Prelude on JPII’s church

A full review of JPII is beyond my current capacity yet I will at least get started.

Speaking to a canon after Mass yesterday morning, I heard “JPII would be rolling in his grave” at the state of the Church today.

But this IS JPII’s church. The corrupt and heretical bishops, the religious indifferentism and shades of idolatry, accommodation of aggressively pro abortion Catholic politicians, and persecution of tradition are all in continuity with JPII’s papacy.

My opinion on JPII is unpopular yet simple. JPII was an inspired pope who gave the Church many blessings yet also many missed opportunities and unforced errors. The faithful have a right to expect better than what we received from him. His fast tracked beatification and canonization are scandalous given the McCarick appointment alone.

The legacy of JPII’s papacy is a smattering of strong Catholic families and bastions where the true faith and morals are taught and shared in an inviting, soft manner, together with documents strongly proclaiming Catholic morals and philosophy. This is especially the case in Polish parishes.

The legacy of JPII’s papacy is a corrupt and heretical hierarchy, lame liturgical anarchy, false equivalence between religions, persecution of traditional Catholics, continued stigmatization of tradition, and in the west the closure of the majority of parishes and constant decline in Mass attendance and vocations.

JPII is often portrayed by faithful Catholics as a one man army heroically struggling against the forces of Communism, sexual revolution, and clerical corruption. This is the narrative in Malachi Martin’s Windswept House.

Looking at the state of the Church today and who appointed many current bishops and cardinals, that’s a tough case to make.

JPII followed the mold of the modern political popes. He placed his own preferred activities, style, and accommodation of secularism ahead of the demands of his job and his era. In this he was like many Judean kings chronicled in Scripture.

It began quickly with his chosen name. This signaled an irrational self identification with a pastoral Council that closed 13 years prior with disappointing results at best. 

It continued with his refusal of the traditional papal coronation. This was followed by his refusal to even allow the traditional Mass to be celebrated. At that time canonists agreed that the traditional Mass was never abrogated, it had been gone less than 15 years, many laity and clergy actively preferred it, and the soul crushing results of the liturgical experiment were very clear.

He continued celebrating Mass exclusively facing the people and largely in the vernacular. The message was clear. The pope would not humble himself and strengthen his efforts to renew the Church with time-tested tradition. Instead, the highly questionable novelties of the last 15 years would be enforced as the new normal by example and by fiat.

In Iota Unum, Romano Amerio recounts a man searching for a Latin Mass with Gregorian chant in Assisi during Holy Week in the mid 80s only to be told by a priest that such things were for bigots and chauvinists. This was par for the course for JPII’s entire pontificate and that’s because that’s largely what JPII believed and it’s definitely what most of his chosen bishops and their chosen priests believed.

Over and over he made unforced errors. 

He appointed cardinals with seriously concerning histories, ranging from Bergoglio to Kasper to Schonborn to McCarick. This last despite clear warnings from other Cardinals. 

The sexual abuse crisis, which had begun before raged during his pontificate. There was no substantive response from him or his bishops until they were forced into it.

Let us be honest: JPII was given to theater and he preferred to travel and make public appearances rather than tackle the urgent work of restocking the Church with orthodox bishops of strong morals.

He kissed the Qur’an, which blasphemes Christ, and encouraged what can only be described as idolatry in Assisi in 1986. Small wonder many Catholics are indifferent to their faith and many parishes openly teach religious relatvism.

He attempted to make Balthasar a cardinal, reinforcing the popular myth that no one really goes to Hell. This implicitly guts all of JPII’s moral teachings and reinforces the already strong apathy toward religious practice.

Vocations to the priesthood and religious life in the west suffered under his entire pontificate. Archbishop Elden Curtiss asserted in 1996 that this was because orthodox and traditional candidates were discouraged repeatedly by bishops and by toxic seminaries. This point has been made by Rod Dreher and many others.

That was 18 years into JPII’s pontificate during which he had full authority to appoint said bishops.

It is said that he drove the fall of Communism. Does someone with a five alarm fire in their house get credit for putting out a blaze in a neighbor’s home that was already contained?

Many, including myself, owe their faith to communities inspired by his witness. Yet the job of the Pope is to hand down the faith to all. When we see even decent dioceses like Pittsburgh and Cincinnati closing most of their parishes, it’s fair to fault the man in charge of vision and personnel for nearly 30 years of decline.

The lesson of JPII’s papacy is that strong theology and moral teaching cannot take root unless it is brought into the daily lives of the people through vibrant tradition. 

JPII identified the crisis in the Church as the crisis of the family. Yet he failed to successfully resolve that crisis because he did not adequately vet the bishops who were spiritually feeding those families. Nor did he give those families the backbone of tradition they needed to weather modern storms.

Future centuries will judge most recent popes as “political popes”. Those historians must contend with the fact that Saint JPII is among those whose profound negligence and stubborn ideology at a time of crisis weakened the Church and empowered her enemies.