Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
03VATICAN4751
2003-10-17 11:20:00
UNCLASSIFIED
Embassy Vatican
Cable title:  

JOHN PAUL II: 25 YEAR CHAMPION OF HUMAN DIGNITY

Tags:  PREL PINR SOCI VT 
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UNCLAS VATICAN 004751 

SIPDIS


DEPT. FOR EUR/WE-LEVIN

E.O. 12958 N/A
TAGS: PREL PINR SOCI VT
SUBJECT: JOHN PAUL II: 25 YEAR CHAMPION OF HUMAN DIGNITY

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Summary
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UNCLAS VATICAN 004751

SIPDIS


DEPT. FOR EUR/WE-LEVIN

E.O. 12958 N/A
TAGS: PREL PINR SOCI VT
SUBJECT: JOHN PAUL II: 25 YEAR CHAMPION OF HUMAN DIGNITY

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Summary
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1. (U) Pope John Paul II marked the 25th anniversary of his
Pontificate October 16 with over 70,000 well-wishers in St.
Peter's square. The Pope is one of the most compelling
public figures of the 20th Century, and continues to garner
international attention even as he struggles with physical
limitations of Parkinson's disease and ageing. John Paul
II has transformed the Papacy, making it not only the
spiritual guide to the world's billion Catholics, but
perhaps the leading moral voice in the world today,
respected and listened to even in countries with limited
Catholic influence. Under his leadership, the Holy See has
become a visible and effective political force for freedom,
justice, and reconciliation. It has also greatly expanded
its diplomatic presence, more than doubling from 85 to 174
the number of countries with whom it maintains diplomatic
relations. The Pope's untiring determination to promote
human dignity has distinguished every aspect of his papacy,
leading him to place himself on the side of the poor, the
disinherited, the oppressed, the marginalized and the
defenseless. The United States has no better partner for
achieving our primary national security goal of promoting
human dignity worldwide. End Summary.

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Champion of Human Dignity
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2. (U) Pope John Paul II has put an indelible mark on the
papacy and on the Church he leads. Elected to the Papacy
October 16, 1978 with keen intellectual gifts, a tenacious
will and clear, uncompromising values, he has traveled the
equivalent of three times to the moon visiting over 1000
cities in his dual roles as pastor and statesman,
evangelizer of the Catholic faith and promoter of human
rights and freedom. What has most distinguished his Papacy
has been his constant affirmation of the centrality of the
human person and his or her dignity, and his ability to
place this advocacy in the context of the modern world and
the Church's traditional social teachings. For example, he
took on the United Nations community as it dealt with
women, population, and the family at Cairo and Beijing, and
he has tirelessly campaigned against the death penalty and
abortion -- defining these as signs of a culture of death.
The Pope has shaped the Holy See into a moral compass that

is listened to, if not always followed, by people on every
continent.


3. (U) John Paul II's papacy has been marked not only by
its message, but very much by its messenger. The Pope has
brought the papacy to the world in a way that has
revolutionized expectations of who a Pope is and what a
Pope should do. Before John Paul II, Popes rarely traveled
outside Rome. John Paul II, by contrast, has been the
first truly international pope, one who has traveled to the
most remote regions of the globe. In his travels, he has
taken a message of hope and faith, expressed in his
frequent personal appeals for peace, for human rights, for
international justice, religious freedom, for medical
ethics and in his innovative gestures of dialogue and
openness towards Jews, Muslims, Orthodox Christians and
other world religions. His message has also been reflected
in his calls to close the gap between rich and poor and for
prosperous nations to embrace immigrants fleeing oppression
and poverty. The target of an assassin's bullet, he has in
recent years suffered painfully and publicly with
Parkinson's disease and a series of ailments that have
limited the once athletic Pope to a rolling throne used to
move him where he needs to go - a limitation that has not,
however, dampened his determination to continue to carry
out his mission.

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Shepherd of a Restive Flock
--------------


4. (U) While revolutionizing the Holy See's engagement with
the world, the Pope has also sought to re-package Christian
practice and teaching. In his speeches, encyclicals,
personal reflections, and pastoral letters, in his focus on
youth and family, and in his defense of human life, the
Pope has sought to explain the complex nexus that draws
together God, man, politics, Church, and civil society. In
this effort, he has won the admiration of millions, but has
also been pilloried by critics on the left and right for
his positions on birth control, the role of women in the
church, homosexuality, and the excesses of capitalism and
secularism. His personal popularity has not always
translated into action or adherence among Catholic

faithful, many of whom ignore the Pope's teachings on birth
control, divorce, abortion, and homosexuality. While the
church is growing in Africa, the Americas and Asia, in the
Pope's home ground, it is gasping for survival in an
increasingly secular Europe that was unwilling to include a
reference to Europe's Christian roots in its constitution
despite the Pope's persistent lobbying of European leaders
and people. Nevertheless, the Pope's pre-Millennium
meetings in Rome with hundreds of bishops from the five
continents generated a series of internal policy documents
that will guide the Catholic Church's activities in those
regions for decades. (Septels will explore the Pope's
contribution to and challenges in specific regions.)

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Crusader for Peace
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5. (U) From the beginning of his papacy, the Pope has
sought not only to engage Catholics, but to reach out to
the world and embrace its many cultures, religions, races
and ethnic groups. In doing so, he has built bridges
between cultures and religions that have helped overcome
divisions in troubled regions of the world. The Pope's
messages and efforts on behalf of international peace have
been a prominent and consistent feature of his Papacy.
Since his election, the Pope has issued annual Peace
Messages to world leaders and civil authorities that have
encouraged nuclear disarmament and opposed arms transfers,
analyzed the economic roots of armed conflict, promoted
national reconciliation efforts, explored the links between
peace and the dignity of women and children, and expressed
support for the role of the United Nations to guarantee
world peace. The Pope has also issued specific appeals for
peace and placed in motion the Holy See's diplomatic
machine when the clouds of war have rolled over the horizon
-- most recently over the war in Iraq.


6. (U) But Pope John Paul II has not only talked about
peace, he has engaged both himself and the diplomatic
machinery of the Holy See to achieve peace in the face of
conflicts in many parts of the world. In his nearly 1700
meetings with heads of state, heads of government, and
other senior government leaders, issues of war and peace
have inevitably been high on the agenda. The Pope's
diplomatic efforts were crucial to avoiding war between
Chile and Argentina over the Beagle Channel border dispute
in 1978. This set the tone for a papacy that recognized
the potential of timely mediation by a Holy See acting
"super partes." In another conflict involving Argentina,
the 1982 Falkland crisis with Britain, Pope John Paul II
invited the Catholic cardinals from England, Scotland and
Argentina to Rome to concelebrate a Mass of Reconciliation
with him in St. Peter's. Observing then that "peace is an
obligation, peace is a duty", the Pope announced that he
would visit not only Great Britain, to which Queen
Elizabeth II had already invited him, but also Argentina.
His subsequent papal visits to the two countries underlined
his role in promoting reconciliation among parties to a
conflict.


7. (U) Pope John Paul II has likewise supported efforts to
achieve reconciliation between conflicting parties in
troubled areas such as Lebanon, the Balkans, the Great
Lakes, and East Timor, where Vatican diplomats were
particularly active in achieving a resolution to a long-
festering zone of conflict. Though not all Vatican
diplomatic efforts have been successful, the Pope has never
weakened in his conviction that the Holy See should do
everything possible to prevent war, encourage fractious
parties to dialogue, and promote the greater value of peace
over war. This conviction has put him at odds with the
United States over both the Gulf War of 1991 and the Iraq
war this year. In both cases, the Pope believed that the
international community had not exhausted all peaceful
means short of war, though he also criticized the actions
and inactions of the Iraqi government that had provoked
both conflicts and acknowledged that decisions of war and
peace must be made by legitimate civil authorities.


8. (U) While the Pope is a man of peace, he is not a
pacifist. In fact, he has frequently called for
"humanitarian intervention" or peacekeeping in trouble
spots such as Kosovo, Bosnia, Central Africa, and East
Timor -- even if that meant using force to "disarm the
aggressor." He has also strongly condemned terrorism, and
recognized that the United States needed to respond in
self-defense after the September 11 attacks. In fact, he
has often observed that genuine peace must be built of a
foundation of liberty, justice, truth, and love, and he
recognizes that the international community needs to strive
to create these conditions if it is to achieve a more

peaceful world. That is why he has so vigorously advocated
religious liberty and human rights during pastoral visits
to many countries, including Cuba and Nigeria in 1998.

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Advocate of Reconciliation and Dialogue
--------------


9. (U) The most original of John Paul II's efforts to craft
a culture of peace have been his continuing and deepening
efforts to promote inter-religious dialogue and to overcome
religious divisions - including those among Christians.
For example, the Pope has done taken sometimes dramatic
steps to appeal to the Orthodox and Protestant churches, as
those closest to Catholicism in doctrine and practice, to
strive for unity not just in the abstract but also in the
concrete -- even to the extent of asking for their input on
how a Pope should exercise his ministry in an ecumenical
age. In Greece, the heartland of the Orthodox Church, the
Pope made a sweeping apology on behalf of Catholics for
misdeeds committed over centuries against members of the
Orthodox Church saying it was time to "heal the wounds"
that have divided Eastern and Western churches for nearly
1,000 years. He has been willing to talk systematically
with Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and animists.
Wherever possible, if it did not already exist, Pope John
Paul II has set up continuing commissions and other fora in
which honest and serious efforts to understand and resolve
differences in theology, science, philosophy and culture
can be constantly addressed.


10. (U) Pope John Paul II's spirit of humble certainty has
often translated into significant gestures of repentance
and reconciliation -- gestures sometimes criticized by his
most senior advisors but which have helped overcome
centuries of distrust and division. In particular, he has
made great strides to repair Catholic-Jewish divisions.
After becoming the first Pope since Peter to step inside a
Jewish synagogue, John Paul moved to open relations with
Israel in 1993 and in 1997 authorized a Vatican conference
on the roots of anti-Judaism in Christianity. In 1998, the
Holy See published its official document on the Shoah,
acknowledging Catholic failings in failing to counter a
climate of persecution that resulted in the holocaust.
During the jubilee year of 2000, he lead his most senior
advisors in a Vatican "Day of Parson" to apologize for
Christianity's errors towards Judaism, Islam, and
Protestant Christians. Later that year the Pope prayed at
Judaism's holiest site, the Western Wall, and, in an
unprecedented gesture of reconciliation, asked Jews to
forgive centuries of Christian sins against their people.
"We are deeply saddened," he told the Israelis, "by the
behavior of those who in the course of history have caused
these children of yours to suffer and, asking your
forgiveness, we wish to commit ourselves to genuine
brotherhood with the people of the Covenant."


11. (U) On a visit to Syria that same year, John Paul
reached out to Muslims with words of sorrow and prayed in a
Damascus mosque, observing: "It is my ardent hope that
Muslim and Christian religious leaders and teachers will
present our two great religious communities as communities
in respectful dialogue, never more as communities in
conflict. For all the times that Muslims and Christians
have offended one another, we need to seek forgiveness from
the Almighty and offer each other forgiveness." He has
also visited other predominantly Muslim countries from
Morocco to Kazakhstan, earning respect and drawing large
crowds eager to see the Pope who entered a mosque. Among
the most visible manifestations of the Pope's commitment to
breaking down religious barriers have been the three
interfaith meetings he hosted in the Italian town of
Assisi. The 1986, 1993 and 2002 encounters brought
together Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and
representatives from a variety of other religious
expressions to pray for peace. In 2002 following the
September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S., the delegates
in Assisi denounced all violence in the name of religion
and rejected the idea of a war of civilizations or
cultures. Many religious leaders have commented that these
gatherings were only possible because of the Pope's moral
stature and record of reconciliation.


12. (U) The Pope has not limited his reconciliation efforts
to religious matters. In 1992, on the Senegalese island of
Goree, he made a heartfelt apology on behalf of Christians
who took part in centuries of slavery. Describing the
slave trade as an "unknown holocaust and an enormous
crime," he said it was imperative to confess with humility
this crime against humanity." John Paul II also had no
qualms about rehabilitating Galileo Galilei and encouraging
scientists to continue their inquiry into the "big bang"

theory behind creation. As a churchman Pope John Paul II
has never been afraid of engagement with the scientific
world because, in his words, "we know that the truth cannot
contradict the truth." While such gestures have sometimes
been criticized within the Catholic Church as threats to
traditional doctrinal positions or as undermining the
prestige of the papacy and the Catholic Church, Pope John
Paul II has been willing to accept this criticism for the
sake of healing wounds and overcoming divisions.

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Catalyst for Freedom
--------------


13. (U) When John Paul II took up his papacy, communism was
all but bankrupt in Poland and the conditions necessary for
a popular revolt against the Soviet-sponsored regime were
in place -- economic stagnation, state persecutions of
intellectual and religious leaders, and a series of
workers' strikes and student protests. Into this sea of
discontent, Karol Wojtyla returned to his homeland in June
1979 as the Pope. During open-air Masses and other events,
millions of Poles saw or heard their native son challenge
the moral premise of the totalitarian system, demand
freedom for the church, and affirm the right of the workers
to organize. Poland's leaders heard his courageous
admonition, "Order flows from respect for the rights of the
nation and for human rights." The papal attack on the
morally bankrupt system continued in subsequent visits,
when John Paul chided the Polish premier for his regime's
human rights abuses and reminded workers that "solidarity"
means that burdens are shared, in community -- not through
the class struggles promoted by Marxists. The Polish Pope
reawakened the spirit of resistance and freedom in the
Polish people, giving them the courage to seek the freedoms
too long denied.


14. (U) In this case, as in many others during his Papacy,
the Pope's direct approach broke with traditional Vatican
policy, which previously had emphasized official dealings
with sovereign powers, either through concordats or
dialogue. However, Pope John Paul II recognized that in
the emerging milieu of global communications, the church
would have greater impact by "acting" within civil society
rather than acting in collaboration with sometimes corrupt
or bankrupt national governments. The Pope carried this
message directly to the masses - not only in Poland but
also in Hungary and the former Czechoslovakia. His
engagement in these communist countries became a catalyst
for change, resistance, and freedom, which together with
the U.S. efforts to oppose communism, exposed the
hollowness of the communist system and hastened its demise.


15. (U) In Poland as elsewhere, the Pope has been
constantly aware of the power of his presence and his moral
voice. His ability to read the ecclesiastical and
political situation of a particular region or nation led
him to develop travel itineraries designed to achieve the
most benefit -- masses with the masses in Poland as
communism suffered its death throws, a visit to the
Philippines during the Marcos regime to cement his
friendship with Cardinal Jaime Sin and to give a papal
"nulla osta" to the eventual peoples' revolution, an
accusing finger pointed at Jean-Claude Duvalier in Haiti
and a bold call for change in that dictatorship, a blunt
challenge to Sudan's Islamist leaders that there could be
no peace without justice and respect for human rights, a
controversial visit to Chile and the seeming embrace of the
Pinochet regime that in reality strengthened the local
church's efforts for human rights and led eighteen months
after the papal visit to a process of reconstructing
Chilean civil society, a national plebiscite to move beyond
military rule and to restore democracy.

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Comment
--------------


15. (U) In his inaugural homily 25 years ago, the Pope told
the world: "Be not afraid." This admonition has been the
distinguishing characteristic of his pontificate, as he has
repeatedly acted as no Pope had done before, reshaping the
Papacy and public expectations of the Pope. He has brought
the Papacy to the modern world with a directness and
immediacy that was unimaginable before his pontificate, and
made the Holy See a central player on the international
scene -- as seen this year in the stream of world leaders
who called on the Pope during the lead-up to the Iraq war.
Now the fourth-longest serving Pope in history, John Paul
II's increasing frailty will give his presence, at both the
ecclesiastical and international level, a new quality --
physically more subdued though still morally compelling.

Our reading is that the Pope is still very much in charge
of the Vatican, with an intellectual acuteness that
continues to impress his closest collaborators. As he
reportedly told one of his Cardinals, "I don't run this
Church with my feet." It is likely that the Pope's
international travels will be more limited, though he has a
number of invitations pending for the coming year.
Nevertheless, we can expect his moral reach will continue
to extend worldwide through his appeals on international
issues, teachings and commentaries. As one of the world's
leading individual voices for human dignity, Pope John Paul
II -- even with his physical limitations -- remains a vital
partner for advancing U.S. efforts worldwide to champion
human dignity. As we seek to promote freedom, break down
religious and cultural barriers, promote development,
relieve human suffering, and stand up for human life, we
have no better partner than John Paul II.

Nicholson


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2003VATICA04751 - Classification: UNCLASSIFIED