Catholic World News News Feature
John Paul remembered #5: the Pope's international policy April 06, 2005
Armed solely with the force of moral suasion, Pope John Paul II presided over an activist Vatican foreign policy, vastly increasing the international influence of the Holy See and helping to shape the world of the 21st century.
While Vatican diplomacy is always subordinate to the Church's primary mission of evangelization, the Vatican's diplomatic efforts span the globe, and the 26-year pontificate of John Paul II saw a tremendous increase in the international activity of the Holy See. Pope John Paul himself was an inveterate traveler, visiting most of the world's countries-- although two important trips that he had hoped to make, to Russia and to China, never came to pass. The Pope was also a powerful voice in international affairs: an outspoken opponent of Communism, an ardent defender of human life, a voice for world peace, and in recent years a defender of Europe's Christian cultural patrimony.
Shortly after his election to the papacy in October 1978, Pope John Paul made the striking observation that there would no longer be a "Church of silence" in the Communist world; henceforth the Christians of Eastern Europe would be heard through the voice of the Pope. Thus he signaled his determination to play an active role in international affairs, with a political outlook based on his commitment to human rights.
In June 1979 the Pope returned to his native Poland for a pastoral visit, which was marked by massive, emotional public demonstrations of popular support, at a time when the Solidarity labor movement was beginning to gather strength. From that moment, he was universally recognized as a threat to the Soviet empire. Years later, in 1992, Mikhail Gorbachev would observe: "Nothing that has happened in Eastern Europe in recent years would have been possible without the presence of the Pope."
In his first speech to the UN, on October 2, 1979, the Holy Father captured the attention of international leaders with a performance that demonstrated both his command of the audience and his commitment to policies based on fundamental human rights. His speech set the tone for all his future initiatives on the diplomatic front, emphasizing the defense of human dignity and insisting that injustice undermines the cause of peace. The young Pope also showed his audacity, in an address that contained a barely veiled criticism of Soviet Communist ideology.
The Beagle Canal crisis
The first clear application of the Pope's political influence came during the crisis that arose between Argentine and Chile in 1978, in a dispute over the Beagle Canal. As tensions rose, the Pope urged the bishops of the two Latin American countries to become involved. Then John Paul himself intervened, offering to mediate the dispute and sending a personal representative, Cardinal Samore, to visit the heads of both governments. The Pope's intervention led to an immediate military de-escalation, and the two countries continued to negotiate, with the Pope's envoy actively involved, until they reached a final accord on the Beagle Canal in January 1984. In a direct acknowledgment of the Pope's role, the foreign ministers of Argentina and Chile traveled to Rome to sign the agreement, in the presence of the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Agostino Casaroli.
The Pope's marked success in his first major foray into international affairs won the attention of other world leaders. Papal statements on foreign policy-- and particularly the overviews that he furnished in his annual address to the Vatican diplomatic corps-- began to command careful attention.
Relations with Russia
The pontificate of John Paul II saw profound changes in the structure of the Soviet government, ending in the collapse of the Communist regime. Today few observers deny that the Pope played an important role-- perhaps the decisive role-- in the fall of Communism. But he never fulfilled a cherished ambition to make a personal visit to Russia.
In 1988 Russian celebrated the 1000th anniversary of Christianity there, and President Gorbachev invited Cardinal Casaroli to attend the anniversary celebration. In return the Pope received Gorbachev at the Vatican in December 1989-- after the fall of the Berlin Wall-- and the Holy See established diplomatic ties with Russia in March 1990.
Although he was successful in his dealings with Russian political leaders, John Paul II was unable to establish a rapport with the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II, and the continued hostility of the Russian hierarchy frustrated his desire to visit Moscow. Despite several Vatican initiatives, Patriarch Alexei never even agreed to a meeting with the Pontiff. One such "summit meeting" was tentatively scheduled to take place in Vienna in 1997, but the Russian prelate cancelled the plans after a dispute over the wording of a proposed joint statement. Orthodox officials also rebuffed a proposal that the Pope might visit Russian soil on his return from a proposed visit to Mongolia in August 2003-- a visit that was eventually abandoned because of the Pope's declining health. Nevertheless Pope John Paul made a last dramatic gesture of goodwill toward the Russian Orthodox Church, arranging for the return of a revered icon of Our Lady of Kazan, which was carried to Moscow by Cardinal Walter Kasper in August 2004. Russian political leaders strongly favored a papal visit to their country, but John Paul II would not make the trip without an accompanying invitation from the Moscow patriarchate. Since Alexei II is now suffering from poor health, it may be left to his successor to decide on an invitation to the next Roman Pontiff. But a visit by some future Pope would not have the same impact as a trip to Moscow by John Paul II: a man who had personally suffered under Communist leadership, and stood as a living symbol of resistance to Soviet ideology. Openings toward China
Another thwarted ambition of Pope John Paul II was to visit China, to rally the Catholics who have suffered for over 50 years there. From time to time during his pontificate there were rumors of secret talks with Beijing, which could lead to the establishment of diplomatic ties. But the Chinese regime maintained its open hostility, refusing to recognize the Vatican and continuing its oppression and harassment of the "underground" Church loyal to the Holy See.
In 1983 the Pope made a personal appeal to China's leader Deng Xiao Ping. In both 1989 and 1995, during apostolic voyages to Asia, he called for the opening of Chinese society, and particularly a respect for religious freedom. During a stay in Manila in January 1995, he broadcast a message to China, reading the text in the Chinese language, urging the country's Catholics to work for "communion and reconciliation" between those recognized by the government and those openly allied with Rome. In that respect the Pope's quiet efforts were evidently fruitful; most of the Catholic bishops recognized by the Beijing government have reportedly established contact with the Holy See, and-- in defiance of official government policy-- expressed their fealty to the Pope.
The Balkans
After the fall of Communism, Yugoslavia was a powder-keg, which exploded in violence in 1991. Pope John Paul II frequently expressed his grave concern about the violence that ensued, and particularly the savage treatment of religious minorities in the Balkans. In January 1992 the Holy See was among the first international bodies to recognize the independence of Croatia, a mainly Catholic state; but the Pope did not cease to plead for the rights of both Christians and Muslims who were the victims of an "ethnic cleansing" campaign. In 1993 he issued a call for international leaders to "disarm the aggressor"-- an evident call for restraints on the Serbian military leaders who are now facing war-crimes trials for their brutal conduct during the Balkan wars.
The troubled Middle East
It would be difficult to list all of the efforts taken by Pope John Paul II to promote peace in the Middle East during his pontificate. But his involvement in Lebanon is typical of his activist approach. During the civil war there in the 1980s the Pope made frequent pleas, not only to political leaders in Lebanon itself but to their neighbors in Israel, Syria, Iran, Iraq, and even Libya, as well as to terrorist leaders and the great powers of the Western world. Always calling for "national reconciliation," the Pope sought to unify the divided Christian community of the country, while urging a withdrawal of Syria's troops and a restoration of real Lebanese sovereignty. Most other international leaders took a passive attitude toward the Syrian occupation, but the Pope continued his opposition. In a sharply worded May 1989 message to UN leaders, he decried what he described as the systematic destruction of Lebanese culture. Pope John Paul opposed the US-led military campaign against Iraq in 1990, and the economic sanctions that followed; he argued that the international embargo caused suffering among vulnerable civilians without influencing the regime of Saddam Hussein. In 1995 he made plans for a visit to Iraq, to make a pilgrimage to the birthplace of the Biblical patriarch Abraham; that visit was cancelled when Vatican officials became convinced that the Pope's presence would be manipulated by Iraqi leaders for their own political ends. After the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001, the Pope unequivocally denounced such acts of terror, and he did not oppose the American military campaign against terrorist groups and their allies in Afghanistan. However he again opposed a military campaign against Iraq, specifically rejecting the American argument that this would be a "preventive war." In the weeks leading up to the beginning of hostilities in March 2002, the Pope made a series of last-minute bids to preserve the peace, sending personal representatives to both Baghdad and Washington in an unsuccessful effort to revive diplomatic talks.
Israel and Palestine
During the Jubilee Year 2000, John Paul II made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land: a trip with major diplomatic as well as religious implications. He was the first Roman Pontiff ever to visit the State of Israel. (It was during his pontificate that diplomatic ties between Israel and the Holy See had been started by the "fundamental accord" of 1993, and completed with the exchange of ambassadors in 1994.) But his appeals for peace in the Holy Land were unavailing. Throughout his pontificate the Pope and his diplomatic representatives were consistent in their prescriptions for a peaceful resolution of the conflict between Israel and Palestine: the recognition of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people; the creation of two independent states; the respectful observance of existing international agreements for Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territory; and the creation of a special international status for the city of Jerusalem, ensuring free access to the holy sites of all the great monotheistic faiths.
Europe's Christian patrimony
The last great political campaign undertaken by Pope John Paul was an effort to preserve the Christian heritage of Europe. Long an advocate of European unity, the Pope welcomed the creation of the European Union. But he decried the political trends that, he observed, were leading to "the marginalization of the religions that contributed-- and are still contributing-- to the culture of humanism of which Europe is justly proud." It is the shared patrimony of Christian culture that unites the societies of Europe, the Pope argued; a European community stripped of that Christian heritage has no fundamental principle on which to build its future and resolve its disagreements. The Pope worked energetically for the inclusion of some specific reference to the Christian heritage in the constitution of the European Union. His advice was ignored, and the constitution contained only a general reference to unspecified religious influences.
But to the day of his death, Pope John Paul continued to issue calls for an appreciation of the Christian role in modern society. Clearly he believed that his voice could still influence public opinion, playing an educational as well as evangelical role. The Pontiff whose public defense of human rights had helped to bring down the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe was convinced that through the same sort of public advocacy, he could help restore an appreciation for Christian culture in Western Europe as well.
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