Wojtyla, a true European ” “son of Polish land

In 1980, at the UNESCO seat, Saint John Paul II said: “I am the son of a Nation which has lived the greatest experience of history, which its neighbours have condemned to death several times, but which has survived and remained itself. It has kept its identity, and it has kept, in spite of partitions and foreign occupations, its national sovereignty, not by relying on the resources of physical power, but solely by relying on its culture. This culture turned out in the circumstances to be more powerful than all other forces”. When Karol Wojtyla began his pontificate the world was divided in two opposite blocs. As he was later to write in “Centesimus annus”, many feared that this situation could be changed only with a world war. John Paul II asked: “Can history unfold against the tide of conscience”. He was soon to replace, in Vatican politics, the principle of “saving what can be saved” with “changing what can be changed”. A lot has changed since then, but not because of the “physical force” of the Holy See, rather, through faith and action in the realm of culture. “Plus ratio quam vis” – is the motto of the Jagiellonian University, the oldest university in Poland, with its seat in Krakow. John Paul II was a representative of Jagiellonian tradition in Polish culture. It’s a tradition associated with the Polish-Lithuanian Union, that created a multinational and religiously pluralist state. As the Pope pointed out, a third of his schoolmates were Jews. At the Academy of Krakow, a hundred years before the school of Salamanca, seeking to counter intellectually “haeresis prussiana” with intellectual tools, was developed the theory of the rights of nations. Paulus Vladimiri wrote about the need for tolerance and dialogue both with the “infidels” (“Proximi enim nostri sunt tam fideles quam infideles indistincte”) and with the Jews (“Et Judei maxime tolerandi sunt, quia per eorum codices veritatem et fidem nostram probamus”). John Paul II’s visit at Rome’s synagogue was no “coincidence”. The interest of Wojtyla for human rights, the rights of the family and of the nation is rooted within Jagiellonian social philosophy. It should also be remembered that Poland has never experienced wars of religion. The practice of religious tolerance was enshrined in the Confederation of Warsaw announced in 1573. The Confederation was the first document in Europe that didn’t just establish relations with different faiths. In fact, it stipulated freedom of religion for all. “I’m not the king of your consciences”, said King Sigismund Augustus (1520-1572). It was reflected in the importance ascribed to freedom of conscience in the teaching of John Paul II (“If conscience is not secure in society, then the security of all others rights is threatened”. – New York, 1979), and also in the mode of action of the Church at the time, (“the Church proposes, she imposes nothing. She respects individuals and cultures, and she honours the sanctuary of conscience”, “Redemptoris missio”). The tradition of religious freedom, as well as the role of Catholicism at the time of the partitions of Poland, under the German and the Soviet occupations and communism, have caused a natural association between freedom and religion: “Here, we have always been free” could therefore affirm Pope John Paul II at the Shrine of Czestochowa. The experience of the Second World War and the Warsaw uprising (1944), when 200 thousand people were killed in 63 days, have deeply affected the Pope’s approach in response to world violence. This regards his reaction to martial law in Poland and to the attack on the World Trade Center. After the 2001 terror attack Wojtyla wrote: “Recent events, including the terrible killings just mentioned, move me to return to a theme which often stirs in the depths of my heart when I remember the events of history which have marked my life, especially my youth. The enormous suffering of peoples and individuals, even among my own friends and acquaintances, caused by Nazi and Communist totalitarianism, has never been far from my thoughts and prayers. I have often paused to reflect on the persistent question: how do we restore the moral and social order subjected to such horrific violence? My reasoned conviction, confirmed in turn by biblical revelation, is that the shattered order cannot be fully restored except by a response that combines justice with forgiveness. The pillars of true peace are justice and that form of love which is forgiveness”. Saint John Paul II was a man who “knew how to build bridges over rivers of bloodshed”, as said by a Jewish commentator. At times, as in the case of his opposition to US military intervention in Iraq, he tried to do so in almost utmost solitude. His personal experience was probably also the reason for his active support for Europe’s reunification. He had a clear vision of a united Europe. A Europe that is open to all European nations, the Europe that breathes with its “two lungs” (Eastern and Western Christianity), the Europe of homelands. That’s why he declared Saints Cyril and Methodius, and Bridget and Edith Stein, co-Patron Saints of Europe. Encouraging the Polish People to join the EU, Pope Wojtyla said that European Union “needs a deeply religious Poland”. He was aware that the presence of the EU could involve the risk of “uncritically succumbing to the influence of negative cultural models prevailing in the West”. He also recalled: “in the eighteenth century, the fault of the Poles was their failure to protect their heritage, of which the last defender was the winner of Vienna”. The Pope said to young people gathered in Westerplatte, the site of Poland’s heroic defence against Nazi invasion in 1939: “In your lives, even each one of you will face a Westerplatte. It is a dimension of the tasks we are called to undertake and fulfil. A just cause, against which we cannot fight. A duty, an obligation that cannot be escaped, nor defected. Finally, a certain order of truth and values that we must maintain and defend: within and around ourselves” (1987). John Paul II wrote in the “Roman Triptych”: “If you want to find the source, you have to go up, against the current”. Under certain aspects, his entire life has been a journey upstream.