Church and Society: The Laurence J. McGinley Lectures, 1988-2007

11. The Prophetic Humanism of John Paul II: September 28, 1993

11 The Prophetic Humanism of John Paul II September ,  F or some time I have been asking myself whether there is a single theme or rubric under which it might be possible to summarize the message of the pontificate of John Paul II. I have thought about the pope’s concern for the inner unity of the Catholic Church, for the new evangelization, for the dialogue between faith and culture, and for the reconstruction of the economic order. All these themes are clearly important to John Paul II, but no one of them permeates his teaching as a whole. In seeking a more comprehensive topic I have hit on the idea of prophetic humanism. In the case of this pope, like any other pope, it is difficult to ascertain which of his statements are actually composed by himself and which are simply accepted by him after having been drafted by others. I have no inside information to help me in this discernment. My method will be to rely principally on books and articles that he published under the name of Karol Wojtyla before he became pope, and then to take documents from his papacy that closely resemble these in style and in substance. Several of his encyclicals are so personal in tone that it seems safe to attribute them to the pope himself, even though he presumably had assistance in the final process of editing. Most of his major documents are amply furnished with footnotes that the pope himself would scarcely have had time to compose, but the substance of the text presumably reflects the pope’s own thinking. 142 The Prophetic Humanism of John Paul II 兩 143 The Concept of Prophetic Humanism The concept of prophetic humanism requires some explanation. Any humanism must be a system of thought centered on the human person. The pope himself generally uses the term ‘‘man,’’ which, at least in Latin, has no reference to gender. In quoting or paraphrasing his statements I shall sometimes use the English word ‘‘man’’ to mean an individual member of the human race. Near synonyms such as ‘‘person’’ are not always satisfactory , given the pope’s understanding of personalization as a gradual process.1 Persons, moreover, may be divine, angelic, and demonic as well as human. Humanism, moreover, implies a high esteem for the human as having intrinsic value. As we shall see, the defense of the dignity of the human person and the promotion of human rights stand at the very center of the pope’s program. This program may be called prophetic for several reasons. A prophet is someone who speaks out of a strong conviction and with a sense of vocation . The pope evidently sees himself and the Church as divinely commissioned to be advocates of authentic humanity. The prophet speaks with a certain sense of urgency. Wojtyla, even when he writes as a philosopher, is never the detached academic. He is conscious of speaking to a world that is in the throes of a crisis—a crisis of dehumanization. Like most prophets, he senses that he is faced with enormous opposition and that his is perhaps a lonely voice. He is not afraid to confront others in his struggle to salvage human dignity. Yet the pope is no pessimist. He is convinced that in the face of human needs God has provided an answer in Christ, who came that we might have life to the full. He sees the gospel as a message of hope, love, and truth not for Christians or Catholics alone but for every human being.2 The Church, he believes, has an essential contribution to make to the task of making the world more human.3 He repeatedly quotes from Vatican II the statement that the Church is called to be a sign and safeguard of the transcendence of the human person.4 The central and unifying task of the Church, for John Paul II, is to rediscover and promote the inviolable dignity of every human person.5 ‘‘Man,’’ as he puts it, ‘‘is the way for the Church.’’ He explains that this means ‘‘man in the full truth of his existence, of his personal being and also of his community and social being.’’6 The Church’s mission must 144 兩 Church and Society therefore be carried out with a view to humanity, and for that very reason with a view to God. Following Christ...