| Editor : Abbé Georges de Nantes | N° 85 – October 2009 |
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OUR LADY OF FATIMA CAMP 2009
JOHN PAUL II,
THE POPE OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN
On 7 December 1965, Pope Paul VI closed the Second Vatican Council in the presence of all the bishops with a discourse, in the course of which he proclaimed the cult of Man: « we also, we more than anyone else, have the cult of man. »
« It was, the Abbé Georges de Nantes wrote, a text, an affirmation, a proclamation unlike any other in the annals of the Church and unlike any other that is ever to come, a discourse that culminated in proclaiming the cult of man in the face of the world and in the Face of God. » (Liber Accusationis, 1973) Opposite the cult of God who makes Himself man, a cult that was practiced in the Church until 7 December 1965, there was established the cult of Man who makes himself god. Now, these two cults are irreconcilable for « the first is of God and the second of Satan » (CCR n° 111, June 1979, p. 6).
This new cult of man who makes himself god is based on a new integral humanism that the theologian of the Catholic Counter-Reformation summarises in four propositions: mankind as a whole, and not the Church and Christendom any longer, is the society of universal salvation; the new Gospel of this community is the Declaration of the Rights of Man, with its trilogy of liberty, equality, fraternity; the building of a world Democracy is the analogy here on earth of the Kingdom of God; finally, “religion”, by which is to be understood a union of all the existing religions, is to provide inspiration and spiritual animation for mankind thus regenerated.
« The connection, the hinge between our traditional Catholic religion and this new, more universal, integral Humanism is precisely the proclamation by the Church and by the atheist World, finally reconciled, of the declaration of the Rights of Man. » (ibid., p. 7) In fact, since this declaration is the foundation of modern Democracy, what a temptation for the Church to affirm in turn that this same declaration is also the end of the Christian Faith and the converging point of all religions for the realisation of universal harmony! Unfortunately, Paul VI, following the Second Vatican Council, succumbed to this temptation and spared no trouble.
the Abbé de Nantes hoped that after the death of this apostate Pope none of his successors, no bishop would dare to claim to adhere to such a heritage. If John Paul II’s elevation to the sovereign pontificate gave the Abbé de Nantes, who retained the marvellous memory of holy Pope John Paul I, some hope for a renaissance of the Church, he soon detected the danger that this Pope who came from the East presented for the Church.
In fact, in issues 107 and 108 of the Catholic Counter-Reformation of February 1979, our Father was already able to paint a triptych on the personality of the new Pope who had been elected scarcely two months earlier: a good Catholic Pope (at least he still appeared to be so), a Conciliar Pope and a Pope of the dissidents, a Pope of human rights.
It was actually under these strange titles: « Pope of the dissidents, Pope of human rights » that the press hailed Karol Wojtyla’s election. Our Father immediately grasped the danger of such a reputation, which was, incidentally, perfectly justified, for even if this combat of the Pope in favour of the rights of man and of freedom seemed to be only of secondary importance, it could prove decisive.
John Paul II’s pontificate would reveal that this combat in favour of the rights of man was not secondary but of paramount importance and had serious consequences for the Church and Christendom. That is the object of our study. But in order for this study to bear its fruits, one must first be convinced that a Catholic – by virtue of his faith in God who makes Himself man for the remission of our sins on the Cross – cannot on any account adhere to the rights of man because they are proclaimed against God and against the kingship of His Son Jesus Christ. That is what we must understand while following the decisive demonstration that is developed in issue n° 111 of the Catholic Counter-Reformation published in June 1979.
PART ONE :
THE RIGHTS OF MAN
« TO STAMP OUT THE INFAMOUS ONE! »
The rights of man are a corpus of rights that are recognised to all men, whoever they may be, by the simple fact that they are “persons”. In order to measure the absurdity of this claim and above all its impiety, we must first recall what law is, underline its utility, of course, but at the same time demonstrate that Christian law, on which it must be based, is superior to it.
THE UTILITY OF CIVIL LAW.
In order to protect and increase the common good of society, every political legislator establishes a body of imperative, additional and optional rules settling the rights of individuals or moral persons, according to the needs, conflicts, organisational questions that arise for citizens or that set them against one another. To these rules laid down by the political legislator, are added those that the judge derives: it is jurisprudence. Such is, in the general sense, the civil law that defines the rights of persons and determines their social relations.
Our Father straightaway brings to the fore two essential characters of the rights that are recognised to persons in their social relations. These characters pit them radically against the rights of man.
First of all the body of these rights that are defined by civil law are subjective, that is for each situation, each state, each title of persons, whether they be natural persons or legal entities, there are corresponding rights that are proper to them. There are for example parents’ rights, employees’ rights, the rights of the machine tool seller, the rights of road casualties, etc.
The Abbé de Nantes quotes as an example ancient Roman law whereby rights were established so that they may be adapted to concrete beings, to effective differences between persons. At that time, legal language did not recognise “the human person”. It dealt with the right of persons or of people and not with the right of the person. « What was fundamentally foreign to the spirit of Roman law, Michel Villey, law historian specifies, was the idea of calculating each individual’s rights on a “narcissistic consideration” of oneself and of oneself alone. » (the urgency of a political science,CCR n° 164, February 1984, p. 12) For ancient Rome, there were no rights based on self-consciousness alone, no rights that are identical for all men; nor were there universal rights without consideration for reality.
These rights are not only subjective but they are correlative. This means that for a right that is recognised to a person, there is necessarily a corresponding duty. For example, the purchaser is certainly entitled to obtain from the seller the delivery of the goods bought, but at the same time he is under the obligation to pay him the price provided for by the contract and vice versa. The rights of the employee towards the employer also entail obligations towards this same employer, and vice versa; to the rights of the husband necessarily correspond those of the wife, etc. From this correlation between rights and duties, there results a certain balance, a certain state of peace in social relations between persons. If necessary, the judge may give his help in the case of conflicts, of disputes; he pronounces law, and his judgements bind each party to the conflict, thanks to the authority that the political power confers on him to this end.
« Because all this civil legislation cannot be purely conventional or arbitrary but must be guided and inspired by the nature of things and beings, by their spontaneous interchange and relationships, civil law must espouse the natural order ever more closely in proportion to its perfection. By virtue of their contiguity the natural order is also called the natural law.
« The civil law also takes its inspiration from the experience of civilised peoples and from their ancient rights, thus forming the whole body of positive law, codified by men to regulate wellbeing in society » (Of human rights, CCR n° 111, June 1979, p. 7)
THE SUPERIORITY OF CHRISTIAN LAW.
Indeed, civil law ensures a certain state of peace in social relationships between persons. But one must be careful, as the Abbé de Nantes underscores, since men have a nature that is superior to that of beasts; they are not entirely absorbed by their social relations and functions. They are created for a proper and personal end to attain during their earthly life. The civil legislator is not entitled to know this vocation in law, i.e., to define, to regulate, and, less still, to forbid it, but he must respect and aid it. « Under the most profound aspect of his being, life and destiny, every man escapes from society, from the civil legislator, from his Prince and from the State. » (ibid. p. 8)
But who will define the inalienable, inviolable, and imprescriptible rights, and in the name of what authority? If necessary these rights can be opposed to the civil powers; by means of them everyone can accomplish his transcendent destiny and fulfil his personal vocation in order to attain his ultimate end.
Our Father straightaway gives the age-old answer of our Christian civilisation, of the Church: « Christian law recognises that man has an ultimate end, which is eternal life, and it consequently recognises as inviolable all those rights and liberties necessary for the working of his salvation, for the gaining of eternal life… If there is any question in Catholic nations of a law other than, apart from and above the civil law, concerning the supreme rights and duties of persons, thus forming the irreducible kernel of man’s or of the person’s dignity, freedom and responsibility confronted by the State, society or the family it is the right to work one’s salvation, it is Christian morality, it is Catholic liberty and none other. » (ibid.)
« This superior, personal right consists in meriting and gaining eternal life through the freely consented practice of the true religion, that is, in obedience to God’s law and to Christ’s evangelical law as well as to the commandments of the Church. It is in following this law that every man escapes the contrary constraints of human powers, whoever they might be, for “we ought to obey God rather than men”. (Acts. 5,29) »
Thus, law comprises two chapters: first, the Christian law that describes the framework of men’s relations with God and whose initial content and development are to be found in divine revelation and ecclesiastical legislation; then, the Civil law that governs men’s relations among themselves. This law was formed gradually with the constitution of States and the development of their civilisations.
« But Christian law surpasses the civil law by virtue of its positive divine origin, its absolute authority and infallible truth. In controversial matters, therefore, the civil legislator can usefully rely on the ecclesiastical magisterium, on Christian law. » For example, it must forbid divorce, at least to Christians who are bound by the sacrament of marriage, and repress abortion, which is a crime whatever the circumstances for performing it might be. It must prohibit Sunday work except in case of necessity, on pain of violating the law of the Church, etc. In so far as it respects Christian law, the Civil power finds « its profoundest legitimacy, its guarantee of humanism, limit and rule equidistant from liberal anarchy on the one side and collectivist totalitarianism on the other » (ibid.).
Christian law surpasses civil law all the more because it does not result from a notion of God; rather, it comes from God Himself: « The social right of every man to work his salvation in accordance with Christian law, the law of the Church – a right that all civil law both public and private must recognise and respect – does not have its foundation, principle and legislator in man, but in God, in Jesus Christ, in the Church. Thus, it is not the right of a man, of any man as such, that would be in competition with civil law, with the authority of the State. It is everyman’s right to do the will of his God, Creator and Saviour; fundamentally, therefore, it is God’s right over every man to lead him to eternal life, His sovereign right that prevails over every personal or collective human will. » It is the expression « of God’s will to save all men that creates for them all a very sweet duty to respond to this vocation, that will take the form of an imprescriptible right before all totalitarian and persecuting human authorities. »
Hence, the traditional definition of Christian religious liberty that the theologian of the Catholic Counter-Reformation calls to mind:
« That no man should be constrained or prevented by abusive temporal powers from doing what he must be free to accomplish: his salvation according to God’s design as revealed by Jesus Christ in His Church. »
It must be added that « the exaltation of the dignity and rights of man does not endanger the tranquility of social order or the legitimacy of human authorities, on the one and very necessary condition that it be a matter of Christian dignity and Christians’ rights to fulfill all good works in view of their eternal salvation ». In so far as charity towards God and love of neighbour go hand in hand, there is no contradiction between the devotion of the Christian to the temporal common good and the working out of his salvation. Nor « has the dignity of the Christian, his right, his freedom… ever been a support to anarchy; quite to the contrary, it has consecrated obedience to human authorities and carrying out their just laws ».
OF CHRISTIAN CIVIL TOLERATION.
Other religions, which are false by definition, cannot lay claim to the authority of God in the face of civil powers, especially when they are Christian. « They have no constant relationship with the natural order and cannot therefore collaborate profoundly and universally in the maintenance of civilisation in harmony with the social authorities. » Thus, false religions cannot have any social rights in the lands of Christendom; they can only take advantage of relative, historical rights in countries that are theirs by tradition.
Our Father points out that the toleration from which these religions, though false, can nevertheless benefit, even in Christian lands, is accounted for in so far as they do not disturb the public order and make a certain contribution to the common good. If this twofold condition is met, States can tolerate these religions, grant them de facto recognition and even a certain freedom. As for the Church, she may gain two advantages from this regime of toleration granted to these false religions and ideologies. In the first place, it reduces the power of religious interference by totalitarian states, « the democratic constitutions of which inspire no confidence… in their respect for Christian law. Secondly, it proves to all men the free and unconstrained character of adherence to the true religion. »
THE REVOLT OF MAN AGAINST GOD.
Yes, but Christian law does not suit everyone. The Abbé de Nantes enumerates three drawbacks that Christian law presents in the eyes of Our Lord’s enemies.
Here is the first alleged drawback: Christian law places the Church above all authorities, all individuals. In fact, since it establishes all human life on the basis of faith in Our Lord, on welcoming His revelation, it implies submission and obedience to His Church. Even if full temporal sovereignty is recognised as belonging to the political authority, the latter itself is within the framework of the authority of God, of Jesus Christ who decrees His law through the Church and by which it is sustained and controlled.
Now, this superior authority of the Church in relation to all other authorities has been discussed for ages. First, it was disputed by kings who, in the past, attempted to elude it. Take Henry VIII of England, for example: he broke with Rome in order to free himself from her law on marriage. To this end, he gave himself this insane title of head of the Church of England, triggering not only her schism but also St. Thomas More’s martyrdom.
Then, this spirit of independence, which was first felt by princes, eventually came to be experienced universally, with each one claiming to be his own master, with no law other than that of his own personal fulfilment in accordance with the dictates of his own good pleasure.
At the crossroads of these two rebellions, firstly of the state and then of the individual, a new, resolutely secular humanism arose, whereby man « himself was considered the source of all rights, the basis of his own dignity, and the natural proprietor of his absolute freedom. The basis of these new rights of man was simply a transfer of Jesus Christ’s sovereign Kingship to Man, every individual man, who then takes God’s place. » (ibid., p. 10)
The second alleged drawback of Christian law would be that it thwarts other religions. Is it not dangerous to codify the natural law, which is common to all men, by reference only to one religion among all others? Is it not more prudent and appropriate to define a natural order open to all?
Lastly, here is the third and final drawback put forward by our Father, who plays “the Devil’s advocate” in order to strengthen his demonstration: there is no further need for God, Christ, the Church to establish human rights, to bring men freedom, to guarantee every man’s independence with regard to the social authorities. Reason alone is to suffice in defining universal human nature and establishing its great moral and juridical properties.
« So well did this happen that imperceptibly Christian thought one day reached the point of abandoning the divine source of human law and erected Man as the prime source and his general nature as the legislator of man’s freedoms in the face of the whole world and of God, that is to say before the social authorities both civil and ecclesiastical. »
All rights must in the future be structured in subordination to the fundamental rights of Man.
One must call to mind that in the eighteenth century, “philosophy” would recognise “man” only in his essence that is abstracted from all ontological, biological or social dependence, favouring the individual above the group and the substance above relationships. man, an « individual substance of rational nature » – according to this definition inherited from Boethius – would take no account of dependence on god nor of subjection to the social authorities, nor even of interpersonal relationships.
Moreover, this period was infatuated with reason, ready to rebel against any unexplainable tradition, any unjustifiable inequality or privilege, against the endless ins and outs of laws and customs and the complexity of the whole social fabric. In short, this complex social fabric constituted an « Ancien Régime » that was opposed to the ideal society of free men, all equal and fraternal and governed by reason. It became necessary to proclaim the dignity of every man, his right to total self-fulfilment, and provide him with the legal means to that end.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man, that of 26 August 1789 and all those that have been adopted since then, such as the Declaration of 1948 proclaimed by the United Nations Organisation, corresponds to that expectation. This declaration, which is drawn from a pure affirmation of man’s dignity as basic and axiomatic, that is to say unproven and yet unconditional, formulates « man’s sovereign demands for his self-fulfilment in social life without any reference to his duties and subjections, religious of course as well as civil and social. The Declaration proclaims man without God and without master with the whole human community and the world at his service.
« The Declaration of the rights of man contests all subordination and all hierarchy. It is a fundamental contestation of all human community through the exaltation of the individual bereft of all relationships, qualifications, responsibilities and particular dependencies… an a-social, non-religious, inhuman man. »
This declaration creates a system that is not only unlivable but moreover impious.
THE RIGHTS OF MAN CREATE AN UNLIVABLE SYSTEM.
A man, individual or person, « who is the subject of so many inalienable and sacred rights, will necessarily become a rebel to any authority that determines his subjective rights and duties in the service of others according of the demands of the common good. » Once he has been exalted in this way in his freedom of conscience, his religious freedom, his freedom of expressing any thought and thus any error, exalted in his right to come and go, to form partnership, to work, to get married, in his right to enjoy – whether he merits it or not – a certain standard of living ensuring him welfare and health, every individual necessarily ends up despising the civil law if it restricts his freedom. Consequently, in France today, it is impossible to implement the slightest reform regarding education, employment, health, civil servants, social aids, pension system, etc., without trade union freedom, rights to information, expression, protesting and strikes, – i.e., the right under all its forms to be harmful to other people – hindering the common good in the name of particular interests.
These rights of man make each individual or person an autonomous subject endowed with absolute rights that are antagonistic to one another and towards authority. They establish the person as the origin of sovereignty, the norm of law, the principle.
Consequently, the rights of man are by definition subversive of all human order. It is in the name of the rights of man… and of woman that from now on the relationships between husband and wife are based on a strict equality of rights, that parental authority over children is exerted jointly by the parents, which annihilates at the same time the authority of the father as head of the family. In the case of disagreement, it is the judge who decides, if necessary by breaking the marriage bond that unites the married couple and thus by destroying the family!
They are also subversive of all political and social order. Must we recall that the first Declaration of the Rights of Man was adopted on 26 August 1789, during the Revolution that brought an end to the Christian Ancien Régime, to the Monarchy and its institutions? In the name of the rights of man, in the name of the principles of liberty, equality, fraternity that the Declaration of 1789 laid down unconditionally, the Revolution would wage war on the King who is Christ’s lieutenant, on the Queen and on the Dauphin as well as on religious orders, on the clergy who refused its Civil Constitution, and, finally, on the whole people who had remained faithful to them. Blood would flow in torrents from 1792 on, and concurrently the very Christian ancient order would be overthrown.
In 1830, it was once again in the name of the rights of man that the revolutionary days of 27, 28 and 29 July took place, days in the course of which Paris saw barricades raised. Insurrectionary combats claimed several hundred lives, which sufficed to provoke King Charles X to abdicate. This led to the definitive disappearance of sacral power in France in order to make way for Louis-Philippe’s constitutional monarchy.
In France, in 1898, the League of the Rights of Man was born of the Dreyfus affair in order to defend an individual man, Alfred Dreyfus, against all the institutions of the French nation, like the Army, like the Ministry of Justice that were responsible – allegedly wrongly – for his condemnation for treason. Forty-six years later, in the course of what is conventionally referred to as the Liberation, Marshal Petain’s government of national salvation was annihilated. There were assassinations, purges, condemnations of tens of thousands of Frenchmen who had been faithful to him. This happened once again and as always in the name of the rights of man, of his freedom, of the myth of the resistance, without, moreover, any member of the League of the Rights of man rising then to protest against this « slaughterhouse regime », as Reverend Fr. Panici would call it from the pulpit at Notre-Dame de Paris.
On the other hand, the “Defence Committee” had no fear of recruiting members from among leftist intellectuals and other defenders of the rights of man. Nor did it fear, in keeping with the irreproachably authentic tradition of Dreyfus’ supporters, to participate in a campaign against the French army and against the much needed campaign of repression that it was waging quite effectively against fln terrorism at the height of the battle of Algiers in 1957. This committee thus worked powerfully for France to abandon Algerian Christianity in 1962 (cf. The battle of Alger, He is Risen n° 54, March 2007, p. 18).
This brief evocation of our modern history shows that the rights of man are an infernal machine designed to contest every form of subjection, every hierarchy, and every order. This is so to such a degree that « a thousand times more crimes have been committed in the name of human rights than were ever committed for reasons of State and for the sake of public security! » as the Abbé de Nantes would write (The urgency of a political science, CCR n° 164, p. 10).
Since the rights of man subvert every political and social order, they could at least prove to be a means of defence against totalitarian regimes and oppressors. Here again the judgement of the theologian of the Catholic Counter-Reformation is lucid and incontestable. In fact, he points out that this right, which is invoked against a totalitarian state, is « a blatantly antinomical adulteration » by virtue of its anarchism. The worst tyrannies, which moreover rightly challenge the rights of man in the name of reasons of state, do not fail, on the other hand, to impose their scrupulous implementation on their enemies. « Heads of more human, more civilised states, however, especially when Christian, cannot succeed in having their reasons accepted or being taken into consideration by the “world conscience”, international opinion nor even by the Church. No one will plead on their behalf the national common good, human order or the elementary security of their peoples. » (Of human rights, CCR n° 111, June 1979, p. 11) No one excuses them for the least breach of human dignity with regard to the terrorist or of the inviolable rights of the assassin.
Here we naturally think of Oliveira Salazar’s Portugal. Once he had become the president of the Council of Ministers on 5 July 1932, he understood that parliamentarism and the party system were the primary causes of misfortunes in his country, and he abolished them.
Salazar thus proved himself the man of providence whom God had given to Portugal for its temporal, political and social salvation. Moreover, he was one of the most Catholic heads of government in the twentieth century. He led Portugal until 28 September 1968, when Dr. Marcello Caetano replaced him for health reasons. The latter would resign from office on 25 April 1974, during the Carnations Revolution, to hand power over to a military junta composed of liberals, Freemasons and Socialo-Communists. « After forty years of religious renewal, of political stability and social peace, Portugal was returning to her erring ways of the past. » (Brother François de Marie des Anges “ The Whole Truth about Fatima ” Vol. IV, éd. CRC).
As our Father explained in CRC n° 80 of May 1974, the new Portuguese State was vanquished by the money of the Pope and of the World Council of Churches, by the condemnations issued by the uno and the Justice and Peace commissions, etc. In short, by the principles of liberty of man, his dignity, his inviolable rights, principles that were applied to it by force and for its very great misfortune, in 1974.
Actually, the rights of man systematically play in favour of both the strong to accentuate their tyranny and their hegemony, and the anarchy in those nations doubtful of their faith and their law. This is especially true in formerly Catholic, now democratic countries.
THE RIGHTS OF MAN CREATE AN IMPIOUS SYSTEM.
The rights of Christian man to work his salvation can, fundamentally, take advantage of Christ’s and the Church’s prescripts, and are consequently divine. In their claims, they represent a solid, precise and indisputable sovereign demand in the eyes of the Christian and are, moreover, difficult for any man whatever to contest.
Yet, the inviolable and sacred rights of man « present no objective title, no transcendent value to oblige respect or implicate duties for individuals and for the social body. Such a declaration is the definitive expression of an ideology and the declamation of one social group setting itself up, without any title, as universal legislator. » (Of human rights, CCR n° 111, June 1979, p. 12)
« Therefore, human rights elaborated by the Freemasonic “philosophers” of the eighteenth century and proclaimed by the French Revolution and then by the United Nations, can be challenged and tossed into the void as debatable opinions to the advantage of any other ideology or of any other law. » (ibid.)
Yet, the cult of man and of his rights is entirely applicable and excludes all possibility of its being discussed and all attempts to return to Christian law. Such a return is held to be unthinkable, odious by the “world conscience”, by the United Nations Organisation and even by the postconciliar Church.
Actually, human rights pursue no other goal than that of « écraser l’infâme » (stamping out the Infamous One) – an appalling expression whereby Voltaire incited revolt against Our Lord – « of substituting any idol, no matter which, for Jesus Christ the King of the world and sovereign Legislator, who must not be allowed to appear as conqueror in any way at all. And the best idol for the world’s ruin in the impiety of the great Apostasy remains, in the eyes of man (and of woman), their own fantastic image: Man, Woman, “like gods” (Gn 3:5). »
For a long time, the Church fought against this imposture. Michel Villey, a law historian, noted it in his book “Le Droit et les droits de l’homme” (Law and Human Rights):
« Catholicism does not appear to be the cradle of human rights. I call to mind that the papacy, until a very recent period (unless I am mistaken until John XXIII), remained steadfast in its attitude of hostility against human rights. » (p. 130)
That is an understatement. Human rights pit mankind against God and destroy our holy religion. All the defined dogmas, all the truths of the Church are necessarily antagonistic to these rights. Therefore, the Church fought for a long time against this imposture as can be seen from the most solemn texts of the Magisterium that have tackled this matter, e.g., Gregory XVI’s encyclical Mirari vos, Pius IX’s Syllabus, and St. Pius X’s Letter on the Sillon.
Yet, we must admit the triumph of the rights of man in all our societies today. Since the French Revolution, Christian law has been pushed back. Human rights have gained ground until they have become the master ideology of the modern world. Even the Church, at the time of the Second Vatican Council, has recognised her defeat and since then, she persists in working for practical collaboration with the world and its secular humanism.
« Thus we have reached the worst of the worst disorders that Satan has ever dreamt up. Human rights, which were carefully tied up in a false exterior of Christian law, carried out their work of separating the human community and totally secularising our civilisation by means of the Church. »
That is what our Father was able to write in May 1979 (published in the June issue of the English edition), six months after John Paul II’s elevation to the sovereign pontificate and one month after the publication of his first encyclical Redemptor Hominis. This text showed that the new Pope wanted to make himself the apostle of the rights of man and strengthen the Church’s collaboration with the world in its cult of man.
PART TWO :
THE GOSPEL OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN
ACCORDING TO JOHN PAUL II
Before analysing Karol Wojtyla’s doctrine as Pope, we must briefly present his action in Poland prior to his election to the sovereign pontificate.
KAROL WOJTYLA IN POLAND.
In no 108 of the Catholic Counter-Reformation bulletin of March 1979, the Abbé de Nantes called to mind that for more than a century Catholic Poland had been fighting against both the Protestant Germans and the Schismatic Russians for her independence. In 1978, the year of Karol Wojtyla’s elevation, this country was once again confronted with its temporal and spiritual survival.
Poland then belonged to the Communist bloc of Eastern European countries, and it had been so since that formidable advance of Soviet troops during World War II. It made Stalin the great conqueror in this conflict. The country, which was predominantly Catholic though placed under the authority of an atheistic, Communist government, was moreover dependent on the Soviet Union. In the combat against the oppressive Communist regime, the Church was on the front line.
On 14 April 1950, however, in order to avoid the worst, Cardinal Wyszinski, the Archbishop of Gniezo and Warsaw, signed an agreement with Bierut’s Communist government establishing a modus vivendi. The Church took into consideration the Soviet armoured tanks that were massed beyond the frontier. At any moment they could intervene on Polish territory in order to repress any thought of rebellion and of independence, as had been the case in Hungary in 1956 and then in Czechoslovakia in 1968. Thus, the Church promised not to intervene in the political domain in return for which, however, she gained recognition for her full freedom of religious practice and of apostolic works in the framework of the ecclesiastical institution. She thus retained a legal basis for the defence of the Faith and of Polish patriotism that were threatened with extinction under the oppression.
This solution was not ideal, for it meant taking the risk of leaving the State with an all-embracing coercive force through its stranglehold on main institutions such as education, holiday camps, newspapers, etc. This solution, however, remained very wise because it preserved « a haven of peace, a spiritual sanctuary ». It must be underscored, though, that Cardinal Wyszinski demanded freedom for the Church in the name of her divine right because Polish Christians enjoy the right, as does every Christian, to work out their salvation, a right opposable to political States, as we said previously, and thus in the first place to the Polish State.
Karol Wojtyla had a very different mentality. When he was a young priest, he studied « neo-Thomist » philosophy in Rome and returned with Jacques Maritain’s integral humanism. Maritain proposed to build a just and peaceful society, a universal democracy, on this new Creed, the declaration of the rights of man, a Creed that would be perfectly compatible with the Catholic religion. He who fights for the natural order, of which human rights are the expression, is also fighting for God in the light of the Gospel.
On his return to Poland in 1948, Karol Wojtyla, as a priest, a bishop, and then a Cardinal, naturally took part in the common struggle for the Church’s freedom, but he brought his personal arguments to it. Karol Wojtyla and his close followers, who often were laymen and sometimes non-Christians, found themselves engaged in every struggle for man, for his dignity, for living conditions, advancement, freedom, culture in Poland and elsewhere. The freedom of the Church became no more than one particular aspect of a general anti-totalitarian revolt. He would attach the struggle of the Polish Catholics to a much vaster combat led by humanists from all over the world and by international organisations for human rights.
In 1974 Cardinal Wojtyla thundered at Piekary: « The Church will never lower her defences to the East. She will always oppose official atheism. This nation is not unbelieving but Catholic. This government and the Party that pride themselves on atheism represent only a minority, incapable of imposing its will on the entire people. » (John Paul II’s narrow path, CCR n° 108, March 1979, p. 21) This is a Catholic speech. But in May 1978, again at Piekary, the same Cardinal made a profession of faith in man before 300,000 pilgrims when discoursing with reference to the Book of Genesis: « … man is the most important… man rested… Man must have the right to rest. He is the image of the living God… Man rediscovers himself by identifying with this image and rediscovering what is divine within him. » (ibid.)
On 10 April 1975 Cardinal Wojtyla delivered a sermon for the inauguration of the church of Nowa Huta. The Polish government had prohibited its construction. He praised Polish workers who wanted God because for them religion is wealth, light, way, truth and life. Then by an imperceptible transition the speech shifts from God to man and comes to this second speech topic that blatantly contradicts the first one: « … the fight against religion, against God, is a fight against man… the Church in the world today is fighting for the good of man, quite simply for man. She is fighting for man under whatever regime he may live in every continent, cultural background or civilisation. The Church must defend man because he is in the likeness of God, because he is clothed in a grandeur unique in the whole universe. » (ibid.) In a pastoral letter, he maintained – still as regards the church of Nowa Huta – that the freedom to build churches is a criterion of the veritable respect for the rights of man and the citizen. It is not a question of the worship of God.
We already perceive the complete cult of man to which the future Pope John Paul II would unrestrainedly devote himself.
In December 1976, in the course of a homily given at Krakow, Cardinal Wojtyla declared:
« Since the end of June, the episcopate has asked on several occasions that those who had risen to defend their livelihoods and demand a tolerable standard of living not be punished for this reason. We must continue to pray that our country may be a land of authentic freedom, of true justice and of respect for the rights of man. »
One year after labour riots at Ursus and at Radom, in June 1977, the Archbishop of Krakow made this statement from the pulpit: « We insistently demand proof that the rights of man and of the citizen be respected. This problem seems to become increasingly acute throughout the world in general and in our own country. These rights are indispensable. They cannot be granted in the form of concessions. Man is born provided with these rights, and he seeks to implement them in the course of his existence. If they cannot be realised or implemented, then man rebels. He cannot act otherwise because he is human… Furthermore, it is impossible to solve these problems by resorting to oppression. » In December of the same year, he continued: « The rights of man are an essential part of the human condition, and God, by becoming man, has confirmed the dignity of the human being. »
These few extracts allow us to assess the abyss that separates Cardinal Wyszinski from Cardinal Wojtyla. The former defends the rights of the Church; the latter, the rights of man. But be wary, it was not cunning « on Cardinal Wojtyla’s part to claim the Church’s freedom in the name of human rights. For him, as it was for Paul VI, it was an appeal to the deepest truth, to a more universal morality, to the least contestable of rights. » (ibid., p. 22)
Moreover, while defending the Church, Cardinal Wyszinski was also concerned about the State, the nation, the common good. Alternatively, this young modern Cardinal preached absolutely inflammatory human rights to anyone who would listen; this guaranteed insurrection for freedom. The price to pay for such a mad revolution might have been Poland’s invasion by Soviet tanks.
JOHN PAUL II’S DOCTRINE ON THE RIGHTS OF MAN.
As soon as he was elected, John Paul II’s reference to the rights of man would be a veritable obsession. In his second Book of Accusation, our Father reminded him that his obsessive appeal to freedom was rooted in his anthropocentric and solipsist philosophy. In fact, in his speech addressed to uno on 2 October 1979, had he not declaimed this blasphemy:
« All political activity, whether national or international, proceeds “from man”, is exercised “by man”, and is “on behalf of man”. The raison d’être of all politics is the service of man. »
In his first encyclical, Redemptor hominis, which was published on 15 March 1979, John Paul II literally praised the rights of man, which, according to him, constitute the sovereign principle of governing States. This encyclical was presented as the programme, the foundation of the whole pontificate of John Paul II. In order to understand it, we shall follow the commentary that the Abbé de Nantes had published just one month after the encyclical’s publication. (The two encyclicals, CCR n° 110, May 1979).
In reality, this document juxtaposes two encyclicals – the one devoted to Christian Redemption and the other to the rights of Man. The Pope did not succeed in uniting them into a single allegiance that he wanted to be totally to God and totally to man. In the first encyclical, which is Catholic, John Paul II calls to mind the redemption of the world effected by Christ Our Lord and by His Church. Her mission is « to extend and to apply to all future generations the fruits of the Redemption » by « her share in Christ’s triple mission, his triple office as priest, as prophet and as king » (ibid., p. 8).
For this mission to be fulfilled, the Church can count on the Blessed Virgin Mary. Such is the fervent conclusion of this first encyclical. Fervent though it may be, the Abbé de Nantes points out that prayer « without accompanying works to follow would be nothing. Here there is no “plan for society”, no restoration of Christendom to fill it out and extend it. Instead it opens onto the other encyclical which bars the way to any such project, substituting for Christendom the Masonic world. » (ibid., p. 9)
In fact, like a foreign body that cannot be assimilated, a second dogma was inserted in the very text that we have just briefly summarised. This dogma is odd, devoted to the service and to the cult of man. Here is the paragraph that the Abbé de Nantes underlined, whereby John Paul II jumps without any difficulty from the cult of God made man, to the cult of man who make himself god:
« Christ is the perfect Man who has restored in the children of Adam that likeness to God which had been disfigured ever since the first sin – here, our Father notes, we are still in the purest and firmest Catholic faith, that which reckons original sin. Human nature, by the very fact that it was assumed, not absorbed, in Him, has been raised in us also to a dignity beyond compare. – That is that? It is settled, we are superior to all! – For by His Incarnation, He, the Son of God, in a certain way united Himself with each man. » (ibid.)
« It is a text from Gaudium et Spes. It effects the joining between God and man; it shamelessly divinises man in one go, making the Cross of Christ, the Church, the Faith, baptism and Christendom superfluous. From this affirmation, John Paul II derives the Gospel of the dignity of man, which is a programme as little Catholic as it is wholly Masonic and purely illusory, absurd and catastrophic. »
This programme consists in working for the coming of a better world by persuading Man to master things, to disengage himself from slavery to economical and social systems and to resort to the deepest powers within himself that decide the true culture of peoples against the instincts for self-interest, for combat, for domination.
Who will, however, assume this gigantic effort to save the world? Who will announce this new Gospel of the dignity of man? It will be neither God, Christ, the Church nor Christendom; rather, it will be the United Nations Organisation. John Paul II does not cease singing praises for « the magnificent effort made to give life to the United Nations Organisation, an effort conductive to the definition and establishment of man’s objective and inviolable rights, with the member states obliging each other to observe them rigorously. » The uno that stands surety for the respect of human rights becomes « our only hope » by Pope John Paul II’s will.
We have passed from the Gospel of the human person’s dignity to that of his rights, which alone are sovereign, while « God’s rights and laws have disappeared. » But « there remains the nation and the state that governs it, the common good and all those intermediary communities. » How does the Pope manage to reconcile them with the rights of every man? By an old trick that the supporters of personalism have used for a hundred years, John Paul II makes the common good issue quite simply from the sum of individual goods, and in that way saves « man’s supremacy, dignity, liberty and rights over every other reality, authority and power. » The Pope continues without worrying in the least and explains that « the welfare of man – or let us say of the person in the community – which must as a fundamental factor in the common good, constitute the essential criterion for all programmes, systems and regimes… Violation of the rights of man goes hand in hand with violation of the rights of the nation with which man is united by organised links as with a larger family. »
Is there « a worse error in politics than confusing the rights of man with the rights of the nation, setting the former up as inviolable rights that must be respected unconditionally by the state? » This is precisely the confusion that is « the basis of all Masonic contestation, whereby Capitalo-Socialist, atheist democracies, including the most infamous and oppressive, are consolidated, but that overturns all national states, especially when Catholic, for opposing the reign of Man who makes himself king and proclaims himself God. »
« I am a divorcee, I had no title to impose myself on the Vatican, and yet he had “chosen” me, despite certain members of his hierarchy having advised him against doing so […]. Of course, he had learned how “to play the Pope,” as he used to say, that is, never to enter a public place, a hospital, or a plane without blessing those who came to meet him. As for the rest, he had not finished spreading revolutions… » (Paris-Match from 5 to 13 April 2005, p. 88; © A. Mari / L’Osservatore romano.)
For example, during his trip to France in 1980, the Pope went to the Communist district of Saint-Denis and addressed an audience of revolutionary workers before whom he quite simply exalted the revolutionary ferment that according to him the Magnificat contains: « These words of the Magnificat… tell us that the world willed by God is not a world in which some, the few, accumulate excessive goods in their hands whilst others – clearly much more numerous – suffer want, misery and die of hunger. » Then he added: man « is not only hungry for bread; there is hunger, sometimes even more, for truth; there is hunger for freedom when certain of man’s rights are violated, rights as fundamental as the right to freedom of conscience and religious liberty. » (John Paul II in the Masdu Mill, CCR n° 125, August 1980, p. 5)
At UNESCO, on 2 June 1980, he affirmed that « the respect for the inalienable rights of the human person forms the basis of everything. »
In his encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis of 30 December 1987, for the twentieth anniversary of Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio, Pope John Paul II considered anew the “social doctrine of the Church”. After having drawn up the list of negative elements that, according to him, were obstacles to the universal development of every man and of all men, he was delighted about a few signs that were reassuring in his eyes. The first of them « you would never be able to guess », the Abbé de Nantes wrote: « awareness of the dignity of man under the influence of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the action of the uno. » (CCR n° 208, March 1988, p. 5).
The pontifical text advocated « the option or preferential love for the poor » with mention of « that special form of poverty which consists in being deprived of fundamental human rights, in particular the right to religious freedom and also the right to freedom of economic initiative. » (ibid., p. 11)
With such words, our Father concluded, « bursting with material assistance and aid of every kind, the peoples of the third and fourth world have still ample matter for claims and insurrections! » (ibid.)
Even for the Christian laity the Pope sets as a programme the promotion of the dignity of the human person: « To rediscover and make others rediscover the inviolable dignity of every human person makes up an essential task, in a certain sense, the central and unifying task of the service that the Church, and the lay faithful in her, are called to render to the human family… The dignity of the person is the most precious possession of an individual. As a result, the value of one person transcends all the material world. In virtue of a personal dignity the human being is always a value as an individual, and as such demands being considered and treated as a person and never, on the contrary, considered and treated as an object to be used, or as a means, or as a thing. » (Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici of 30 December 1988)
Such is, briefly expounded, John Paul II’s doctrine on human rights, a doctrine wherein the themes antithetical to Christian law are very clearly brought out. But with John Paul II it was not only a doctrine. It was a policy that was implemented in the countries that, in his eyes, did not respect the rights of man, first and foremost in his own country: Poland.
THE POLISH ILLUSION.
In June 1979, John Paul II’s trip to his native country led to great gatherings of Polish Catholics who came to see and listen to the head of the universal Church. This trip of the Pope of human rights, however, provoked an overexcited cast of mind that led, in August 1980, to the insurrectional strikes of the Gdansk’s shipyards and to the creation of the first trade union that was said to be free and independent with respect to the Communist government: Solidarnosc.
As Hamish Fraser wrote in an article that the Abbé de Nantes reproduced: « Needless to say, no effort was spared to exploit the papal visit as a means of engendering the mood necessary to the launching of Solidarity, which most successfully appealed to the aspirations of ordinary Poles who had been subject to Communist oppression for nearly four decades. » (CCR n° 144 March 1982, p. 2)
The Solidarnosc trade union resulted from the rapprochement, on the one hand, of progressivist Catholics and on the other of the Committee of labour resistance (the kor in Polish), a group of revolutionary Marxist intellectuals (Trotskyites). It was represented by an electrician, Lech Walesa, who wore an image of Our Lady of Czestochowa on his jacket lapel, but was advised by a certain Jacek Kuron, a member of the kor, and a well-known atheist.
Our Father immediately took a stand against this trade union. Its Catholicism was only a facade. On the pretext of more freedom, a spirit of protest, openness to the consumer society of western countries but without challenging the Communist ideology to which Poland was subjected, this trade union launched into a movement of insurrectional strikes. The goal put forward by solidarity was not only to snatch the Polish masses from the Communist regime but also to remove them from obedience to the bishops who defended the freedom of the Church.
The Abbé de Nantes called to mind three necessary conditions for an insurrection to be legitimate according to Catholic morality. First, the tyranny must really be unbearable; next, the coup de force must aim at establishing a regime of public salvation that ensures the common good. Finally, the rebels must possess solid assurances of success. None of these conditions were met in Poland: consequently, the Abbé de Nantes warned, the Solidarnosc trade union was leading Poland straight into disaster. In fact, in one year the strikes provoked a steep 25 % fall in industrial production. The amount of coal extracted diminished by 30 million tonnes and there began to be food shortages. No government could have tolerated such a situation any longer. Moreover, Solidarity’s leaders had bluntly demanded the exercise of effective power and were threatening the government with a general strike (cf. CCR n° 145, April 1982, p. 5).
In the name of the rights of man that the Solidarnosc trade union claimed, Poland was heading towards anarchy; the consequence of this would be an intervention by Warsaw Pact troops and thus a blood bath of one type or another. What was John Paul II’s attitude in the face of this worrisome political situation? By a succession of gestures and contacts with the imprisoned leadersof Solidarity, he made it known and clearly understood that he would give his unfailing support to this trade union and to the resistance that it intended to offer to the government.
In a speech on 30 December 1981, he declared as regarded the internment of Solidarity’s leaders: « Everywhere in the world, such facts would generate a just reaction dictated by concern for man and respect for his fundamental rights. »
The Abbé de Nantes commented on it: « … Breaking with Catholic morality, with the honour of civilised peoples and with the immemorial rules of papal diplomacy, John Paul II has not come out against this revolutionary uprising with a trade-union pretext and a religious mask. He has not, like his valiant predecessors of the last century, demanded that the peoples submit to the powers that be, and ordered the Church to co-operate with the State either in Poland or anywhere else in the world. He has not reserved his solicitude for the salvation of souls and public tranquillity, but has wasted it on the doubtful causes of justice, human rights and freedom. »
“Solidarity” could pride itself with being supported by all the western democracies, by all the parties whether right or left wing, and above all by the Pope. Yet, its audacity was not punished by anarchy or by the intervention of Soviet tanks, and this was undoubtedly due to two, even three men.
It is first necessary to recall the decisive role played by Cardinal Wyszinski, the Primate of the Church of Poland, and then by Joseph Cardinal Glemp, his spiritual son and worthy successor. As we previously explained, Cardinal Wyszinski implemented for years the modus vivendi whereby the Church refrained from intervening in the political domain in return for which she gained recognition for the freedom of her ministry with the faithful. Consequently, on 26 August 1980, he took the initiative to deliver a homily before 100,000 faithful. In this homily, he asked Poles to resume work.
Cardinal Glemp who succeeded him maintained the course despite narrow manoeuvring room between a Pope who resolutely sided with the revolutionary trade union Solidarity and disowned him, a divided clergy, and a government that remained Communist all the same and against which the only legitimate religious freedom, that of the Church, had to be safeguarded. Following General Jaruzelski’s speech of 13 December 1981 announcing that he had taken over leadership of the military Council of National Salvation, Cardinal Glemp warned the faithful against every revolt. In a homily given on 6 January 1982, he explained to them that: « In a heroic gesture, we can give our life on a battlefield, but this happens in a few minutes. It is sometimes more heroic to live, to last, to resist for years and years, to work. »
The Abbé de Nantes wrote in 1984 about this prelate:
« I also admire, respect and venerate Cardinal Glemp today more than any man of the Church in the world. » (CRC n° 206, December 1984, p. 5)
Finally, we must briefly evoke the figure of General Jaruzelski. At the end of December 1981, Poland was thus in complete revolutionary turmoil. General Jaruzelski concurrently held the positions of General Secretary of the Communist Party (poup) as well as those of Prime Minister and Minister of Defence. In order to restore order as soon as possible and to prevent the country from falling into anarchy and from being made to toe the line by Warsaw Pact troops, he formed a military Council of National Salvation during the night from 12 to 13 December and decreed a « state of war ». This state would enable him to limit public liberties to an even greater extent and to order the internment of numerous members of Solidarity, and thus to crush the revolt.
There was naturally a general outcry from western democracies, with the Pope at their head. But our Father immediately stood up for the state that « had the merit of alone assuming responsibility for the public well-being, order and good against irresponsible prophets and perfidious agitators. » (CCR n° 145, April 1982, p. 1).
In conclusion, he wrote, « once again, the winner in this exemplary Poland, therefore, was neither foreign oppression, that of the kgb, nor libertarian insurrection, that of the kor infiltrating Solidarnosc. It was the tacit consent of an entire people to the authority of the State, dominated and infiltrated though it is by the detested foreigner, the hereditary enemy, and anti-Christian though its ideology certainly is. For all that, it is still the State, the Authority, national sovereignty, that whereby Poland still exists… It is the fidelity of an entire people, although momentarily spellbound by the revolutionary mirage, under the pastoral crook of their primate the true spiritual heir to Cardinal Wyszinski, and beyond that to Cardinal Sapieha, to their true religion, which is not that of man, of his rights and freedom, but that of Jesus Christ, poor and persecuted, obedient even unto death… and thus victorious! » (CCR n° 178, April 1985, p. 6)
The Church of the ages had always obeyed Our Lord and preferred to call the unfortunate of this world to submission, to resignation without at the same time omitting to lecture the mighty. She neither questioned their power nor challenged, on the pretext of human rights, any legitimate or de facto authority that ensures the common good. The Church has always condemned anarchy by virtue of a rule that Our Lord dictated and that John Paul II failed to respect.
IN THE WHOLE WORLD.
In his second Book of Accusation, the Abbé de Nantes pointed out to John Paul II that he tirelessly helped any man who was threatened in his rights, his freedom and his dignity, whether he be a culprit or innocent. Thus, acting in concert with all the international organisations, with the highest spiritual and moral authorities, the Pope systematically defended “man” anywhere in the world against the so-called national security dictatorships, against the anti-democratic, anti-parliamentarian and thus necessarily anti-Communist regimes that were presented to world public opinion as corrupt and unbearable. It was particularly a question of the Shah of Iran, of the anti-Communist dictator Somoza in Nicaragua, of General Romero in El Salvador, of President Marcos in the Philippines and of General Pinochet in Chile. We will go into some detail concerning these last two countries; they will serve us as good examples, since their cases are clear.
In the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos was elected President in 1965 and ruled over the destiny of the nation until 1986. In order to fight against the Communist revolution and the independence revolts led in certain districts of the country by Muslim terrorists, he decreed martial law and used exceptional powers to safeguard the State and to ensure the common good of the nation. Ferdinand Marcos, a Catholic, was fundamentally anti-Communist but also anti-Capitalist. Since the nation of the Philippines was not democratic and refused to recognise the inviolability of the rights of man, western democracies, international organisations and at their head, Pope John Paul II, advocated struggle against this dictatorship and thus against the Filipino State.
On 17 February 1981, during his trip to this nation, John Paul II addressed a few words of thanks to President Marcos. Then, “turning” to the people, as though the President had not the quality to represent them and thus to govern them, he delivered this astounding speech: « Even in exceptional circumstances that may arise, there can be no justification for the violation of the fundamental dignity of the human person or of the fundamental rights that safeguard this dignity. Every conflict that arises between the needs of security and the citizen’s fundamental rights must be resolved in accordance with the fundamental principle –always advocated by the Church – that the social organisation only exists for the service of man and for the protection of his dignity, and that it cannot claim to be serving the common good when human rights are not safeguarded. »
Applied to the letter, this declaration would render governing a nation impossible and, in advance, would disarm the State, the nation against the wicked. It is opposed to the simple, wise, and prudent principle that St. Pius X evoked in the Letter on the Sillon: « If perverse individuals are to be found in a community (and there always are), should not authority be all the stronger as the selfishness of the wicked is more threatening? » Furthermore, this declaration posed a thinly disguised threat to the head of State. « Look out, Marcos! Look out, Imelda! It is the suitcase or the coffin for you, and there is no remission! » our Father wrote, expressing the Pope’s thought (Liber accusationis, 1983, p. 149). In fact, five years later, President Marcos and his family would be sent into exile under pressure from the Americans; they were betrayed by the army and, what is even worse, – but who would be surprised at it – by the Church!
Chile, a country the population of which is reckoned approximately 90 % Catholic, was governed in 1973 by Salvador Allende. An out-and out Socialist, he had steered his country to the brink of economic disaster and was on the point of leading a Marxist revolution. In view of this revolutionary situation and since the Constitution allowed it to do so, a military junta with General Pinochet at the head came to power for the salvation of the nation. The General exercised full powers and took necessary measures, such as the dissolution of the left-wing parties, arrests, expulsions of troublemakers, the state of siege, curfew, etc., in order to protect the country from Marxist revolution. Despite the uno’s condemnations for failure to respect human rights, General Pinochet restored political as well as social order; he was armed with the massive support of the Chileans and was responsible for the common good of the nation. He obtained 75 % of votes in favour of his management when the referendum took place in 1978. By Providence’s grace, Chile was governed by « a great and benevolent head of State, a Catholic monarch and not a temerarious “dictator”, a “Father of the country” and the saviour of Chile, a man of the same calibre and merit as Salazar, Franco, Marechal Pétain », as the Abbé de Nantes would write (CRC n° 252, February 1989).
But since the Chilean government did not respect democratic rules and, even more, refused to kneel down before the idol of the rights of man, Chile would be outlawed from among the nations. The country fell under the curse of Pope John Paul II, who did not conceal his hostility towards General Pinochet, who was, nevertheless, very Catholic.
Thus, during his trip to this country in 1987, the Pope agreed to meet a young lady who had become the personification of the torture that was allegedly practised in Chile. During that same trip, John Paul II also hastened to talk with the heads of parties, even with Trotskyites, who were obviously all opponents of General Pinochet. Finally during the meeting with young people, the 200,000 participants began to chant « Libertad » and, as our Father stressed, the Pope would only have had to point to the presidential palace to send them to carry out a revolution.
In short, everywhere in the world, John Paul II preached resistance, revolt, and revolution wherever governments known as national security regimes still dared to defy his spiritual authority. Here, moreover, is how he settled his score with them:
« There is no true freedom where internal security is erected as the only and supreme norm for relations between authority and citizens, as though this were the only and principal means of maintaining peace. In this context, one cannot ignore the problem of systematic or selective repression – accompanied by assassination, torture, disappearance and exile – to which many persons have fallen victim, including bishops, priests, religious, and Christian lay people committed to the service of their neighbour. »
For the Pope, the Abbé de Nantes interprets, service of one’s neighbour « is the revolution ».
In his book of Accusation, our Father also pointed out to Karol Wojtyla that when he intervened in politics to defend the oppressed, his preferential concern was to undermine those states that were the most docile to him, because those regimes were closest to the Catholic conception. On the other hand, he never attacked the Protestant, Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish, Masonic and Communist powers.
During his visit to France in 1980, did Pope John Paul II reproach Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, President of the Republic at that time, for the law legalising abortion that he had adopted six years earlier and that indisputably violated the “rights of the child”? Of course, in private, the Pope talked with him about it during a cordial meeting in which « he stood his ground, I stood mine, but afterwards, he never again challenged this decision » (Paris-Match, p. 11).
During a visit to a refugee camp in the Philippines in 1981, John Paul II merely contented himself with declaring: « I would like this occasion to symbolise the Church’s solidarity with all refugees, to be a symbol of the visit I should like to make, if it were possible, to all the refugee camps and establishments throughout the world. » (The Pope among the world’s outcasts, CCR n° 134, May 1981, p. 2)
But he formulated no protestation against the violence to which these unfortunate people were witness. There was no appeal to rise up in favour of the respect of human rights in their persons. Why? Because they all came from the Vietnamese and Cambodian Communist hell. « There we have Communism exonerated of its crimes against mankind », observed the theologian of the Catholic Counter-Reformation; he had many opportunities besides to demonstrate the Marxist character of the Pope’s thought (cf. “Laborem exercens, a Marxist encyclical”, CCR n° 140, November 1981).
Likewise, “bad” causes, like that of Rudolf Hess, a former Nazi, the oldest prisoner in the world, – an appeal had been made personally to the Pope in this case – were carefully avoided in a cowardly way.
Then, we can understand that our Father exclaimed to him: « Either you are a demagogue concerned for your prestige and unwilling to risk it in matters where public opinion is indifferent… Then the whole thing is a sham! Or else there are good and bad victims… In which case, the defence of human rights is one big deception designed to serve one camp against the other. And you, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, have sided with the powerful to crush the humble, the weak and the persecuted. That is what it is. I pity you. » (Liber accusationis, 1983, p. 149)
Today in the Church, the cult of Man and the proclamation of his rights by Pope John Paul II, who had made them one of the pillars of his pontificate, exercise more than ever an attraction to which it appears difficult for us, in turn, to resist. As our Father wrote in 1979: « One is entitled to wonder whether the Church at this present moment is not living through Satan’s final temptation, presented to her under the form of this idol of man who makes himself God and who says: “I will give You all this power and the glory of these kingdoms, for it has been committed to me and I give it to anyone I choose. Worship me, then, and it shall all be Yours.” » (Lk 4. 8)
Here is our Father’s answer and thus our own to this lure, this very temptation that comes from the Pope: « As for us, we shall never glorify Man nor shall we ever adhere to the proclamation of his dignity and of his rights. For the Will of God alone is great, and man’s honour is only derived from serving the Divine Will, and nothing else. »