On January 24, 2005 Pope John Paul II issued a 20-page Apostolic Letter to “those responsible for communications” called The Rapid Development. It began: The rapid development of technology in the area of the media is surely one of the signs of progress in today’s society. In view of these innovations in continuous evolution, the words found in the Decree of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Inter Mirifica, promulgated by my venerable predecessor, the servant of God Paul VI, December 4, 1963, appear even more pertinent: “Man’s genius has with God’s help produced marvelous technical inventions from creation, especially in our times. The Church, our mother, is particularly interested in those which directly touch man’s spirit and which have opened up new avenues of easy communication of all kinds of news, of ideas and orientations.” News account here.
The text of the Pope’s letter reflected his deep religiosity, his faith in God and the message of Jesus Christ. To a believer it is Catholic orthodoxy, but its text can also be read by the secular who work in the chores of modern communications. Excerpts are: The apostle Paul has a clear message for those engaged in communications (politicians, professional communicators, spectators)… especially to believers involved in this important field of society, I extend the invitation which, from the beginning of my ministry as Pastor of the Universal Church, I have wished to express to the entire world “Do not be afraid!” … Do not be afraid of new technologies! These rank “among the marvelous things” – inter mirifica – which God has placed at our disposal to discover, to use and to make known the truth, also the truth about our dignity and about our destiny as his children, heirs of his eternal Kingdom… Do not be afraid of being opposed by the world! Jesus has assured us, “I have conquered the world!” (Jn 16:33) Do not be afraid even of your own weakness and inadequacy! The Divine Master has said, “I am with you always, until the end of the world” (Mt 28:20). Communicate the message of Christ’s hope, grace and love, keeping always alive, in this passing world, the eternal perspective of heaven, a perspective which no communications medium can ever directly communicate, “What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1Cor 2:9).
Quillnews memory: More than 26 years ago, New York City’s three mass market dailies, The Times, The Post, and The Daily News, were shut down by the publishers who could not reach agreements with 11 trade unions. Striking news hounds formed strike papers to pay bills, and provide newspaper coverage to some big events, including a governor’s race, and advent of a new pope, among the most notable. The Vatican selected Alberto Luciani, former cardinal of Venice, to succeed the late Pope Paul VI but he would serve as Pope John Paul for a scant 33 days before his surprising death Sept 28, 1978. At the time, I was employed on a tabloid being published by shady investors out of old short-lease commercial property then in the shadow of the newly constructed – but still anemic – World Trade Center. The tabloid’s main function (in addition to earning its Newspaper Guild strikers a living wage) was to keep vendors, jobbers, newspaper distributors and delivery truck drivers working through the catastrophic 88-day New York City newspaper shutdown in ’78, which we did with a circulation of more than 500,000 a day.
In the wake of John Paul's death, rumors of the darkest sort (assassination, anti-Vatican II conspiracies, madness, suicide etc.) were widely circulated in that post-Vietnam, post-Watergate political environment which had seen President Kennedy, his brother RFK, the New York senator, and Rev. King murdered. It was my duty on the wire desk of The Daily News copy-cat paper we called The Daily Press to sort through the rumors and news chaos for a story we could print about the death of the pope. Many of my fellow new hounds at the paper were Catholics and keenly aware that our readers were as well. We tried to fashion stories worthy of publishing for New Yorkers to read about daily developments at the Vatican in the aftermath of the former-Venetian Cardinal’s most untimely death. My favorite memory of that time was watching one of my colleagues, Tommy Poster, a Catholic from Brooklyn of Polish ancestry and a pro bono champion of the Pulaski Day Parade, on Oct 18 wave our paper’s page one story of the Vatican’s selection of Krakow’s Karol Cardinal Wojtyla at me and his other (mostly Italian and Irish) Catholic pals in the news room as the funniest Polish Joke he'd heard in his life.
It is humanity who laughs now at our good fortune! Poster knew the 58-year old Wojtyla personally as archbishop of Krakow and was having a bit of good natured ethnic fun -- New York style. But none of us could know what was in store, nor that John Paul II, the first non-Italian to be pope in 455 years would go to hold office for 26 years, be the fourth longest serving of the 264 men who served as head of the Catholic Church since St. Peter, and instrumental in riding the world of the tyranny of his time.
In those days in 1978, a news hound’s obsession with conspiracy and murder wasn’t misplaced. Pope John Paul II had arrived center stage in Media-ville at the tail end of the very real Cold War, and during a time of political violence. President Reagan was shot and gravely wounded in March 1981 in a shooting that reflected personal madness, if not political depravity. Three months later, however Pope John Paul II was nearly killed by a Turkish assassin hired by the Bulgarian secret service, widely believed (Update: HT Wash Times' de Borchgrave. Update 2: WS) to be acting on behalf of the Soviet KGB. The Soviets were struck witless in that era because of the twin challenges from state and church: Reagan and Thatcher were leading the west in a military build up and challenge to the evils of Communism, whose failures were richly apparent to the citizens enslaved in its grip, but whose perpetrators were unable to reform. On the spiritual front, the anti-Nazi, anti-Communist Catholic who had been Krakow’s bishop was now a steel-spine leader of the religion that dominated the hearts of Poland and much of Eastern Europe.
During the Pope’s visit to Poland in 1979 his mass assemblies were witnessed by a third of the population. His message: Do Not Be Afraid. These events led to the formation and success of the Solidarity labor movement in Poland, the revolution of conscience in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union; then in succession glasnost, perestroika, the Velvet Revolution and the fall of the Soviet Union and its Communist Empire a decade after the Pope’s visit to Poland. The Polish Pope had helped change the world. The people listened to his message: they were not afraid.
Now in this new era in 2005, these years later, in the age of deconstructing news systems and media chaos during the war on terror, John Paul II’s message is the same: Do Not Be Afraid.
As he lay dying Saturday April 2, 2005, this supremely aware global priest, who had visited 100 countries, spoke eight languages, and whose had led historic reconciliations with Jews and Muslims was acutely sensitive of his center stage role in the world’s 24-7 modern communications world. In his final hours, the Pope authorized the Vatican to issue a statement calling attention to the recent arrests of Catholic priests, bishops and laymen in China by the government thugs who would not permit them to worship their faith unless they swore the supreme authority to which their faith answered was the Community Party, not God. The press office issued the statement on the morning of John Paul II’s death – as the world focused on the teaching of this man, this church and the faith of 1.2 billion Catholics, and untold additional Christians and others of faith. John Paul II’s message to China: Do Not Be Afraid. (Update: WSJ 4/5 editorial, Melloan; NRO 4/5 Lowry).
Quillnews has some guidance for China’s new boss, President Hu: You are the new strong man of China, and at age 62 likely to be responsible for some time for the fate of China’s 1.2 billion citizens who are being rewarded in free markets but remain enslaved in a tyrannical political regime. Fate has handed you challenges. As you consider the lessons of history and of Pope John Paul II on his death bed, I can understand you may be having trouble grasping what this barbarian from Poland was telling you and all would-be tyrants in his final statement in life. For a somewhat different perspective, I would point to the crude words of the Bruce Willis' low-culture character in the Hollywood shoot-'em-up Die Hard taunting his adversary after tossing a pyrotechnic: “Welcome to the party, pal!” The people are not afraid!
