RELIGION BULLETIN-VATICAN: Double Celebration For The Pope

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Jorge Pina

VATICAN CITY, May 24 1998 (IPS) - In the Vatican, Popes do not blow out the candles on their birthday, but on their saint’s day. For that reason, no Polish nuns showed up here Monday with a cake bearing 78 candles for Karol Wojtyla, who was born May 18, 1920.

The party will take place, cake and all, on Nov. 4, the day of Saint Charles, a Vatican holiday.

Nevertheless, Karol Wojtyla received telegrams from all over the world, because this birthday is special. On May 25, his pontificate becomes the longest to begin this century. On his 7,161st day at the head of the Roman Catholic Church, John Paul II will surpass Pius XII and rise to number 13 on the list of 264 Pontiffs, in terms of time spe on Saint Peter’s throne.

Today, John Paul II has been Pope for 19 years and seven months. His papacy has been described as that which has had the strongest influence on society this century, participating in the end of the communist regimes of eastern Europe, and becoming a point of reference in the area of human rights.

At an Apr. 7 congress attended by 4,000 students and professors from 400 universities in 60 countries, the Pope urged young people “to fight with the Church for justice and the dignity of man.”

The “rights of man are the key element of social order,” he stressed.

On Feb. 18, the Pope condemned racism, called for people to fight “the scandals” of poverty, and urged that immigrants be accepted. He denounced the racism suffered by millions of refugees and exiles, as well as immigrants, whose only “sin” was seeking work and better living conditions outside of their countries.

John Paul also invited rich countries to forgive the developing world’s foreign debt.

In spite of his advanced age and health problems, particularly Parkinson’s disease, the Pontiff plans to keep travelling. His next trip abroad, to Austria, is scheduled for Jun. 19-21. In January 1999 he will present the conclusions of the Synod of the Americas – held late last year in the Vatican – in Mexico City, and will also visit the U.S. city of St. Louis, Missouri.

“But what will I do” between June and January? the Pope recently complained, and an Oct. 1-4 visit to Croatia was added to his agenda.

This year he will also publish his 13th encyclical, on “faith and reason.”

Jacques Le Goff a French historian and practicing Catholic, writes that ‘atholicism has never before had such a global dimension,” because John Paul “has taken the gospel to the most remote corners of the earth.”

The Pontiff has not revised the Church’s firm opposition to abortion and divorce, Le Goff points out, attributing that to “his relationship with his mother, which has been fundamental in making him an enemy of feminisim.” The Pope’s hostility towards “liberation theology” could also be criticised, he adds.

But Karol Wojtyla “has made Catholicism a universal religion,” says Le Goff, spreading it throughout the world, especially in Africa and Latin America.

In his outline of John Paul’s pontificate, the historian praises the Church’s recognition of the crimes it has committed, and a document released this year on the Jewish holocaust in which the Church admits that it could have done much more to prevent the massacre of millions of Jews and others by the Nazis in Germany.

Le Goff recalls the May 13, 1981 incident in which Turkish gunman Ali Agca shot and critically injured the Pope in Saint Peter’s square.

The Pontiff’s most important trip was his Jan. 20 visit to Cuba this year, which followed his Nov. 19, 1997 historic meeting with Cuban President Fidel Castro in the Vatican.

Two significant but as yet improbable trips have been proposed for the future: to Russia and China.

A visit to Moscow dos not look probable for now due to the frequent refusals of Alessio II, patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, to meet with Roman Catholic Pontiffs.

And China, in spite of the Pope’s reiterated attempts to improve relations, has kept its doors tightly shut. Last month, Beijing refused to authorise two bishops to participate in the Synod of Asia, even though they were personally invitedby John Paul.

Italian philosopher Carlo Bo wrote in an article published in the daily ‘Corriere della Sra’that “no one would have thought that this Pope from Poland would have remained so long at the head of the Church, and above all that history would have taken a completely new path with this papacy.”