Pacem In Terris

(Conspiracy Nation, 4/6/05) -- His designation, "John Paul," suggested reconciliation between factions within the Roman Catholic church. The "John" signified the progressive Pope John XXIII; the "Paul" signified the conservative Pope Paul VI. Karol Wojtyla, who passed away on April 2, 2005, was upended into the Holy See following the suspicious death of Pope John Paul I, his predecessor. Forever shadowed by rumors of foul play within the Vatican, Wojtyla still strove heroically to hold together a church which by its name, "Catholic," signals inclusivity and tolerance of various perspectives. In America, the pre-eminent conspiracy nation (since conspiracies "don't happen here"), the full force of John Paul's message was garbled by the gatekeepers. Thus, he has been widely misunderstood.

"But if there be truth in me, it should explode. I cannot reject it; I would be rejecting myself." -- Karol Wojtyla, 1961

And superstitious tendencies among the rank-and-file of Catholicism further garble the Church's message.

The "Stop-Gap" Pope

Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli became a "stop-gap" pope when a divided College of Cardinals could not agree upon a successor to Pope Pius XII. The cardinals presumed that the elderly Roncalli would not live long and he became Pope John XXIII on October 28, 1958. This scheme of buying time with a presumed temporary pope also occurred in the case of Pope Leo XIII.

But like Pope Leo, Roncalli surprised the cardinals by being not a passive bookend but a potent force for change. Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli had been born into a family of sharecroppers, on November 25, 1881. With such a humble beginning, the obvious avenue of success for such an impoverished lad, in Italy, would be the Roman Church. Roncalli rose through the ranks but remained true to his working class roots.

Shortly before his death on June 3rd, 1963, Roncalli reiterated the bold encyclical pronouncements given by Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum. (See "Rerum Novarum," Conspiracy Nation, 2/18/05. http://www.shout.net/~bigred/RerumNovarum.html ) In his Encyclical dated April 11, 1963, Pacem In Terris, Roncalli reaffirmed Pope Leo's human rights declarations based on Natural Law. "These rights and duties are universal and inviolable," he wrote, "and therefore altogether inalienable."

Roncalli's Human Rights Declarations

Among the human rights enunciated by Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, fourth child of impoverished sharecroppers, were:

• Man has the right to live. He has the right to bodily integrity and to the means necessary for the proper development of life, particularly food, clothing, shelter, medical care, rest, and, finally, the necessary social services;
• He has a right to freedom in investigating the truth and to freedom of speech and publication;
• He has the right, also, to be accurately informed about public events;
• He has the right of being able to worship God in accordance with the right dictates of his own conscience;
• He has the inherent right to be given the opportunity to work; the worker "is likewise entitled to a wage that is determined in accordance with the precepts of justice. This needs stressing. The amount a worker receives must be sufficient, in proportion to available funds, to allow him and his family a standard of living consistent with human dignity."
• Men are by nature social, and consequently they have the right to meet together and to form associations with their fellows. The founding of a great many intermediate groups "for the pursuit of aims which it is not within the competence of the individual to achieve efficiently, is a matter of great urgency."

Evil Enters The Church

Giovanni Battista Montini had served in the Curia, the papal civil service, during World War II. Diplomatic nuances surround his actions. The Communists denied God and wanted to eradicate religion, "the opiate of the masses." The Nazis hated the Jews and wanted to eradicate Communism, which the Nazis saw as a plot by international Jewry. In the middle of this, the Vatican procured large sums of money to assist European Jews, but also helped leading Nazis escape justice after the collapse of the Third Reich. And Montini, one of the most important political figures of the period, is forever tarnished by having danced with the devil during World War II.

Angelo Roncalli, Pope John XXIII, had pushed forward an ecumenical council, known as Vatican II. Changes coming from this Second Vatican Council were slowly implemented by Roncalli's successor, Giovanni Montini, when he became Pope Paul VI in 1963.

Montini's rule began to be challenged by conservative Catholics such as Archbishop Lefebvre, who refused to accept the New Mass and liturgical reforms produced by Vatican II. Over the years, Montini himself became increasingly critical of the direction being taken by the Church. But he may have been silenced by being kept drugged in the Vatican while an actor played his role publicly, according to some conservative Catholics. In 1972, Montini had erupted in a homily expressing fears of satanic infiltration of the Church. "It is as if some mysterious crack, no, it is not mysterious, from some crack the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God," he cried.

The Smiling Pope

Upon the death of Giovanni Montini (or the actor who played the part), Albino Luciani was elected Pope on August 26, 1978. Known as Pope John Paul I, Luciani was a compromise choice between severe divisions within the College of Cardinals. He was an Italian with no baggage: no enemies, no controversial statements, just a smiling, gentle man.

On the surface, all seemed well; but there were tensions behind the scenes. The late Giovanni Montini had issued an encyclical, Humanae Vitae, in 1968. In it, he had rejected recommendations coming out of the papacy of Angelo Roncalli concerning artificial birth control. Montini's unexpected ruling had caused an uproar within the Catholic Church. Then, early in a papacy which lasted 33 days, Albino Luciani outraged Catholic conservatives when, after a meeting with United Nations population experts, he indicated that Humanae Vitae might be changed.

A deeper undercurrent involved persistent rumors of corruption within the Institute of Religious Works, commonly known as the Vatican Bank. Some say Luciani was about to blow the whistle on sinister financial practices involving not only the Catholic Church but the Mafia and Freemasonry as well.

When Albino Luciani died suddenly on September 28, 1978, it was officially said to have been due to a heart attack. But suspicious circumstances such as the following raised eyebrows and caused doubt:

• No autopsy was performed;
• The Vatican lied about who found the body;
• The Vatican lied about when the body was found;
• Luciani never smoked, yet it was widely hinted he was a heavy smoker;
• Luciani's body was embalmed within one day of his death.

The Polish Pope

Into this back-stabbing operatic Italian world of intrigue, a desperation measure, bringing in a non-Italian, may have been seen as a good way to defuse potential vendettas. Karol Wojtyla of Poland was elevated into the papacy on October 22, 1978. Choosing to be known as John Paul II, Wojtyla took the reins of a bitterly divided Church.

Americans who believe they have been well informed about Wojtyla have actually received just a partial view. "John Paul was not unlike another great Slavic moralist, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, lionized while his prophetic voice was raised against the Soviet behemoth and less welcome when he turned it on the victorious West." This is a pope who helped bring down the totalitarian Soviet state. But this is also a pope who railed against American materialism.

Two radical shifts were accomplished by Wojtyla, writes James Carroll in Time magazine. Under Wojtyla, the Church changed its attitude toward war and its relationship to the Jewish people. He denounced the U.S. invasion of Panama in December 1989. The Vatican further opposed the 1991 Gulf War, the NATO air war against the Serbs, and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Church had turned against "the entire spirit of 'Crusade' that animates the war on terrorism." In a 1965 declaration, Nostra Aetate, the Church had renounced "the 'Christ killer' slander, the Gospel charge that the Jews are guilty of the murder of Jesus." In 2000, during a trip to Israel, Wojtyla "prayed at Jerusalem's Western Wall without making reference to Jesus and was reunited at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial with a Jewish concentration camp survivor who remembered him as the young cleric who had saved her life as the war ended."

And Now?

With all her faults, the Catholic Church is the major credible force capable of counter-balancing the one-sided advance of global corporate hegemony. When the Soviet empire began to fall apart in 1989, into the vacuum rushed heartless, rampaging corporate capitalism. Like it or not, what other organization than Rome has such power to brake the corporate beast? Not the United Nations, a tool of materialistic globalists. Not the press, which they own. At this point, the imperfect Catholic Church is humanity's best hope.

The fissure between liberal and conservative within the Roman Church has lost a unique unifying force upon the death of Karol Wojtyla. On one side at the upcoming Conclave of Cardinals will be those favoring progression, changing with the times. On the other side will be traditionalists and even regressionists, favoring a return to the good old days. Haunting the church pews will be sweet little old ladies, and who knows where they stand?? Outside those doors are younger persons not wondering, "When will the Church speak for us?" because they don't even have the concept of a Church which advocates in their behalf. Taken over by narrow-cause fanatics, superstitious dullards, and invaded by paltry souls, will the Catholic Church become irrelevant?

------- Source Notes -------
Wikipedia online encyclopedia, Pacem In Terris (Encyclical of Pope John XXIII), 
Time magazine, April 11, 2005

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