WORLD OUTLOOK: John Paul II and religious genocide (12/31/78)

WORLD OUTLOOK

by Lev E. Dobriansky

John Paul II and religious genocide

The election of Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Poland as the 264th successor to St. Peter marked, to use the expression of the Taipel China Post, "a new era in the Church."

In fact, John Paul II is the first non-Italian pope in 455 years and the first pope from the Communist world, where religion was damned by Karl Marx and his disciples as "the opiate of the people."

The consensus of observers is that since his October 16 election, the pope has won the hearts of millions - Christians and non-Christians alike - by acting not only as the primate of 700 million Catholics but as a forceful leader of the oppressed.

Burst of "viva il papa" (long live the pope) were heard wherever he appeared in Italy. Time magazine headlined, "John Paul II Charms the Crowd." The London Economist declared, "Pope for All People." By his origin, his past activities, his experiences with both Communists and Nazis and his steady commitment to human rights, which he described as "the great effort of our time," Cardinal Wojtyla was cut out to be the pontiff for some 100 million Catholics behind the Iron and Bamboo Curtains.

Double genocide

An accomplished linguist, John Paul II is at home in several languages; yet, his decision to use Lithuanian and Ukrainian in his very first remarks as pope came as a happy surprise.

For decades, religious suppression has been official Soviet Russian policy in these two captive nations of the USSR. The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church was liquidated by dictator Stalin in the mid-30s. The Ukrainian Catholic Church suffered the same tragic fate in 1945. Picking up where Stalin left off, Khrushchev launched renewed waves of religious persecution in Ukraine in 1959-64.

When Cardinal Wojtyla was a young seminarian in Cracow, half a million Ukrainians living there and along the Polish-Ukrainian border were arbitrarily repatriated, with Russian and Communist Polish troops looting and burning out entire villages. Ten years after World War II, Ukrainians in various parts of Communist Poland still lived under unremitting terror and human degradation.

The double genocide in Ukraine caused indignation throughout the world. A resolution was circulated in the U.S. Congress, condemning Soviet Russian religious genocide and calling for resurrection of the two suppressed Ukrainian Churches.

We should not fear...

Stalin once defiantly exclaimed, "The pope? How many divisions has he got?" Taking special care to avoid his predecessor's paranoiac ignorance, Brezhnev sent a humble telegram of greetings to the newly elected pope, hoping for "fruitful activity in the interest of international detent."

Cardinal Wojtyla already defined his concept of "detente" in a New York speech, in September 1976. "We are now," he stated, "facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church; it is a trial which the whole Church must take up."

God is still alive in Nowa Huta, where Cardinal Wojtyla defeated a Polish Communist attempt to remove God from the town. God is still alive in Albania, where religion was totally suppressed in 1967. God is still alive in Ukraine, where between 300 and 500 clergymen and three bishops continue their heroic catacomb activities.

Ukrainians and Lithuanians, Albanian and Poles, as well as other people under Communist totalitarian rule, have shown no fear in their struggle for God, freedom and human rights. As Cardinal Wojtyla told the Rev. Raymond deJaegher two years ago at the Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia, "Father, remember that we are not afraid of the Communists; the Communists are afraid of us."

Distributed by the American Council for World Freedom.

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