Question 5.95

5.95 Do you think that John Paul II was a prophet?

All the saints are prophets. They faithfully transmit to us the vision, the will, the love, and the hope of God for mankind. Today this extraordinary pope is numbered among the saints of the Church. But I think that we have not fully understood the extent to which he was a visionary. The way in which John Paul II made the sacredness and inviolability of human life the priority of his pontificate opens up an immense field, even beyond his presence among us. All he did was to recall God’s holy law: “You shall not kill”; at the same time, the simple grandeur of his words and his power to convince others were liberating for those who watched the darkness advance.

His exclamation “Be not afraid” is the most beautiful continuation that Paul VI could have imagined; he had suffered so much from the critiques that poured out like a torrent of hatred after his encyclical Humanae vitae. John Paul II had no use for the syrupy objections of the proponents of anti-Christian humanism. He intended to sow seeds that would help give birth to a new culture. This pope had an even more acute insight into these problems inasmuch as he himself had experienced firsthand attacks on the most fundamental rights. Through the Nazi and Communist dictatorships, he had a personal knowledge of real combat for human liberty. That is why he could not allow the proponents of the culture of death to hide behind the screens of a false promotion of human rights in order to promote their destructive plans. In 1995, in Evangelium vitae, he wrote: “In this way, and with tragic consequences, a long historical process is reaching a turning-point. The process which once led to discovering the idea of ‘human rights’-rights inherent in every person and prior to any Constitution and State legislation-is today marked by a surprising contradiction. Precisely in an age when the inviolable rights of the person are solemnly proclaimed and the value of life is publicly affirmed, the very right to life is being denied or trampled upon, especially at the more significant moments of existence: the moment of birth and the moment of death” (EV 18).

John Paul II wanted to denounce the schizophrenia of today’s world that paints over abominable situations with good intentions. He knew that the era would witness the proliferation of false prophets, strategists of evil, and heralds of a future without hope, but Karol Wojtyła did not seek to be a hero, because he was simply a messenger of God. In France, the many large-scale demonstrations that have sprung up to protest against the institution of a false marriage between persons of the same sex are another response to the appeal made by John Paul II in Bourget on June 1, 1980, during his first journey to France: “Today in the historical capital of your nation, I would like to repeat these words that constitute your title of pride: France, eldest daughter of the Church. . . There is just one problem, that of our fidelity to the Covenant with the Eternal Wisdom, which is the source of a true culture, in other words, of human growth, and the problem of fidelity to our baptismal promises in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Allow me then to ask you: France, eldest daughter of the Church, are you faithful to your baptismal promises? Allow me to ask you: France, eldest daughter of the Church and teacher of the people, are you faithful, for the good of all mankind, to your alliance with the Eternal Wisdom? Forgive me for this question. I asked it as the priest does at the moment of baptism. I asked it out of solicitude for the Church, of which I am the first rock and the first servant, and for the love of man, whose final grandeur is in God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” The pope from Poland reawakened the revolutionary spirit of the saints who have marked off the eras throughout French history.