http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/from_our_own_correspondent/3104178.stm

BBC news has always, in my opinion, had an ambivalent tone towards the Catholic Church. While I've found it to be ususally far more respectful than American news corporations, sometimes BBC says things that betray its home in the secular world. This article is a perfect example.

This sort of Pope-praising article is nothing new; I certainly love reading such things because it reminds me how powerful and hope-giving the presence of the Holy Father is to the world, in and out of the Church.

However, the last lines made me pause. "While Rome struggles to impose uniformity, in practice, the Catholic Church seems to me to have invented a surprising diversity in its interpretation of the Christian message.

I often wonder if the Pope himself has noticed on his travels how rich and varied is the fabric which the successors of Saint Peter and Saint Paul have woven over the centuries."

These words reveal to us, at least, that the writer (whether or not he is a baptized Catholic) is basically an outsider looking in. As is often the case, the image he presents is "turned on its head," or better, "put on its feet," from the view informed by faith.

The Church does not impose uniformity; she rescues from it. She preaches the True Freedom to the world, and understands that faith in the saving power of Christ opens up the Christian to a world of neverending possibilities. Unfaith, and the rejection of the Pope's complete message, is not diversity but rather the blandest uniformity. All resistance of God's love goes to the same place--a colorless world of sameness, void of meaning--death.

Rather than demonstrating this further in my own words, I will leave a passage from G.K. Chesteron's "Orthodoxy."

Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of to-day) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that. Thus he has always believed that there was such a thing as fate, but such a thing as free will also. Thus he believed that children were indeed the kingdom of heaven, but nevertheless ought to be obedient to the kingdom of earth. He admired youth because it was young and age because it was not. It is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has been the whole buoyancy of the healthy man. The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid. The determinist makes the theory of causation quite clear, and then finds that he cannot say "if you please" to the housemaid. The Christian permits free will to remain a sacred mystery; but because of this his relations with the housemaid become of a sparkling and crystal clearness. He puts the seed of dogma in a central darkness; but it branches forth in all directions with abounding natural health. As we have taken the circle as the symbol of reason and madness, we may very well take the cross as the symbol at once of mystery and of health. Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed for ever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heart a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape. Because it has a paradox in its centre it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travellers.

-- Skoobouy (skoobouy@hotmail.com), September 14, 2003

Answers

-- (top@top.top), September 14, 2003.

The pope was certainly no hero, in the class of Mindzenty and Stepinac. They were not allowed to attend Vatican II, but he was. He did not make waves. Apparently he still knows how to go along, get along, in this society. A great politician, he is indeed, but, not a very good shepherd of souls.

Carol Wojtyla was born and bred in Poland. Many have attempted to paint his youth as that of an anti-Nazi resistance fighter, In point of fact, before entering the priesthood, he worked in a chemical factory, the products of which were used to aid the German war effort. He spent his spare time in the theater, performing leading roles in a quasi-professional theatrical company. After the communists took over Poland, Wojtyla remained a survivor - indeed, as a budding philosopher and cleric, he was given the freedom to travel throughout the world which as anyone familiar with Communist tyranny knows, implies that he remained in the good graces of the powers in control. Certainly he was no Minszenty! And, indeed, Mary Craig tells us in her biography that when he worked as a parish priest in Poland he kept a "low profile... steering clear of politics (even to mention 'good' and 'evil' could bring down the wrath of the authorities...").

-- Terry (abc@304.com), September 14, 2003.

Terry,

This is a very cynical view of the Pope's early life. Trying reading George Weigel's, "Witness to Hope," biography on the Pope. You will see that he was much a resistance fighter. He resisted culturally. He wanted to preserve the culture of his Poland. This was something was hard during these times because of two long accupations. He was in the good graces of Moscow because they didn't think of him as a threat. They wanted him to be the Archbishop, until he became ome and took an active role against communism.

I have read 3 biographys of the pope and I am about to start a forth. But of these I have found Weigels book to be the best and most imformative. So please read Weigel's book. It might change your tone on the pope's early life.

-- Scott (papasquat10@hotmail.com), September 15, 2003.

Thanks very much for the info, I'll try to locate these books. There are two sides to every story, with the truth usually somewhere in the middle.

-- Terry (abc@304.com), September 15, 2003.

Jmj

Terry, you wrote:
"In point of fact, before entering the priesthood, he worked in a chemical factory, the products of which were used to aid the German war effort."

This is false. It is rank, anti-Catholic propaganda, invented to discredit the pope. This is the second time in a month that this has been stated on the forum. Who is coming up with these whoppers? Those who hate the papacy and/or the Church, especially her moral teachings, I do believe.

The truth is that the pope worked for the Solvay company, which existed before the Nazis came along -- and still exists. The founder was an inventor and chemist who developed a process for producing what is called "soda ash" (sodium carbonate), which is used in the manufacture of things like glass and soap. Anyone with a lick o' sense knows that the pope would never have done anything to help the Nazis or Commies oppress people.

God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), September 15, 2003.

Thank you for your information John. However it is still a mystery, to try to explain why he was allowed to go to the Council, while Mindzenty and the others were kept imprisoned.

-- Terry (abc@304.com), September 15, 2003.

Jmj
Hello, Terry.

I think that the Polish government was always a bit more lenient with the Catholic Church (in general) than were other Soviet puppet governments. I think that, by the time Vatican II started, they were less concerned about the possibility of trouble in Poland than elsewhere -- e.g., Hungary, where there was a huge uprising in 1956.

But you are mistaken about Cardinal Mindszenty. Please read the following partial biography, which I got from the www.bartleby.com site:

"He was bishop of Veszprém during the German occupation of Hungary in World War II. His anti-German attitude led to his imprisonment for several months by the Hungarian puppet government. After the war he was made archbishop of Esztergom and Catholic primate of Hungary, and in 1946 he was raised to the cardinalate. A strong opponent of Communism, Mindszenty was arrested by the Hungarian government late in 1948 on the charges of treason and illegal monetary transactions. At a sensational public trial Mindszenty pleaded guilty to most charges. It was widely held that his confession had been obtained by drugging him, because he had disclaimed in advance any confession he might make in case of arrest. The court sentenced him to life imprisonment. Released from prison because of ill-health in 1955, Mindszenty was kept under close watch. During the Hungarian revolution he was freed by rebel forces. When the revolt was crushed, he took refuge in the U.S. legation and thereafter refused to leave Hungary unless the Hungarian government rescinded his conviction and sentence. In 1971, after an agreement between the Vatican and the Hungarian government, Mindszenty left Hungary for the Vatican."

So, when Vatican II started, Mindszenty was in a U.S.-controlled building in Budapest, rather than in a Communist prison. It's not clear whether or not he could have gotten from Hungary to the Vatican for the Council, but I suspect that the government would have allowed it.

God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), September 16, 2003.

Thank you for the research John.

God bless you, Terry

-- Terry (abc@304.com), September 16, 2003.

Love that quote on mysticism Skoobouy. Its so very true. Life in the Faith is far simpler and more sane. No worrys whatsoever.

-- Pat Delaney (pat@patdelaney.net), September 17, 2003.