He taught us never to be afraid

 

'He was an audacious man, who taught us not to be afraid. This is the message he addresses both to the West - where Christianity was intimidated and irrelevant and perhaps even unable to find a path - and to Eastern Europe, where people, not only Christians, were resigned to Soviet rule. His idea is that Christianity can make a difference in history and in people's lives'. 

Historian Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Community of Sant'Egidio and biographer of John Paul II, remembers the man and the Pontiff. And he explains the significance of Karol Wojtyla's presence for the world and the Church.

 

'It was in Garbatella (a neighbourhood in Rome, ed.), when he came to visit a kindergarten run by the Community of Sant'Egidio. He sat down at the children's tables and impressed us greatly because he was so open to meeting people. He considered himself the Bishop of Rome and behaved as such. In his bedroom he had a map of the city and he would mark on it the parishes he had visited. He liked to get to know the different neighbourhoods and our relationship began by talking about Rome, even about its problems. He was a diocesan bishop and on Sunday afternoons he would ‘plunge’ into the parishes. When he visited Santa Maria in Trastevere, after the parish he moved on to visit Sant'Egidio for the first time». 

'More than a political Pope, he was “messianic”, a mystic at heart, which led him to go beyond his theological schemes. Ratzinger used to say he was a Pope who could move continents and believed he could change History. He had a geopolitical mentality when dealing with problems. When he received bishops he would look at the map in front of him. In this sense he was a geopolitical Pope, but of a mystical geopolitics. He was young when he was elected Pope and his knowledge of the world grew enormously over the years because took the countries he visited seriously’. 

'That was a great operation, also politically: the liberation of Poland and the East. He was very clever because he realised that there was very little room for manoeuvre to avoid a Soviet invasion to restore the status quo. He sent a letter to Brezhnev to avoid this. He was both audacious and sensible at the same time.

He didn't take any rash steps, but he never gave up hope of liberation. In his own way he practised Liberation Theology, which was not the Latin American one, but a theology in which Christianity - as a force of hope - moves women and men to liberate themselves. I believe that, historically, his role in Eastern Europe has been underestimated. The revolution of 1989 reversed a historical paradigm. That is, it demonstrated, in contrast to the French Revolution of 1789, not every change must be made with bloodshed. Unlike all the revolutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, that one was peaceful. 

He feared it would be a vehicle for the ‘Marxistisation’ of the continent. However, he went to Puebla, to CELAM, even though John Paul I had decided not to go. He got involved in very difficult situations, such as the Ortega situation in Nicaragua. And he issued two statements on liberation theology. The first was negative. The second, instead, attempted to revive it, but didn't have the same impact as the first. John Paul II had a strategy for each continent. He was aware of the ‘mystifying’ role of the neo-evangelical movements in Latin America and visited the continent in depth. For Europe, struggling with secularisation, he worked for a new evangelisation. He was worried because he was convinced that if Europe is lost, the world is lost. For Africa he felt the pain of poverty and exploitation».

Yes, dialogue and listening. He was a Pope who spoke little and asked a lot. He wanted to know. He had a real asceticism in listening. He used to have guests for breakfast, lunch and dinner, continuous audiences and at the end of the talks he often said: ‘There you are, the Pope has understood’. Thanks also to his prodigious memory, he had an atlas of stories, big and small, in his mind, which he also recalled in prayer. And then he had mystical and creative impulses. For example, the 1986 Prayer Meeting in Assisi. This was a decision he took without the support of Cardinal Ratzinger, who didn't attend the event and criticised the draft of the prepared speech which, in his opinion, made the Pope seem almost like a leader of the religions together. Wojtyla didn't back down as he felt that dialogue between religions was of the utmost importance and, even in contrast with the theologian whose superiority he recognised to a certain extent, he decided that the prayer was to be held. The meeting in Assisi, that spirit, remains one of the great legacies of his pontificate. He was convinced that a globalised world needs a globalised spirituality that comes from dialogue between religions».