation to “submit to the pastors of the Church.”
Limits of environmentalism
Theologian rejects atheistic approach
Stripping references to God when trying to protect and save nature will only benefit “hidden or manifest powers,” insisted moral theologian Father Gino Concetti in an article published by L’Osservatore Romano.
Father Concetti made his remarks just as a new book was published by the Italian foundation Mountain and Europe. The new book was a collection of papers presented at a meeting last year on the occasion of the Jubilee. The full text, he observed, presented “strong arguments against the devastating effects of new industrial techniques” on the environment. However, the theologian —who is a regular contributor to the official Vatican newspaper—stressed that the Christian approach to environmental issues is not always the same as that of the popular political movement.
“If people try to exclude any reference to God,” wrote Father Concetti, “the environment will remain an orphan, at the mercy of the profits and interests of hidden or manifest powers.” On the other hand, he added, “if one accepts the reference to God, the environment acquires a shield which prevents any desacralization of it.”
Pope John Paul II himself mentioned the topic of environmentalism in his apostolic letter Novo Millennio Ineunte, in which he spoke of the “prospect of an ecological disaster.” Similarly, the Pope offered a distinctively Christian perspective on the environment in his speech to diplomats on January 13, when he warned: “If people upset the balance of creation, forgetting that they are responsible for their brothers and sisters, and do not care for the environment which the Creator has placed in their hands, then a world determined by our designs alone could well become unlivable.”
Pope thanks an old protector
Russian soldier rejected deportation orders
Pope John Paul II has sent 85th birthday greetings to a former Red Army officer who he credits with saving his life in 1945.
Uncovering an interesting human-interest story from the Pope’s youth, the Italian magazine Famiglia Cristiana carried an interview with Vasilyi Sirotenko, who was a major in the Russian army that entered Krakow in January 1945. Although he had orders to deport all intellectuals and clerics, Major Sirotenko made an exception in the case of young Karol Wojtyla.
Sirotenko had been a professor of medieval history before entering the army, and was looking for a Polish translator who could help him with Russian and Latin texts. The future Pope “was too useful” to be deported, the former officer told Famiglia Cristiana. Later—in 1953—Sirotenko himself barely escaped death after having been denounced for his opposition to Stalin.
The Red Army discovered Karol Wojtyla among a group of 80 Poles hiding in the Solvay chemical plant, where the future Pontiff had once been a laborer. Wojtyla left his job in the Solvay plant in September 1944 to live and study in the underground seminary housed in the basement of the archbishop’s residence in Krakow.
Globalization, not colonization
Financial concerns should not be exclusive
During an audience with the members of the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences, Pope John Paul II said that “globalization” of the economy should not become another term for “colonization.”
The Holy Father told the 50 members of the Pontifical Academy—who had been meeting to discuss the theme of globalization—that the process must be “controlled” in order to curb abuses. “Globalization must not become a new form of colonization,” he said.
Acknowledging that “the market economy seems to have conquered virtually the whole world,” the Pope also pointed out that rapid changes in technology, along with the increasing mobility of populations, have contributed to the process of globalization and constant change. Nevertheless, he said, changes can take place “too quickly,” and leaders must pay “particular attention to the ethical implications” of the globalization process.
The most noteworthy characteristic of globalization, the Pope continued, is “the increasing elimination of barriers to the movement of people, capital, and goods.” The problem with that development, he continued is that it “enshrines a kind of triumph of the market and its logic,” so that economic development “becomes a cultural phenomenon.”
Globalization, the Pope concludes, “is neither good nor bad. It will be what people make of it.”