John Paul II, he who barring the intervention of the Almighty (which would not surprise me even one iota) is roughly half-a-year away from being canonized, is in many ways the neo-catholic version of John the Baptist; a voice that cried out from the post-conciliar rubble, “Prepare the way for the church of man. Make straight its paths!”
The adoring throngs of santo subito fanatics dutifully bellow in their own turn, “Truly, I say to you, among those Pontiffs of Rome, there has risen no one greater than John Paul the Great!”
In hindsight, one can just imagine that as the College of Cardinals was preparing to elect Jorge Bergoglio, the voice of the Polish Papa could be heard shouting from the tomb:
“He who is coming is bolder than I! His winnowing fork in his hand, he will gather the worldly, the heathen and the heretic into the granary, but the traditionalists, restorationists, and the triumphalistic who dare to seek doctrinal security, these he will burn with unquenchable fire!”
As a litany of humanist proclamations pass the lips of Pope Francis on a near daily basis, I am reminded of a personal reflection offered by a member of what promises to be a notorious conclave, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo.
Shortly after his episcopal consecration in 1998, the newly named Bishop of Sioux City found himself in Rome for an ad limina visit. At the end of the audience with Pope John Paul II, Cardinal DiNardo now fondly recalls, “He looked me straight in the eyes and said, ‘Remember bishop, it’s all about the human person.’”
Any honest review of the magisterium of John Paul II will reveal that it is littered with affirmations concerning the rights of the human person, even as it is dreadfully thin on references to the sovereign rights of Christ the King.
Wish to quantify it for yourself? Try this:
Do a Google search for specific phrases (enclosed in quotation marks) as drawn exclusively from the Holy See’s online archive of Pope John Paul II’s Encyclicals, Apostolic Letters, speeches, homilies, audiences, etc. (To do so, simply add site:vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii in the search field to narrow your search to this collection.)
Though this is far from a scientific endeavor, the number of results returned for the searches listed below does, with a degree of accuracy, reflect the reality of his papacy.
“Human Person” …………………… 1,580 results
“Rights of the Human Person” ……. 603 results
“Christ the King” ………………………. 82 results
“Rights of Christ the King” ……………….. ZERO
All about the human person indeed!
At this, one may reasonably wonder where Pope Benedict XVI fits into this scenario.
At first glance, he would seem to be an anomaly, but this is largely the case only insofar as liturgy (no small matter, mind you) and papal comportment are concerned. On the whole, he too was an off-the-hook ecumenist, totally committed to glorifying the Second Vatican Council in spite of the reality of its devastating effects, having precious little interest in proclaiming the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ.
In his own way, Benedict XVI also prepared the way for the current pontificate, albeit inadvertently, as his desire to begin the work of restoring the “triumphalistic” liturgy of old to its proper place of honor, in addition to poking the hornet’s nest of the same secular and religious liberals who love themselves some Francis, obviously contributed to the speedy backlash known as Conclave 2013.
My sense, if I may wax somewhat apocalyptic, is that the Lord in His infinite goodness raised up Benedict specifically to liberate the Mass of the Saints in order to nurture, encourage, and prepare His remnant for a definitive clash between the unfaithful Bride who bedded down with the world and the long since forgotten Spouse and King to whom all are beholden.
If indeed John Paul II is the church of man’s very own John the Baptist, one is forced to consider that just as Jesus is the “Last Adam,” perhaps Pope Francis is the Last Roman Pontiff who will lead the final charge in the anthropomorphizing work of Vatican Council II, ushering it toward its inevitable defeat.
Now, that is not to say that the end of time is at hand; maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.
Either way, I have a sense that we are fast approaching a point in time when the hand of the Sovereign Lord will be forced. No, it will be neither pretty nor pleasant, but eventually it must take place.
When? I haven’t a clue, but I will say this; the raising of John Paul II to the Altars may just be the mockery that invites, at long last, a Divine, “Enough is enough.”
“My sense, if I may wax somewhat apocalyptic, is that the Lord in His infinite goodness raised up Benedict specifically to liberate the Mass of the Saints in order to nurture, encourage, and prepare His remnant for a definitive clash between the unfaithful Bride who bedded down with the world and the long since forgotten Spouse and King to whom all are beholden.”
This paragraph gives me hope. I never looked at it in that light. Thank you! God has a plan.
I was very good friends with Pope John Paul’s best friend from seminary days, the late and great Cardinal Joos. We had many long conversations, often over port. Of the Pope’s sanctity, not a word. This is all about canonising the Napoleon of the Vatican revolution so that conservatives will feel safe with the post-revolutionary settlement. And then came Waterloo.
Louie,
You are right on target. While reading “Crossing the Threshold of Hope”, I circled every time JP2 mentioned “man”, “humanity”, “human person” etc. Sufficit to say, I was getting writer’s cramp. Barely any mention of Jesus Christ, Christ the King, or even the word “Catholic”. I guess he was kick-starting the Cult of Man.
Lord, have mercy!
“Santo Subito” was the politics of Agit-Prop which was ultimately due to the lunacy of the ecumenical perp, Chiara Lubich, who founded this crackpot outfit; The Focolare Movement.
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http://tinyurl.com/mtppbnh
The somewhat eccentric but always interesting Abbe Georges de Nantes often wrote about this “cult of man” that proceeded from Paul VI right to John Paul II, who amplified it. This navel-gazing attitude (exemplified perfectly by the new and excessively boring Mass of 1969, the Year of the Hippy) has been devastating to the Church and even the concept of individual sin.
De Nantes is dead now but he had John Paul II’s number.
“His remnant for a definitive clash between the unfaithful Bride who bedded down with the world and the long since forgotten Spouse and King to whom all are beholden.”
When she (in her human element) entered into intellectual intercourse with the principles of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment she became infected with intellectual VDs that have weakened her, corrupted her beauty, rendered her blind, and bereft of spiritual health..
She can be healed by the medicine of Tradition but she abhors taking the cure; she prefers putting-out for worldly pimps in the alleys of the City of Man. She does not trust that Christ the King will protect her from the Pimps she has fallen-in with and so she slowly but surely heads for the grave.
Louie, you got the date of Cardinal DiNardo’s consecration wrong. I was born in 1989, and Father Dan was the founder of my home parish and the pastor when I was a boy. His consecration couldn’t have been in 1988. Perhaps you meant 1998.
spot on, Louie, I think this coming year will see major upheavals.
Good catch, Nathan. Thanks! You are correct. It was 1998. I fixed it.
Dr. William Marra gave a speech during the JPII pontificate titled “When the pope is wrong”. I have provided excerpts from it in a video which you can see here:
http://publicvigil.blogspot.com/2013/10/when-pope-is-wrong.html
Dr. Marra says that if a pope dared to “contradict previous teachings of the Church on faith or morals” then the Holy Spirit would protect us…. Let’s pray that this prophecy does not come true. Much damage has already been done, but with God all things are possible. Let us pray that God works a miracle with Pope Francis.
Holy Father John Paul II, native of Poland soon to be cannonized………one of the longest reigns……..have left his Poland (the Church) in havoc……..with more sects, then Poland has ever known. I know, I grew up there.
“….at the present time there is a remnant left selected out of grace and truth.” (Romans 11:5)
Catholic Poland is much smaller than we can hope for. Poland is very infiltrated. If, in Poland it is visible, how weak and corrupted is our holy faith in the rest of the world? We are witnessing a ‘new, men made ‘catholic church’. Saying that, we are never to loose holy hope, because amongst the weeds, there’s ‘the root’ of True Faith, the true pillars. You can see them, only with the ‘light of faith’.
………just few examples, ‘but’ there’s was so many more……….
I was in an antique shop, browsing around (in a small town, in northern Poland). The woman who owned it, came to me and asked me if she could see ‘the miraculous medal of the Virgin Mary’, that I wear together with the small ‘crucifix’ (always out)………she admired it, and sadly told me that I was very brave wearing it, out. She shocked me to the core of my being, I managed to say………brave? in Poland?. She just smiled and left, she needed to take care of costumers. As I was leaving, she put in my hand a very old small ‘crucifix’, told me to keep it in my purse, kissed me, and said……..”Praised Be Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ”! Month later, still in Poland, I understood what she meant.
In Wrocław, where my father lived…….In the heart of this beautiful area, is a Catholic book store. One morning, I go to the desk, asking the sales lady ………do you have any other encyclicals, except John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Pope Francis???
(I wanted to give to some very Catholic people who are the generation of JPII, especially the encyclicals of Leo the XIII, Pius IX, Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII, they have never read them, nor did they have a need to read them, since they have everything they need to know, from the Polish Pope).
She looked at me, then said to the man standing next to me………..Father, do we? He looked me down, paid and left. I was so surprised that this man next to me was a priest, what was worse………so rude. So, I told her how could this be? Isn’t the Catholic Church 2000 years in existence, did we not have a popes before Vatican II, did they not write encyclicals? As you can imagine, the cold shoulder I got from making such loud remark, for all to hear. If they could, they would asked me to leave. I went to many different Catholic book stores in different cities, and not one of them had encyclicals of any other popes, and in each one I made the same remark, and I got the same cold shoulder. So, it truly seems, as the new teaching from VII is the true teaching.
In Poland, you will never hear anything about the problems in the Church. Those who go to Church, are too obedient to the Pope, John Paul II is still alive for them, their faith is based strictly on his words. Everything is John Paul II said this, he said that………….. many have lost their faith. I have brought some articles written by John Vennari (translated into Polish), about the false ecumenism, about the havoc in the Church, and so on………..they are in shock, in disbelief, or simply ignorant, refusing to even discuss it. Ecumenism is thriving, so many do not know their faith, but they will fight with you, if you use such word as ‘heretic’. No one will make one remark against the changes in the Mass, the confessions……….. many people are not interested to know their faith as we want to know today, meaning learning, reading, talking about it. They have blindly accepted all the changes, proudly consenting to it. From the pulpit they hear every Sunday………obedience, obedience, obedience!. The Second Vatican Council was a blessing from God, and gift to all faithful!
The European Union has produced many idols, the Poles took the ‘bait’……….you have the very rich, and the rest are barely making it. Mixed marriages are encouraged, the borders are opened, abortion is no stranger…….just look at the size of families……… a green light to mingle in with all their neighbors. Big families are not encouraged, the West is their guide to a good life. They say, it’s just like in America………..they have no idea how true it is. They are being cooked like the frog, slowly, ever very slowly………until…….
Viva Cristo Rey!
Halina, thank you for a your personal and very revealing portrait of the state of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland.
I am grateful to Ann Barnhardt for linking to Louie Verrecchio’s September 21, 2013 column regarding Pope Francis. The column was for me a nice introduction to Louie’s work.
As far as John Paul II goes, I am indeed uneasy about the coming canonization. Up to now, I have never included the Church in my prayer petitions. I am now.
I also live in Poland and I assure you that what Halina said is 100% true. Any critique of John Paul II is treated as the gravest sin. I tried to talk about some devatating aspects of his pontificate witn my family. All in vain. They wouldn’t listen, literarlly poking their fingers in their ears. There are a few people and priests with a sane mind but they are a tiny minority and are treaded by others as loonies. There is a statue of John Paul II (some of them are really ugly) almost in front of every church in Poland. In the biggest catholic radio in Poland “Radio Maryja” there are sung praises of him every day. His encyclicals as well his as “brilliant thological remarks” are quoted during sermons, lectures and in newspaper articles. But apart from this great admiration to the first Polish Pope, people do not live catholic lives. Contraception is thriving. Presently Poland is on the one of the last postion in the world if it comes to the birth rate (212 out of 224). Many catholics I know consider forincation (living with a girlfriend or a boyfriend) completely normal thing. Many of them accept homosexual unions. They strongly belive you can go to heaven without belonging to the One True Church and many more…
So if you think that Poland is a catholic country abandon this conviction right away. It is no longer so.
I like to hope that the great suffering JPII experienced at the end of his life was sanctifying.
Mr. V.–
How beautiful and clear it is to me– that you possess the gift of opening people up and allowing them to speak freely in an atmosphere of clarity, people-simple people-who basically just want to practice their beloved Catholic Faith in all its Tradition, fullness and orthodoxy. People like me, who are ostracized by most of their friends, family and even other Catholics who express real hatred towards us. We do not want to invent anything new, we are not trying to change anything. We just want to be Catholic, and our hearts break when we can see others suffer from never being introduced to the Faith in all its fullness.
I was blessed to have a solid Cathoic Dad, who died young, but before Ilost him, he brought Catholcism to me, thanks be to God. Interstingly, {and I’m certain you and commentors here will udnerstand this, } he did NOT give me the beauty of the Faith by kind “niceties.” He embued the One True Faith into me by admonishing me! I thank God for my stern,prudent & sober {in the Catholic sense,} Catholic Dad every day.
For me, the Statement of Reservations printed in The Remnant in 2011 was an eye-opener. I was horrified to read that the Pope had prayed with pagans in Togoville in 1985. In fact, I wasn’t sure if it might be one of those apocryphal stories that circulate around on the internet. Therefore, I wrote to L’Osservatore Romano to ask for a scan of the page quoted in the Statement.
This is one of the paragraphs from the report on the Pope’s visit to an Animist ‘sacred forest’ and which can be found on page 5 of the Italian edition of the 11th of August 1985:
“The first gesture which was made by John Paul II after arriving in Togoville was an act of homage to the ancestors. A gourd was filled with water and dry corn flour. The Pope took it between his hands and bowed slightly after the water was scattered all around. The same gesture was made this morning in Kara, before celebrating mass. This is a custom to which the Togolese are particularly attached. The guest accepts the water, a symbol of prosperity, and shares it with his ancestors by scattering it on the same ground that houses their mortal remains and their spirit. The brief ceremony was held in the most absolute silence”.
This is a description of one of the most egregious examples of communicatio in sacris activa acatholicis (a grave violation of the divine and natural law) I have ever encountered. And committed by a Pope? The mind reels.
So how about we counter this evil nonsense by having the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart in our homes? Maybe a nice, large notice in the local newspaper too. Just to remind people Who the King really is, hmm?
I tend to doubt that the canonization will go through. I believe that canonizations are infallible, other wise it would be pretty sacrilegious to honor a damned soul in the canon of the Mass. He might squeak through, though. I’m not happy about many things of JPII’s pontificate, but I understand he was ‘personally holy’ (let us hope!) and I would not declare him to be condemned. But not everyone in heaven or purgatory are declared Saints, so it would not surprise me if something comes up to prevent it. Von Balthasar was prevented from getting a red hat, and that is not in any way infallible.
On the other hand, we are approaching the 100th anniversary of Fatima. That takes on some ominous tones when one considers that the French Revolution began almost 100 years to the day from the time that the King of France refused Christ’s request to consecrate his country to the Sacred Heart.
Additionally, Miracle of the Sun – October 1917. Luther’s 95 Theses – October 1517. Somehow, I don’t think we’ll be celebrating the Lutheran anniversary. I’d hang on to your rosaries, I think it is going to be a wild ride.
Dieu Le Poi, the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart, what a great idea!
When you look into the personal history of the late Pope from Poland, and find out that he obtained a degree in theology from the Angelicum at Rome, then you will find not a bit surprising anything he said during his pontificate…such a degree is is infact certification in the religion of Modernism…otherwise they would have booted him out as they do with so many…who dare to assert that certain passages in Scripture really did happen, or that St. Paul really did write that letter…
I’m also of the opinion the canonizations won’t take place. Get your spiritual houses in order. Seriously. My own included.
The home enthronement of the Sacred Heart is a great suggestion.
With the current potificat, who knows where we’ll be in six month. Couple that concern with the present spiritual, economic and military-conflict aspects of the world right now and its enough to make the hair stand up on the back of your neck.
Everything is …. converging.
The Enthronement also gives the opportunity for holy hours and night adoration. The enthroned image is the next best thing to having a tabernacle in the home. We can at least make this reparation for the wounds inflicted each moment upon His heart and the heart of His mother. The world wants to kill Him again and He has no place to rest except at Bethany. We who say we are His friends can turn our homes into a Bethany.
Father Mateo Crawley had two books written. One was in preparation for the Enthronement “Jesus, King of Love” and “Holy Hours” was the other. Father Crowley had sought permission of Pope Saint Pius X to promote this. Pius X was so struck by the realization of the merits to be gained that he denied Father Crowley his permission to promote the Enthronement but gave his “command” instead.
Do please consider enthroning the Sacred Heart. Such an easy way to pray unceasingly and live a life of reparation. There are many graces granted to those who attend the solemn Enthronement of the Sacred Heart in Catholic homes. Give Jesus a place to find rest and comfort with His friends like He once did in Bethany with Mary, Martha and Lazarus.
“Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you my friends, …”
I respectfully disagree with you on this topic. I think it’s unfair to characterize John Paul II’s emphasis on “the human person” as somehow being opposed to a focus on Christ. (In the same way that it is wrong to say that someone with a deep devotion to the Virgin Mary is “ignoring” Christ. The two are not mutually exclusive.) I feel he focused on “the human person” in order to battle the “culture of death” which he spoke about so many times. That struggle with modern culture was one of the hallmarks of his pontificate.
@Dieu Le Roi There is a wonderful site with all that you mentioned above available as downloads French, Spanish and English here: http://sacredheartholyhour.com/
You may volunteer for making the nightly Holy Hours more frequently than once a month as you may desire. The author of the page has most graciously arraged that a Holy Mass be offered each month also for those who partipate, and their families. They also send you via email if you request a reminder within 24 hours of your chosen time.
I also do not think in the end he will be canonized because of one of his greatest failures, the sex abuse scandal just a few months ago I saw on a news blog spot that the UN is interceding on behalf of at least five former seminarians from MEXICO because of the founder of the Legion of Christ. They gave Francis until November 1 to address this and apparently he did not. What I fear is that there may be a disruption of the ceremony because of this issue.
The sex scandals pale in comparison to the scandal of his meetings in Asissi and when he was marked on the forehead by a Hindu worshipper of their devil Shiva and lets not forget the kissing of the demon book of the muslims too. Now those are scandals!
Pope John Paul II drank the blood of the martyrs!! What they died resisting, he did willingly. If he is canonized…I don’t know. I just don’t know. Surely the martyrs must be crying out for vengeance?!
It has that “Opus Dei” Flavor” to it, as both are in the Left Wing of The Church, as well as being Models of False Ecumenism.