Anybody who introduces yet another fat, glossy gold, terribly-serious-looking biography of Pope John Paul II has a tough sales job ahead. It’s not quite like wheeling an ice cream cart up the lakefront into a slicing November gale, but there are certain difficulties in convincing people this is something they need.
First of all, the arrival of the “definitive” pope biography has already been proclaimed twice in the last two years, and work on a biography authorized by the Vatican is under way. Second, 678 pages seems a lot like work.
But when Jonathan Kwitny released his new book this fall, he created his own biggest obstacle–he titled it “Man of the Century.”
Right there, he’s lost some angry Catholics, the ones who bristle at the mere mention of Pope John Paul II’s name.
He’s also lost those who dismiss the notion of great men and women, who believe that history is shaped only by vast and impersonal movements of society. A New York Times reviewer wrote that by invoking the idea of a man of the century, Kwitny had unwittingly revealed that he was no deep thinker, just another journalist. Ouch.
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And Kwitny has probably lost a much larger audience of Americans, Catholic and otherwise, who think of the pope as a leftover figure from the 1980s, and move on to the next aisle for fresher material.
But if you believe a single person can reflect and profoundly redirect his times, Kwitny makes an intriguing case for John Paul II.
Consider this: The former Karol Wojtyla experienced firsthand the two most destructive movements of the century, the Nazis and Soviet-controlled communism, neither of which had much use for a Roman Catholic priest. He was born in the middle of one war and dodged bullets on the first day of World War II.
He met virtually every major leader of the century’s final quarter and is linked to the swift demise of communism, certainly one of the century’s great surprises. Even Forrest Gump’s scrapbook pales in comparison.
But Wojtyla was no spectator.
He had, from the beginning of his career, a vision. Kwitny said Wojtyla’s motivation was not a vision for himself; he did not and could not have imagined his rise in the Catholic hierarchy, expecting instead to spend his days as a foot soldier for the hobbled church in Poland.
“There was evil around and he was going to do good every opportunity he got–not every foolish opportunity, but where it would work,” said Kwitny, who was in Chicago this week to speak to several Catholic audiences.
Kwitny argues in his book, based on four years of research, that Wojtyla created and at every moment sustained the movement that became the Polish trade union Solidarity, guiding it from afar even as Lech Walesa became identified as its leader publicly. Solidarity would not have existed without Wojtyla, Kwitny asserts, and communism would not have fallen without Solidarity.
Kwitny rejects the notion of a secret pact to destroy communism between the Reagan administration and the Vatican, as portrayed in Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi’s “His Holiness,” and he downplays the role that the Soviet Union’s own financial problems played in toppling the regime.
Whether you accept those conclusions or not, it is clear that both before and as pope, John Paul II followed his own light with a tireless and fearless determination.
Outside the church, he has made his voice heard in politics, science, culture and the world’s religions. Inside Roman Catholicism, he has vigorously preached, even strengthened, some of the church’s most difficult doctrine, energizing both supporters and those who are troubled by these teachings.
He has not wavered: not after being shot, not after repeated illness, not in the face of disappointment and bitter opposition.
“This man showed a moral fortitude that I wouldn’t have thought was possible,” said Kwitny.
Anybody who has seen the pope in recent years, forcing his uncooperative body to bend to his iron will, preaching as avidly against the corrupt and materialistic culture of the West as he ever did against totalitarianism, knows that John Paul II is not through yet.
“My wife and I kind of disagree,” said Kwitny, who is not Catholic. “She thinks that only a religious leader could have done these things. For me, I have less faith. The point is, he was a great man. He drew his power from religion, and it worked for him.”
Can it carry the pope to the new millennium, as he so fervently hopes? Can he tip the scales against the less obvious, but more pervasive cultural enemies of his Christian vision?
“The odds are overwhelmingly against him,” said Kwitny. “But then again, the odds were overwhelmingly against him all along.”
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