20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a cardinal raised in East Germany reflects

September 30, 2009

Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne was raised under a Communist system and lived to see it collapse. The German cardinal reflected on that change in an interview for his archdiocesan newspaper. John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter notes:

Those who know Meisner only after 1989, by which time he'd acquired a reputation as one of the most blunt and outspoken prelates in the world, will be amused by his explanation: He spent so many years carefully modulating his speech under the Communists, he said, that he’s not inclined to be diplomatic now.

Cardinal Meisner says that Vatican policies toward the Communist world changed radically under Pope John Paul II-- not because the Polish Pope was more "hawkish" than his predecessors, but because John Paul II believed that the Communist empire would soon be overthrown, and history vindicated his belief.

 

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Further information:

• Cardinal who's a post-Soviet legend looks back (National Catholic Reporter)