The Cathoholic

The End and the Beginning: Geoge Weigel on the Record

The End and the Begining: Pope John Paul II -- The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy, George Weigel's sequel to his memorable biography of the late pontiff, was released today.  Weigel shared his thoughts with me in an interview posted on the National Catholic Register, where he discusses the key issues and unexpected developments that make his latest book so engaging.

What is the value of time for a biographer, even one who knew the flesh-and-blood man he is writing about?

Weigel: Obviously time gives one some emotional distance on the person about whom one is writing. But in my case, the most important “time factor” was the fact that I came into possession, after the Pope’s death and through the courtesy of Polish academic colleagues, of a cache of remarkable materials from the files of the Polish secret police and communist-era foreign ministry, the East German Stasi, the KGB, the Hungarian secret police, and the White House, none of which had been previously available. Those materials allowed me to explore the communist war against John Paul II in considerable (and dramatic) detail; some have said that the first third of The End and the Beginning reads like an espionage novel. And I expect there’s something to that.

In another exchange, Weigel addresses the pope's two-track strategy for dealing with communist regimes:

John Paul II sought to transform the Holy See’s policy of Ostpolitik by creating the foundation for the nonviolent overthrow of the Soviet empire. Yet he appointed Cardinal [Agostino] Casaroli, a strong advocate of Ostpolitik, as his secretary of state. Why did he do that, and what does that decision reflect about his approach to foreign policy? Other examples?

Weigel: I have long argued that the appointment of Casaroli, architect of the Ostpolitik of Paul VI, as John Paul II’s secretary of state, was an extremely shrewd move on John Paul’s part. With Casaroli as principal Vatican diplomatic agent, no communist government could accuse John Paul of reneging on Paul VI’s agreements or dramatically changing the Vatican’s policy line. Meanwhile, John Paul II himself went around and over the heads of governments with moral appeals to oppressed peoples around the world, calling them to live in the truth, which was his basic weapon against communism. It was a classic good cop-bad cop strategy.

 

 

The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II - The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years

George Weigel's sequel to Witness to Hope, his 1999 bestselling biography of Pope John Paul II, was released today. The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II - the victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy offers a penetrating reappraisal of his pontificate, but it also contains a fascinating portrait of Soviet-bloc spy agencies's efforts to penetrate Polish Catholic institutions and the Vatican. My book review in the National Catholic Register notes:

As Weigel tells it, Soviet-bloc informants had penetrated the Vatican, just as they had burrowed into Polish Catholic organizations. The new Pope devised his own solution to deal with this problem: he kept his own records of sensitive discussions and intelligence. Unlike his predecessors, he didn’t “dictate memoranda or conversations with prominent personalities or political figures … for ready reference in the Vatican’s Secretary of State. … Rather, in the evening, John Paul would go over each day’s meeting and conversation … with his longtime secretary Stanislaw Dziwisz. Dziwisz recorded all of this in a series of diaries that were kept in the papal apartments.

 

 

Carly Fiorina: Making the Pro-life Position 'Less Scary'

Here's my interview in the National Catholic Register with Carly Fiorina,  the Republican candidate for Senator in California who will go head to head against Senator Barbara Boxer, one of the most reliable abortion rights supporters in the U.S. Senate. Here's what she has to say about the health reform bill:

"There are many aspects of the health-care reform bill that are unacceptable. The bill should be repealed and replaced with a viable and moral set of alternatives.

This health-care bill doesn’t start with the core principle of the sanctity of life in the womb or the end of life. It provides taxpayer funding for a whole set of procedures that those of us in the pro-life community find immoral."

The former CEO of Hewlett Packard, with an MBA from MIT, Fiorina rejected the notion that opponents of embryo-destructive stem cell research were "anti-science" and suggested that advances in embryology provided further support for the pro-life position.

Fiorina hopes her candidacy will make  pro-life  women candidates "less scary. People will realize that women should be able to speak out against these policies and procedures. We should be able to do that without fear of our political future and without being branded as extremists."

The latest poll places Boxer and Fiorina in a "statistical tie."

John Paul II Miracle?

A few days ago, Father Roger Landry, the amazing pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, Mass. and the editor of the diocesan weekly, The Anchor, alerted me that the television news show, 20/20 would feature the story of his parishioner, Joe Amaral, who was healed after praying to the late Pope John Paul II. Here's my story about Joe in today's National Catholic Register.

Until I began researching the story, however, I didn't realize that hundreds of reports of miraculous cures have already been attributed to the late pontiff. Thus, Father Landry didn't know whether Amaral's  healing might be used to further the cause of the pope's canonization, but Joe's story and witness have been a source of spiritual renewal for his family and parish. It was a privilege to speak with Joe and Ann Marie Amaral, his wife of twenty-five years.

Update: Here is another interesting  article on John Paul Ii's canonization process.

John Paul Ii and Wanda Poltawska: The Power of Friendship

There are many compelling transcendent elements to the life of the late pontiff, John Paul II. His friendship with Wanda Poltawska is a source of great fascination for me. A Nazi concentration camp survivor who would become a close friend of the pope, from the time he served as a pastor in Krakow. While he served as her friend, confessor and guide, her insights contributed to his philosophical and theological reflections on the dignity of women and fostering a "civilization of love."

Here's my commentary in the National Catholic Register on Wanda's memoir of her four years in the Ravensbruck concentration camp during the Second World War: ...And I Am Afraid of My Dreams.

Recently, Wanda published her correspondence over many decades with the late pope. The letters have not been translated into English yet. Some members of the Polish hierarchy were angered by her move, arguing that the letters should have first been turned over to the commission reviewing documentation related to the cause for the late pontiff's canonization. However, other Polish bishops supported the publication of the letters.

While we're on the subject of the late John Paul Ii, here's my review of another memoir--A Life with Karol: My Forty-Year Friendship with the Man Who Became Pope by another close collaborator--his one-time papal secretary, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz. According to news reports, the cardinal is among  those members of the Polish hierarchy who are not pleased about Wanda Poltawska's latest book.