OLDER, FRAMER BUT STILL A MIGHTY FORCE

Radek Sikorski says that the critics of John Paul II misunderstand

the inspiration behind his crusading pontificate

THE FIRST TIME I saw John Paul II was on the first day of his first papal visit to Poland in 1979, a few months after his elec- tion_ More than a million people had gath- ered on a disused airfield outside Gniemio, Poland's religious cradle: for the first time in my life, I was participating in a public event in Poland into which I had not been coerced.

The police were nowhere in sight, yet perfect order reigned. We sang religious songs until the Pope's white helicopter descended from the sky. Karol Wojtyla was obvi- ously delighted to be back in Poland. Even at the distance of 100 yards, he radiated good humour and strength. He told us, 'Before I go away, I beg you, never lose your trust, do not be defeated, do not be dis- couraged.' We weren't and we did not disap- point him 'We', the peo- ple, saw for the first time that we were more numerous than 'them', the communists. And then, when we got home, television reports showed only old ladies and nuns at the Pope's open-air masses_ That combination — aware- ness of our numbers and tangible proof of com- munist duplicity helped to produce the Solidarity revolution the following year.

My second encounter with the Pope, at his summer residence in Castelgandolfo, during the years of General Jaruzelski's martial law, was more intimate. I had stayed in Britain as a political exile; the communists took revenge on me by harass- ing my parents in Poland, and banning them from travel to the West. Through the intercession of a friendly priest, they finally obtained their passports in order to go on a pilgrimage to Rome — where they saw me, and we saw the Pope together.

Before meeting the Pope face to face, one expects him to have the charisma, or at least the manner, of a monarch, some quirk to indicate that this is the leader of the old- est organisation in the western world_ The prelude to being introduced — waiting among the Vatican officials and the Swiss guards under the high vaults of the cere- monial chambers — only heightens the expectation. But John Paul II himself has the presence of a kind old uncle who will listen to your troubles and help you out with pocket money. His is a charisma that breaks down, rather than erects, barriers between him and his interlocutor. Audi- ences are highly formal occasions and the Pope usually says little, instead encourag- ing his visitors to talk_ Aides hover about with quiet efficiency, but with dignity and without obsequiousness. He asked my mother how she had managed to travel from Poland and about my studies in Britain. She broke down in tears of joy. He blessed her, my father and me, and handed each of us — even my father, an incorrigi- ble agnostic — a rosary with the papal coat of arms on the back of the cross.

At this time, after two assassination attempts, and a tense period in 1981 — when John Paul!! reportedly threatened to come to Poland if it was invaded by the Soviet Army — he was no longer jolly. He seemed more subdued and melancholy, as if disappointed in human nature. For us, he was the uncrowned king of Poland, and we drank in every word of encouragement he uttered.

I last saw the Pope in the spring of 1992 at the Vatican, this time on official business as deputy minister of defence. I attended his dawn mass with a group of Polish pilgrims dur- ing which he prayed in silence in his pew for what seemed like a very long time. Afterwards, I walked up the marble staircases to the state reception rooms. The Swiss guards saluted me and a major-domo pro- nounced my name, pre- ceded by an elaborate Italian title. The Pope emerged from his pri- vate study and we spoke in the library with only his secretary as witness, with others at a discreet distance.

He was stooped and walked with a slight shuffle, visibly aged, not only physically. His eyes were still alert but his old spright- liness was no longer there. I detected what seemed like bitterness in his voice. The Poland which he had nurtured was proving a disappointment. Politicians were bicker- ing while the Church was under attack from the media. Instead of becoming a beacon of spiritual revival, Polish society was wallowing in newly accessible con- sumerism. And I was bringing more bad news.

I was there to brief the Pope on Polish politics: to be specific, at that time the defence ministry was squabbling with the President, Lech Walesa, and we hoped that the Pope would use his influence to keep the situation under control_ But I hadn't needed to tell him any of the details: he already knew even the most improbable and obscure. The Vatican intelligence net- work was obviously better than our own. 'Pan bardzo rnlody' (`You look very young') the Pope said.

In the 15 years since I first saw the smil- ing figure in white ascending the field altar in Gniezno, the Pope's travels and his political engagement became the hallmarks of his pontificate. Less than a lifespan after Popes were carried about in sedan chairs and never ventured beyond the walls of the Vatican, John Paul II has visited his flock in Haiti and Fiji, Turkey and Estonia. This week is an extraordinary one for the Pope, but is nevertheless typical. John Paul II will undertake yet another journey — some in the Vatican hint that it may be his last for- eign visit — to Zagreb, in Croatia: at the last minute he decided not to visit Sarajevo, but only because his presence would have put worshippers at risk. Meanwhile, Vati- can representatives will take a stand at a UN-sponsored population conference in Cairo, fighting proposals to spread contra- ception and abortion throughout the Third World.

Like any politician with a radical mes- sage, the Pope has attracted enemies. His conservative views on abortion and contra- ception are supposedly responsible for poverty and famine in the Third World. His support for Opus Dei, the secretive order of lay Catholics, his opposition to the ordination of women, his condemnation of liberation theology and homosexuality are anathema to the liberal spirit of the age. Underlying many of the criticisms is a strain of prejudice which would be consid- ered racist if the Pope were a Nigerian.

Richard Dawkins has recently mocked the Catholic writer Paul Johnson in these pages for 'taking his orders from an elderly Pole', as if it was any worse to be an elderly Pole than an ageing Englishman_ A recent British biographer was left 'fascinated and appalled' by the 'brief Polish interlude' in the Church's history. 'The Polish Pope does not like western values,' opined the Daily Telegraph. The Nation has called him a 'Polish authoritarian' who has 'galvanised the international right wing' and 'destroyed the careers of activist Catholic leaders who challenged US military and business inter- ests'. The editor of the New Republic fears that the Pope's teaching might harm liberal society: `If you doubt this, visit Poland.' The Pope's philosophy supposedly stems from his roots in a backward, patriarchal, authoritarian country with a reactionary Church hierarchy preserved by communism in a mediaeval time warp. Blaming the Pope for Third World poverty is patently absurd: Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan — some of the world's most dynamic economies — belong to the ten most densely populated coun- tries in the world, while Mongolia, Chad, Mali and Gabon — some of the poorest — arc among the world's least populated. Catholicism has nothing to do with it the one basket case among the top ten most densely populated ones — Bangladesh — is hardly the Pope's fault. While there may be some arguments in favour of slower population growth, there is little correla- tion between density of population and poverty_ A much better one exists between poverty and left-wing economic experi- ments, or the amount of World Bank 'loans'. I resent traffic jams as much as the next man but they don't prove that an increase in population causes poverty. In China, for example, a populous country by any measure, after only 15 years of capital- ist reforms the booming province of Can- ton is having a labour shortage. Singapore, the third most densely populated country on earth, nevertheless fears its dropping birth rate, and conducts publicity cam- paigns to encourage its citizens to 'go for three'. Tokyo, Venice and New York hard- ly evoke the spectre of famines. Nor did the Pope prove himself much of a right-winger when he declared, in the encyclical SoUicirodo Rei Socialis, that 'the Church's social doctrine adopts a critical attitude toward both liberal capitalism and Marxist collectivism'. For the Polish bigot that he is supposed to be, John Paul II has shown a remarkable enthusiasm for hob- nobbing with rabbis, mullahs and fakirs. His Vatican is the first to recognise Israel. Even his anti-communism must have been reasonably responsible for Pravda to com- ment in 1989 that he is 'an objective judge of the reality of the contemporary world'.

To call John Paul II a Polish Pope, in the sense of bringing a specifically Polish per- spective into the papacy, is, in fact, correct — but not in the way that the critics imag- ine. The Poland in which Karol Wojtyla ascended the steps of his ecclesiastical career was indeed ruled by authoritarian, even totalitarian regimes, first Nazi Ger- many and then Soviet-inspired commu- nism. Yet he was nurtured in opposition to them, which is why he makes such frequent and passionate pleas for respecting human rights. And while Wojtyla's Poland is still poor, it is not especially illiberal. Polish attitudes to contraception and abortion, as measured by public opinion polls, are very similar to attitudes expressed by Germans or Americans.

In fact, John Paul ll's Polishness is reflected more subtly in his emotional sense of history. For example, his passion- ate pronouncements on behalf of the peo- ples of ex-Yugoslavia, and his desire to visit Sarajevo as well as Zagreb are very Polish_ Croatian Catholicism, with its tradition of holding the line against Islam and Ortho- doxy, is similar to our Polish Catholicism; Croats sense themselves to be the last bas- tion of Christendom, much as the Poles do. At the same time, Sarajevo probably reminds him of his own war-time experi- ence. Having lived through September 1939, when Nazi and Soviet armies marched into Poland, he knows what it feels like to die in loneliness. Perhaps his sympathy for multi-ethnic Sarajevo, besieged by the Orthodox Serbs, is also explained by a historical memory which goes back not just 50 years, but 300: any Pole knows that Orthodox Russia destroyed the multi-ethnic Polish common- wealth in the 18th century_ On the other hand, would any but a Slav Pope send ten cardinals to the celebrations of the millen- nium of Kievan Ru.s's Christianity in 1988? Would any other have supported so stead- fastly the underground Church in Lithua- nia or the Uniate Catholics in Ukraine?

Having spent three decades battling against a communist regime, this Pope also knows the power of symbolic gestures. No Pope had visited Auschwitz before Karol Wojtyla, a Pole from Krakow_ In 1986, he became the first Pope to visit a synagogue_ The candles which simultaneously burned in the window of his Vatican study and in Ronald Reagan's White House, to grieve for Solidarity's suppression in December 1981, carried a more powerful message to the Kremlin than dozens of new missile silos. The few million dollars sent via Vati- can accounts to Solidarity's underground cells were hardly significant as material support, but shored up the freedom-fight- ers' morale_

This week, his attempt to visit Sarajevo showed similar solidarity with victims. With many Serb bunkers around the city report- edly bearing the Pope's photographs with targets drawn around his head and Dr ICaradzic muttering threats, he was proba- bly wise not to expose his followers and retainers to real risk_ But to experience danger in Sarajevo — even to die in Saraje- vo — might have appealed to the Pope's sense of justice and his sense of historical drama. He is, after all, a former playwright and an actor.

The Pope's Polish experience — of rule by two godless ideologies, of war, genocide, poverty and revolution — chimes in better than many commentators imagine with the experience of most of the world's Catholics who do not live in the pampered and degenerate West. It is his experience of the transitoriness of regimes, power and wealth in his native land that reinforces his insis- tence on personal, rather than collective or state-directed, pursuit of goodness. After all, for most of this century remaining per- sonally decent while nasty regimes came and went was all that the average Pole could hope for.

His Polishness also strengthens the Pope's solidarity (a word that crops up very often in his speeches) with the world's underdogs Hence his condemnation of apartheid, his visit to the leper colony in the Ivory Coast, or his meal with the Vati- can's tramps. Even his pronouncements on international relations — his passionate belief that lasting peace can only be built on justice — may stem from his percep- tions of the history of Poland, repeatedly the victim of realpolitik played by more powerful neighbours. 'If you want peace, remember man' is one of his favourite max- ims. Hence his advocacy of the Bosnians, the 'Wandering Palestinians' or the Kurds.

Those elements of his pontificate that critics dislike can largely be ascribed not to his Polishness, but to the fact that John Paul H takes his religion, and his job, seri- ously. The most common charge levelled at him is his 'authoritarianism', an accusation which recurs every time the Pope takes a clear decision or pronounces a firm view, most recently when he issued Veritatis Splendor, a papal encyclical which reiterat- ed the Church's moral authority. Although it may be against the spirit of the age to say so, it is important to remember that the Pope is by definition an authoritarian. You may not believe that he is the representa- tive of Christ on Earth, but if you do, there is nothing shocking about the Pope issuing decrees without asking the advice of his constituents. Christ did not make his speeches with a committee of apostles, nor did he take a vote as to whether or not he should let himself be crucified. A 'demo- cratic' papacy, whatever that might mean, would be a contradiction in terms. All that can be said is that this Pope's leadership has been particularly vigorous.

The same goes for his alleged conser- vatism. In a century in which self-doubt, pragmatism and relativism are popularly considered the highest virtues, the Pope's a.&sertions of absolute truths do indeed sound jarring. But the Pope is only doing his job when he says that Christians are supposed to believe in them. You may not accept that God revealed himself to us through Christ, but, if you do, then the message he revealed is necessarily conser- vative. The Commandments and prescrip- tions were given once and for all: 'interpretation' according to the spirit of the age should only be done reluctantly and incrementally. Once men start to pick and choose which ones they will follow and which they find inconvenient, )the rationale of revelation is undermined.

John Paul II believes what Catholics have always believed through the centuries: that the biblical stories represent literal truths, not parables, that our ultimate hap- piness is not in this world but the next, that the perfect life is exemplified by the saints, not by pop stars. Such fundamentalism may annoy the post-religious pundits and their followers in the West, but is hardly a new departure for Christianity. You don't have to belong to the Catholic club, but, if you do, these are the rules.

To those for whom history has a direc- tion — a leftward one — towards a ratio- nalistic individualism, the Pope's insistence on such unfashionable concepts as dogmas, duties and discipline is a puzzling attempt to turn the wheel back. Surely, they argue, the only salvation for the papacy is to mod- ernise itself, to become more 'relevant' and 'There you are, now it's eating Derek. I told you it was Taurus Camivorum and not Taurus Herhivorum.' 'pluralistic', by which is meant the adoption of the Left's political agenda.

But it should be obvious, at least in Britain, that such modernisation does not work for religions. It has led the Church of England to where it is today — schism and the brink of extinction. The Pope's mod- ernisation may yet prove more successful. Instead of watering down principles, the Pope has sharpened up their presentation. Instead of surrendering to the post-Chris- tian consensus, he has forged alliances in the wider world, among the still vibrant faiths of Islam, Judaism and others. Instead of allowing national hierarchies to veer fur- ther and further away from the universal church, he has centralised authority in his own person, making the Vatican a centre of power, font of teaching and focus for the media.

Perhaps the rationalists are right in thinking that faith and modern scientific society do not mix and decline in religious feeling is inevitable. Perhaps, as prosperity rises, church-going will drop, even in east- ern Europe. In this case, John Paul II will be seen as having managed a fighting retreat (by far the most effective sort, as Clausewitz taught). But, then, the United States, which is technologically more advanced and more entrepreneurial than western Europe, is also much more reli- gious. One reason may be that the priests and preachers in the United States — although in a very different, evangelical populist tradition — also take their faith seriously. If earnestness, rather than defen- siveness, works, then the Pope is doing the right thing.

To the generation shaped by the 1960s — the generation which already dominates the media in the West and is taking over its politics — the Pope's strict moral teachings sound like an anachronism. The critics might even be right: the next Pope may relax the rules on contraception which, unlike those on abortion, are not set in stone.

But what John Paul II will have achieved by his stance is the cornering of the market in strict morality, which is a wise long-term investment. Eventually, the tide will turn. In a decade or two we may well tire of the morality of Hollywood and the philosophi- cal depth of Mrs Bill Clinton. With more and more genetic experiments, there will eventually be disasters, and then the Pope's cautions will sound like premonitions. With more and more family breakdowns and crime, his cult of the family is already find- ing receptive ears. With more and more welfare spending on a larger and larger underclass with tighter and tighter national budgets, the West may soon discover that it must develop qualities like personal responsibility in order to stay prosperous, in order to compete with Confucian soci- eties in the Far East.

Then, John Paul II might yet be seen as having laid the foundation for a great moral revival.