“Sia lodato Gesu Cristo”—”Praised be Jesus Christ.” With these words, spoken in flawless Italian, the first non- Italian Bishop of Rome in four centuries, and the first Pole in history to occupy the See of Peter, presented himself to the members of his local church, and to the world. Millions of television watchers clear round the globe heard those nearest the new Pope give the response familiar to every Italian child: “Sempre sia iodato”—”May he be praised forever.” Even in a secular age this little dialogue remains part of the fabric of daily life in Italy: exchanged between priests and passersby in the street, between confessor and penitent in the confessional.
This greeting, and the simple Italian speech which followed, were unexpected. Traditionally the Pope, in his first appearance on the loggia of St. Peter’s, confines himself to the liturgical formalities of the indulgenced blessing urbi et orbi. For this Pope to have opened his pastoral ministry thus showed a fine sense of the occasion. A bishop is nothing without his local church. Clearly the first necessity for this “foreign” Bishop of Rome, therefore, was to show the members of his church that he was truly theirs. Any doubts on this score which may have lingered at the outset vanished as the Romans heard their bishop ask them to “correct me, if I make mistakes in your—in our—language.”
The significance of the new Pope’s greeting, however, transcends its local importance. Here was a man from a totalitarian society, lacking the elemental freedoms taken for granted in Western democracies. People accustomed to total state regimentation develop a sensitivity of ear and eye undreamed of in more open societies. One example: in 1968, during the brief springtime of the Czech revolution, the old patriot Svoboda unleashed an ovation by opening his inaugural address as the nation’s President with “Fellow-citizens” in place of the Communist “Comrades.” A single word con- tained a declaration of political faith.
It is against such a background that the new Pope’s first words to the world must be heard. As a young man he had heard the Nazi invaders of his country bark their “Heil Hitler!’. Now he was standing in the erstwhile imperial city of Rome, where centuries ago the crowds had shouted “Hail Caesar” as Christians, including many Roman bishops, had gone to their deaths in the same arena. With his opening greeting, the Italian equivalent of “Hail Jesus Christ,” the new Pope was at once exorcising the demons of history, and giving hope to oppressed people everywhere by proclaiming him who has outlasted all political messiahs, ideologies, and empires: “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, yes and forever” (Heb. 13,8).
There was no hint of triumphalism, however, in this Pope’s words. How could there be, when the church is passing through its most serious crisis since the sixteenth century? Times of crisis are always times of tremendous spiritual opportunity. This opportunity will assuredly be lost however, if we do not have the vision and courage to abandon routine and business-as-usual. Did the conclave which elected Albino Luciani realize this? His pontificate was too brief to permit a confident answer. If the selection of yet another pious Italian suggested caution and routine, the winning human qualities immediately displayed by Pope John Paul I argued that the cardinals had been more innovative than at first appeared. This time, however, there could be no doubt. The breaking of the Italian monopoly on the church’s highest office, and the choice of a man young enough to be Pope at the end of this century, made a statement incapable of misinterpretation. In the days following his election the new Pope spoke several times of the cardinals’ “act of trust and great courage.” The church’s need for vigorous, fresh leadership in a time of crisis had been recognized—and met.
Popes, like American Supreme Court justices, have a way of confounding both the hopes and fears that accompany their selection. While prediction is hazardous, therefore, it is possible to discern even now certain features of the coming pontificate. The selection of a non-Italian should help diminish the papacy’s entanglement in numerous no-win Italian political controversies (which will increasingly be handled by the Italian Bishops’ Conference), thus completing the spiritual liberation of the papacy which began with the loss of the Papal States over a century ago. Moreover, since all societies grant to foreigners liberties not conceded to natives, this Pope should find it easier than his predecessor to do so. Two days after his election he was photographed standing beside his limousine, his hands cupped to his mouth, shouting to the crowd. The picture would have given Pius XII the vapors. Conceivably we may yet see a Pope skiing at Cortina d’Ampezzo, or climbing in the Dolomites.
More significant was John Paul IFs immediate and un-equivocal commitment to fuller implementation of Vatican II than we have yet seen. He has emphasized the primary importance of what is indisputably the Council’s most successful document, the Constitution on the Church, calling it “the Magna Carta of the Council.” He has pledged to expand collegiality, mentioning in this connection the Synod of Bishops, at the last two meetings of which he played a prominent role. And he has been equally firm in promising to work to end” the tragedy of division among Christians, this ground for perplexity and possibly even for scandal.” These pledges are solidly supported by a record of collegial leadership at Krakow, and by his demonstrated interest in ecumenismin a country so overwhelmingly Catholic that the scandal of Christian division is easily overlooked. Perhaps the biggest question remaining from the brief pontificate of John Paul I concerns his ability to master the attempts at bureaucratic domination and manipulation that surround all people of great power. No such apprehensions accompany his successor. Cardinal Wojtyla’s administrative and diplomatic skills are respected and feared by Communist functionaries in Poland. A frequent visitor to the Vatican for years, he is familiar with curial personalities and methods, and fluent in Italian. Already he has demonstrated his independence. Whereas his predecessor took but two days to confirm all top curial officials in their jobs, John Paul II has deferred action on this crucial matter, until he decides whom to retain and whom to replace.
It is only fair to recall that it was Paul VI who made this possible. Prior to Paul’s reform of the curia the top officials of the world’s oldest functioning bureaucracy held permanent appointments. This allowed them to boast that “Popes come and go, but the curia remains forever.” Paul VI changed this by limiting top curial appointments to five years, and decreeing that they should lapse with the Pope’s death.’ Justice demands too that Paul VI be given major credit for the election of both his successors. All but four members of the last two conclaves were Paul’s creation. A majority of the cardinals entitled to vote were non-Europeans, over a third came from Third World countries previously considered to be on the church’s periphery. Only an electorate so constituted could have found the vision and courage to break so dramatically with tradition as they have done, in the second election especially. History may yet record the choice of Karol Wojtyla as Paul VI’s greatest achievement.
In the midst of all the euphoria and rejoicing it would be a disservice, however, to conceal the existence of misgivings. Mindful of the extreme conservatism of Polish Catholicism, Catholics who in the United States call themselves liberal (elsewhere we are termed progressive) fear the new Pope’s future decisions, especially with regard to such questions as clerical celibacy, contraception, the ordination of women, and the readmission to the sacraments of invalidly married Catholics. While waiting to see how far such fears are justified, those who entertain them might benefit from three reflections.
First, the assumption that Polish Catholicism is ultra-conservative requires considerable modification. The church in Poland boasts a vigorous intellectual life and at Lublin, the only Catholic university in any Communist country. Popular participation in the liturgy far exceeds that of the vast majority of American parishes and dioceses both in quality and quantity. And the Polish church has developed a program of liturgical preaching, based on scripture and Vatican II, far in advance of anything in this country.
Second, the new Pope’s intellectual background is one of openness. The possessor of two earned doctorates, one from Rome and the other from Krakow, he taught ethics as a young priest at the latter university, and at Lublin (not in a Tridentine seminary, like his predecessor). As Archbishop of Krakow he was de facto Chancellor of the Catholic University of Lublin. Already a master of Marxist theory (how many bishops in this country, or cardinals anywhere, could make that claim?) he is a man of great intellectual power, fully aware of the church’s problems, and capable of broadening his knowledge as required by his wider responsibilities. Those who know him personally report that he is by temperament more inclined to criticize the Establishment than to defend it.
Third, progressive Catholics might ask themselves whether some of their concerns do not reflect too great a willingness to allow the secular world to determine the church’s agenda. Whenever in its history the church has identified itself uncriti- cally with the society in which it has lived, its spiritual mission and independence have been impaired. It is ground for rejoic- ing to know that we have a Pope who is open to all that is good in the modern world (his important role in drafting the Council’s Constitution on the Church in the Modern World appears to have escaped the journalists), but capable when necessary of uttering a firm non possumus to contemporary demands in conflict with the Gospel.
Finally, what nation more richly deserves church leadership than his? With the exception of European Jewry no people in our Century has suffered more than the Poles. And there is no nation anywhere which has shown such tenacious loyalty to the church under hardships undreamed of by Catholics in the West. The cardinals have told us they would have elected Karol Wojtyla regardless of his nationality. But how fitting that a man so eminently suited to be the church’s chief pastor in our day should come from a land whose devotion to the church has gone largely unrewarded hitherto. And how thrilling to see the doughty Cardinal Wyszynski standing next to his younger countryman on the central balcony of St. Peter’s to witness the church’s joy. That little group, and the crowd of cardinals flanking them on the balconies on each side, were fallible sinners like the rest of us. Was it fancy that glimpsed behind them the sinless one, whom the seer of Patmos beheld seated upon a throne and saying: “Behold, I make all things newi’? (Rev. 21, 5).
