REMEMBERING JOHN PAUL II

(Parts 1 and 2 appear on the previous page.)


A Pilgrim at Auschwitz

Pope John Paul II offered an answer to the horror of the Holocaust.

Part 3 of Joan Frawley Desmond’s journal of her pilgrimage to Poland.

BY JOAN FRAWLEY DESMOND
National Catholic Register
8/5/11

“Can it still be a surprise to anyone that the Pope born and brought up in this land, the Pope who came to the See of St. Peter from the diocese in whose territory is situated the camp of Oswiecim (Auschwitz), should have begun his first encyclical with the words “Redemptor Hominis” and should have dedicated it as a whole to the cause of man, to the dignity of man, to the threats to him, and finally to his inalienable rights that can so easily be trampled on and annihilated by his fellowmen?”

Pope John Paul II offered this anguished reflection during his 1979 visit to Auschwitz, located about an hour’s drive from his birthplace in Wadowice. His words exposed the devastating impact of the Nazis’ brutal legacy on the spiritual life of a Pole who knew many victims — Jewish and Christian — that perished in the camps. During the German occupation, a number of his peers in the underground seminary were arrested and died in prison, while a series of seemingly lucky breaks protected him from harm.

During the Second World War, a reported 900,000 Jews were immediately killed, following their arrival at Auschwitz, and another 200,000 perished there, according to incomplete records compiled at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum archives.

Among an estimated 200,000 non-Jews imprisoned at the camp, 165,000 were Catholics, including priests, seminarians and religious. Edith Stein, the Jewish convert and Carmelite nun — Sister Benedicta of the Cross — was executed at Auschwitz in1942 for the crime of being a Jew.

It was a gray day when our pilgrim group arrived at the buildings that still contain the devastating evidence of the hundreds of thousands of lives extinguished at Auschwitz.

Our stone-faced tour guide pointed out piles of shoes, bowls, and human hair, grotesque reminders of the Nazis’ parallel war against an entire race of people.

Films like Schindler’s List have helped to educate the public about the efficient machinery of Hitler’s “Final Solution” and the moral challenges it posed to men like Oskar Schindler, who initially sought to exploit the vulnerable status of Jewish workers, yet ultimately risked everything to save them from the ovens.

Now, as our group passed through the camp, once inhabited by half-starved human beings treated like garbage — or even worse - human guinea pigs, we experienced in a more visceral way a sense of the horror that filled their final days on earth.

For a moment, I remembered the controversy provoked by the Carmelite nuns who established a convent at Auschwitz, until Jewish opposition forced them to relocate, following an explicit directive from Pope John Paul II. I understood now why the nuns stubbornly sought to remain as a source of consolation. The all-pervading desolation called out for some witness to hope.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:5).”

There are those who confront the horror of Auschwitz and rage at a God who was “silent” and did not intervene to halt the trains that continued to dislodge their human cargo, or to save the famished slave laborers that struggled to survive until the end of the war.

When Pope Benedict XVI visited Auschwitz in 2006, he acknowledged that the legacy of war crimes led many in the West to repudiate God. The Pontiff warned that such anger could result in a kind of moral passivity or even a refusal to respect the dignity of the human person—the “only creature God made for its own sake.”

“We cannot peer into God’s mysterious plan — we see only piecemeal, and we would be wrong to set ourselves up as judges of God and history. Then we would not be defending man, but only contributing to his downfall,” Pope Benedict suggested.

“No — when all is said and done, we must continue to cry out humbly yet insistently to God: Rouse yourself! Do not forget mankind, your creature! And our cry to God must also be a cry that pierces our very heart, a cry that awakens within us God’s hidden presence — so that his power, the power he has planted in our hearts, will not be buried or choked within us.”

At the end of his life, Jesus called out to the Father, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Pope John Paul II has described Auschwitz as “this Golgotha of the modern world.”

Yet, despite the desolation, there were prisoners who still believed in love and acted on that belief to the end.

When Pope John Paul II visited the camp in 1979, he lit a candle in the cell of St. Maximilian Kolbe, who was transferred to the Auschwitz in 1941, branded prisoner 16670. Reportedly, he was given the most dehumanizing tasks, and beaten routinely, but still heard confessions and provided Communion to the faithful. When a prisoner escaped and 10 men were randomly selected for execution as punishment, Father Kolbe volunteered to take the place of a Polish father and husband. He was starved for three weeks before receiving a lethal injection.

John Paul declared Kolbe the “the patron saint of our difficult century.” Today, many of us approach the Nazi war crimes as a cautionary tale that underscores the urgent need to address nascent evil before it explodes into a new regime of state-sponsored violence against a vulnerable class of persons.

But there is another lesson to be learned at Auschwitz. In every circumstance, no matter how desperate, we have a measure of freedom to love, to hope and to believe. At Auschwitz, amid fear, death and suffering Christ the Redeemer remained present to all who joined their sufferings to his own passion and death on the cross.

That truth shaped John Paul’s message to his fellow Poles, who struggled under the yoke of communism for decades after the camps were liberated. During his visit to Auschwitz, he reminded the faithful still living under totalitarianism: “Many victories were won [here]. Where the dignity of man was so horribly trampled on, victory was won through faith and love.”

The Pope’s biographer, George Weigel, underscored the most importantl lesson that Blessed John Paul II gleaned during a time of great suffering in his native land:

“[E]vil did not have the final word, because at the center of the human drama is Christ, whose entry into the human condition and whose conquest of death meant that hope was neither a vain illusion nor a defensive fantasy constructed against the fear of the heart of modern darkness,” wrote Weigel in his biography, Witness to Hope.

Early Christian pilgrims were the first to visit the graves of martyrs and holy men and women. Our pilgrimage to Auschwitz followed this pattern, in a special way.

There, we beseeched God for his forgiveness and prayed for the victims — Jews and Christians, the dead and the survivors. We asked for the intercession of the saints who perished here and for the grace we need to follow their holy example.

Simone posted a photo of this statue on the previous page of this thread. The best way to "alter" the statue, in my opinion, would be to take it down.


ARTIST WILLING TO ALTER CONTROVERSIAL JOHN PAUL II STATUE

ROME, AUG. 30, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Italian sculptor and Pontifical Culture Commission member Oliviero Rainaldi is willing to alter the 16-foot bronze statue of Blessed John Paul II that has caused such a stir since its unveiling May 18.

According to the Ansa agency, Rainaldi has agreed to make some changes to the statue, which ZENIT's art historian Elizabeth Lev reviewed here.

Rainaldi said the changes ''will be minimal" and that the statue "is not being redone.''

The artist said the statue has been misunderstood: ''I wasn't thinking of getting a resemblance but a work that could synthesize, in the posture of the head and body and the draping of the cloak, the way the Pope went out into the world."

The Feast Day of Blessed John Paul II is on October 22nd. This will be celebrated in Rome and in Poland. In Rome there is going to be a procession from Saint Peter's to Saint John Lateran. I heard this today, but don't have any more details.

An Insider’s Look at the Life of Pope John Paul II

Saturday book pick: A former secretary’s memoirs focus on the personal, day-to-day life of the papal apartment.

BY JOHN M. GRONDELSKI
National Catholic Register
2/4/12

Think of Pope John Paul II’s secretary, and Stanisław Dziwisz springs to mind. Then-Father Dziwisz was Cardinal Wojtyla’s secretary since 1966; he served him until the day he died — and is now his successor as archbishop of Krakow.

But over the course of his quarter-century pontificate, John Paul also had other assistant secretaries. One of them was Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki, now archbishop of the ecumenically sensitive see of Lviv, Ukraine. These are his memoirs, in interview format.

If Cardinal Dziwisz takes the more macro picture of the historical importance of Wojtyla’s pontificate, Archbishop Mokrzycki focuses more on the personal, day-to-day life of the papal apartment. He speaks about the human side of living with and working alongside Blessed John Paul II. We learn about how then-Father Mokrzycki came to the papal household (in 1996, at age 34, to “organize the work of [the Pope’s] office, but also someone who would support him in moments of weakness, who would help to give a wash and to change clothes”). The junior secretary was also responsible for correspondence and paperwork, as well as inviting guests to papal Masses and meals.

The household, as described by the author, is just that: a household. It is not a papal court. From the bouquet of fresh flowers wafting through the room to John Paul’s sweet tooth. (“He liked sweets so much that quite often he would give the nuns a sign that he wanted a cookie. ... Not even looking towards the nuns, he would draw a circle on the tablecloth with his index finger. He would draw and draw. And he was mysteriously smiling.”) He describes both the daily routine of the papal household (up by 5:30-6am, in bed after 10:30pm) as well as the special times (St. Nicholas Day on Dec. 6, when one of the nuns who worked in the household would bring gifts; Christmas Eve dinner and the quiet anticipation of New Year’s).

As a young priest and bishop, Wojtyla liked to steal away with young people to the Polish countryside, especially the mountains. Archbishop Mokrzycki tells us how, as pope, John Paul liked to get away once a month — usually on Tuesdays — with his associates and the security detail, to the Italian countryside to read, pray and take a break away from the Eternal City.

Indeed, the personal note is the strength of this book. It is when the author ventures off into policy issues, especially foreign policy, that the book suffers. The Holy See has to stride deftly amidst diplomatic minefields and, as a papal secretary, Mokrzycki has to put the proper spin on things.

That said, to leave the suggestion that Vladimir Putin was stymied by the Orthodox Church (Archbishop Mokrzycki says he invited the Pope to Russia but always deferred the concrete when to an indefinite mañana) seems either naive or disingenuous. Similar sentiments can be voiced about what the archbishop says regarding Yasir Arafat, Fidel Castro, et al. That discussion needs to be expanded or dropped.

With John Paul, however, the personal cannot be divorced from the spiritual. Whatever one may think of particular papal political choices, Archbishop Mokrzycki notes that John Paul was always driven by the desire to help those whom he believed needed his help or whom he could help. The concrete person, with a destiny before God, was always John Paul’s priority. And that humanistic perspective was always nourished by a deep and profound prayer life, which the former secretary regularly describes.

A good and easy read, this book nevertheless provides wonderful insight into what made John Paul II so unique: his humanity.

Polish cardinal [Dziwisz] tours Florida shrine, recalls 1998 papal trip to Cuba

By Tom Tracy
Catholic News Service
Feb. 8, 2012

MIAMI (CNS) -- Blessed Pope John Paul II was mindful of his prayerful struggles against Nazism and communism in Eastern Europe as he undertook his historic 1998 visit to Cuba, according to a Polish cardinal who as a priest served as the late pope's secretary.

"Cardinal Karol Wojtyla was proclaiming the Gospel in spite of this (communist) system; he was defending the dignity of each person who was created in the image and resemblance of God," said Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, who has been the archbishop of Krakow, Poland, since 2005.

He celebrated Mass and visited with the Cuban-American community at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Charity Feb. 5 during a visit to the south Florida region.

Accompanied by Miami Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski and retired Miami Auxiliary Bishop Agustin A. Roman, a native of Cuba, Cardinal Dziwisz discussed some of the context of the late pope's visit to Cuba and his legacy overall.

The papal trips to Cuba have been a source of lively discussion among Cuban exiles in south Florida, with Pope Benedict XVI's first papal visit to Mexico and Cuba set for late March.

In going to Cuba, Pope John Paul was primarily demanding religious freedom for the people, "which is not a privilege granted by the government, but a natural law of every human being," the cardinal said, adding that the subsequent opening of Cuba to international religious congregations and missionaries was a measure of the pope's intervention in Cuba.

"During his historic trip to Cuba, this was the most important message to this beautiful island, which is so dear to all to you and which continued to occupy a special place in his heart for it had shared same cruel experiences as his nature Poland under communist domination," he said.

The last time Cardinal Dziwisz visited Miami was as personal secretary to Pope John Paul in 1987 during that papal visit to the United States -- one of 104 such trips outside of Italy he made with the pontiff.

The cardinal celebrated the Mass in Spanish and presented a framed portrait of the late pope to the local rector, Father Juan Rumin Dominguez, while at the shrine. A focal point of Cuban-American Catholic life in Florida and around the nation, the shrine was constructed in 1967. Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre is patroness of Cuba and the church has marked the 400th anniversary of the apparition with celebrations over the last year.

"My dear friends of Cuban descent, John Paul II could repeat after St. Paul: 'I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some,'" the cardinal said. "In this context, how could we not recall today the apostolic journey of the Holy Father to your homeland, to Cuba, in January 1998.

"The Holy Father undertook this journey directed by love to the entire Cuban nation, trying at the same time to give support to the church in Cuba and its mission in proclamation of the good news and to strengthen your brothers and sisters in the faith and hope. Only God knows all the fruits of this historic visit."

On hand for the cardinal's visit to the Cuban shrine was Hugo Fernandez, a member of the shrine's fraternal organization and financial supporter since 1996. He said the shrine gave Cuban exiles a way to give practicing Catholics and even non-practicing Cuban Catholics a place to gather.

Our Lady of Charity is also a national symbol of Cuba in its struggle for independence from Spain.

"It is a way of uniting Cuban people," he said.

During his visit the cardinal mentioned that Krakow has become the center of the Divine Mercy movement, founded in the early 1900s by a Polish nun from Krakow, St. Faustina Kowalska, who is especially popular among Catholic Latinos.

"Pilgrimages from around the world are coming to sanctuary of the Divine Mercy we have built," he said. Alongside the sanctuary the John Paul II Center is being erected.

"Here we would like to conserve and develop the spiritual and ministerial heritage of the late pope for future generations," Cardinal Dziwisz said, adding the center is being built through the generosity of people and institutions around the world, including the United States.

He added that he has become the "custodian and conservator of the remembrance and heritage" of Blessed John Paul.

"In my travels I am attempting to give testimony about the life of John Paul II, about his prayers and work, about church and his holiness. He did not cease to accompany God's people on the paths of faith, hope and love."

The late pope's life is a gift for the universal church, Cardinal Dziwisz added, "and we would like to share this gift with others, disseminating his thoughts, his achievements, his way of serving people throughout the world."