POPE JOHN PAUL II AND THE CRUSADE AGAINST
COMMUNISM: A CASE STUDY IN SECULAR AND
SACRED TIME
KENNETH S. ZAGACKI
In order to cope with the Cold War situation in both Poland and Cuba, Pope John Paul
II contrasted the secular sphere of communism with the permanent Christian tradition
and its transcendent mysteries. By interpreting history and current events in sacred
terms, the pope tried to preserve national identities, empower groups, and ground political change in an overarching Christian order.
ope John Paul II journeyed to his Polish homeland in the late 1970s and the
early 1980s and then to Cuba in January 1998 to deliver more than spiritual
messages. He also tried to alter the course of the Cold War. By 1979, a great historical crisis was slowly emerging in Eastern and Central Europe that would, nearly ten
years later, culminate in the fall of the Soviet Union. Still a dominant force, the old
Communist system nevertheless floundered in Poland, leaving many Poles confused, anxious, looking for new anchorage. The Cold War had ended in Europe by
1998, but communism still operated in Cuba, and countries like the United States
continued to view Cuba in Cold War terms. Many Cubans, like their Polish counterparts, sought relief from oppressive political and economic conditions, often by
looking to the capitalist West. More than any other pontiff, John Paul used his international pastoral missions to assist Polish and Cuban Catholics who were struggling
to lift themselves from the smothering mantle of totalitarianism. At the same time,
he warned against the false promises of capitalism. The pope saw an opportunity to
renew Catholic teaching, have it transform political and economic institutions, and
fill the void left over by the eventual fall of communism. He assumed that it was not
possible to live in a completely profane, desacralized world, especially in Poland and
Cuba where the divisions between politics, faith, and patriotism were blurred. For
him, the battle against communism in these places represented a confrontation
between the sacred and the profane, where only a transcendent religious paradigm
could overcome the conflicting forces of the secular world.
P
Kenneth S. Zagacki is Associate Professor of Communication at North Carolina Sate University in
Raleigh, North Carolina. He would like to thank Professor Andrew King for his helpful comments on
earlier drafts of this essay.
© Rhetoric & Public Affairs
Vol. 4, No. 4, 2001, pp. 689-710
ISSN 1094-8392
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I argue in this essay that John Paul’s rhetoric in Poland and Cuba brought two
naturally agonistic ideas together so that the sacred transformed the secular or the
secular was understood in terms of the higher vision of Christianity. The pope contrasted the secular sphere, which was exemplified by the repression created by communism and the distortions of capitalism, with the permanent Christian tradition
and its transcendent mysteries. Simultaneously, his religious language and his own
personal “enactment” united listeners in a common understanding of sacred time,
which he defined as heroic destiny, personal sacrifice, and Divine intercession.
Investigating John Paul’s discourse is important because it illustrates how the
interpretation of history and current events in sacred terms preserves important
elements of national identity, empowers groups, and grounds political change in an
overarching Christian order. The investigation is also important because, as numerous commentators have claimed, John Paul did as much as anyone to help bring
about the defeat of communism in Europe. David Willey, a biographer of the pope
who accompanied him to Poland, explains: “The rise of the Solidarity movement
and indeed Poland’s subsequent transition from Communist dictatorship under
Soviet tutelage to the first non-Communist government in Eastern Europe, can be
traced directly back to the sense of patriotism, purpose and optimism generated by
the Pope’s bold visit to Poland a decade before.” 1
In what follows I briefly describe the features of modern papal rhetoric. This
discourse warns against increasing secularization, appeals to the permanence of
Christian tradition and community, and sanctifies history and politics. I then
examine John Paul’s speeches, homilies, and letters during his first visit to Poland
and in Cuba. He delivered these messages to large audiences of both Catholics and
non-Catholics in outdoor arenas, in churches, in public plazas, and at religious
shrines, universities, and airports. I conclude by exploring the limitations and possibilities of the pope’s discourse for political and religious practice. In Poland especially, but in Cuba as well, John Paul’s images of the sacred appeared to require the
sort of dramatic self-sacrifice that was strongly at odds with the allure of modern
secularism. Too, his vision of salvation, which supplied temporary relief from
oppression or promised liberation in remote sacred time, risked immersing audiences in the religious at the expense of the political. On the other hand, he rooted
political action and everyday life in relevant values and ways of seeing. He therefore invested the daily activities of ordinary people with a sense of deep historical
and religious consequence. Simultaneously, the pope’s pilgrimages, and particularly the huge public gatherings that accompanied his speaking, created a sense of
far-reaching community while opening spaces for democratic deliberation and
resistance.
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MODERN PAPAL RHETORIC
In her analysis of the papal discourse of Pope Paul VI, Kathleen Hall Jamieson
argues that much Christian rhetoric has been directed toward reviving and preserving Church tradition during periods of increasing secularization and degenerating faith.2 Paul VI claimed that various hostile forces threatened the very existence
of the Church and its tradition. He presented the faithful with only two choices:
Accept the traditional teaching of the Church or break with the source of their life.
Paul VI acknowledged external threats to the Church even as he reminded listeners
that, with Christ’s assistance, the Church had weathered storms before and would
continue to do so in the present and future. Paul VI argued that the Church’s
changeless tradition—and the universal Christian community whose members
were organically connected—brought Christians strength and a sense of unity. His
discourse contrasted Christian tradition with the impermanence of a secular world
that had lost sight of Christian morality and meaning and that ushered in death,
darkness, and poverty.
Combating secularization has been at the forefront of John Paul’s pontificate.
Writing in The Rhetoric of Pope John Paul II: The Pastoral Visit As a New Vocabulary
of the Sacred, Margaret Melady argues that the “task facing the Church at the time
of Pope John Paul II’s elevation to the papacy was to restore a sense of the sacred,
thus halting” what he sees as the accommodation of Catholic policy to secular concerns.3 Using John Paul’s 1987 visit to the United States as a model, Melady interprets the discourse and symbols inherent in the pilgrimage as a way of relating
religious vocabularies to a secularizing society. The pope’s homilies, for instance,
reminded American Catholics of the secularizing tendencies in American culture
and of their membership in a larger Catholic community. He urged them to live
according to the Church’s sacred norms with distinct roles and traditional lifestyles,
and provided Catholics with religious means for coping with everyday needs.
Another feature of papal rhetoric, according to Jamieson, is that it constructs
historical narratives in which popes themselves play pivotal roles as agents of
Christ.4 These narratives have the effect of sacralizing history inasmuch as the past
is imbued with religious significance and is seen to be moving toward some predetermined point. Jamieson observes how John Paul II, in particular, carefully chooses
to deliver his messages in places of great historical significance and often invokes the
names of important religious and historical figures—what she calls “dramatic symbols.” He also brings his own autobiography to bear in his speaking, which has the
effect of personalizing his themes, rendering them credible and compelling, and
making his own life story and Christ-like sacrifices appear relevant to the immediate historical moment.5 Melady mentions how John Paul employed images of Polish
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history to evoke religious patriotism of the past, but concentrates her efforts on his
visit to America, where he continually utilized images of struggle and conflict. The
pope created a “forward moving and assured future” that “is also a ‘victory’ that must
be won by those who believe that grace is more ‘powerful’ than sin. . . . Battle lines
are drawn [in his discourse] between life and death, grace and sin,” and he urged
Christians not to “‘run away’ from these struggles.”6 Rhetorical scholars like Carl
Wayne Hensley have shown that certain historical situations provoke religious orators to consecrate history in the form of sensational confrontations, supernatural
interventions, and other such depictions. This rhetoric allows listeners to participate
“with unseen but omnipresent [spiritual] forces” that control “the world’s destiny.”7
In Poland and Cuba, John Paul saw nations twisting precariously in the grips of
secular—namely, Communist—governments that had stifled citizens’ political and
religious freedoms. In the midst of this situation, he offered the eternal Christian
tradition as an alternative, one that nevertheless demanded serious sacrifices. He
conveyed a sense of belonging and empowerment by emphasizing the interconnectedness of the Church’s members in a Christian community, regardless of their
geographical location or historical situation. Further, John Paul’s discourse interpreted the direction of Polish and Cuban history—and politics as well—in sacred
terms. Whereas Marxists, for example, viewed history as class conflict and the turning of dialectical materialism, the pope saw a great religious struggle toward liberation, one that included him in a dramatic role as Christ’s agent. And the practice of
religion itself, including John Paul’s own pilgrimages, was advocated as a form of
political expression. I turn now to examine these themes.
THE SECULAR SPHERE
The problems John Paul encountered in Poland dated back to 1947, when the
Soviets imposed a repressive government and mode of economics on the Poles.
Political decisions were in the hands of a centralized authority modeled on the
Soviet system. Ordinary Poles had little to no access to political decision making.
The Soviet-style economy emphasized heavy industrialization and manufacturing
and grew early on. By the late 1970s, however, there were severe economic difficulties caused by a series of poor harvests, unrest among factory workers, shortages of
consumer goods, lagging technology, rising inflation, and massive foreign debt.
Compounding these difficulties were harsh work conditions for laborers, including
low wages, long hours, and harassment of labor organizers. All of these conditions
contributed to a growing resentment of and protests against the Communist regime
and were eventually, in 1980, to lead to the emergence of Solidarity, Poland’s free
trade union, which John Paul supported from the Vatican.
In 1979, less than a year after John Paul had been elected pope, he made a nineday pilgrimage to his homeland, the first of many papal visits to Poland and other
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nations. Poland had a rich Catholic tradition—90 percent of the 35 million inhabitants still belonged to the Church. His initial journey included over 40 public
speeches, masses, and homilies throughout the country, many of which were delivered in some of Poland’s most holy and historically important sites. It was estimated
that ten million Poles saw the pontiff in person at one of nine locations on his itinerary.8 The political climate was tense. Polish Communist officials monitored John
Paul’s every speech with trepidation, and the threat of an intervention by the Soviet
Union to crush worker protests remained ever present.
The pope addressed labor issues throughout the nation, but especially during his
remarks “In the Sanctuary of the Holy Cross at Mogila,” a Cistercian abbey near the
steelworker town of Nowa Huta. His comments were religious in nature. However,
because he was banned from speaking in Nowa Huta directly, his words were filled
with political import as well. Built by the Communists in the early 1950s outside of
Cracow, Nowa Huta was once under Father Karol Wojtyla’s jurisdiction, as John
Paul was known before he became pope. Originally, the town was meant to be a
worker’s paradise founded on Communist principles, with no need for a church. A
conflict ensued that pitted those who desired a church—the people of Nowa Huta
and Wojtyla—against the regime. Eventually, in 1977, the then-Cardinal Wojtyla
negotiated an agreement with the government and a church was erected. The settlement was considered a great triumph for the young Cardinal Wojtyla, which is
one reason why the government did not want the newly elected pope appearing
there in 1979.
The statements he made during his return to neighboring and highly industrialized areas around Nowa Huta rebuked what he claimed were the Polish government’s attempts to reduce work to forces of production. “The problems being raised
today,” he said, “about human labour do not, in fact, come down to . . . either technology or even to economics but to a fundamental category: the category of the dignity of work . . . the dignity of man” (156). If the many features of work “are shaped
without reference to the dignity of human labour” (for example, choice of labor,
decent wages and working conditions), “they are in error, they are harmful, they are
against man” (156). Although John Paul did not mention specific political measures, he told Polish workers “to oppose any form of degradation of man, including
degradation by work” (156).
In these remarks, John Paul demonstrated how secular affairs that were disconnected from sacred tradition were doomed to fail and threatened the very existence
of individuals. He did not, of course, condemn the Marxists or the Communists
directly, but his condemnations were clearly implied by the contexts in which he
spoke and by the way he contrasted Polish society as it was presently governed under
Communist leadership with the religious realm he sought to reestablish. Hence he
argued that when labor practices were “shaped without reference to” “fundamental
categories” like the “dignity of work,” and were replaced with notions about “tech-
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nology” and “economics”—as the Marxists were prone to do—these practices were
“in error,”“harmful,”“against man.” Such practices “degraded” human beings, which
was why they had to be “opposed.” Christianity, in contrast, was depicted as more
genuine, as attuned to “the dignity of man.” For Communist representatives listening nearby, these distinctions were intended to illustrate that labor policy must be
reformed in a way that recognized certain basic human rights. The pope recognized,
too, that one day, when communism collapsed altogether, Polish labor leaders would
be forced to restructure labor practices themselves. In either case labor policies must
be understood in spiritual terms, located in the unchanging ground of human “dignity,” which John Paul considered a transcendent Christian principle.
Fearing that young Poles had become dispirited as well, John Paul also spoke
“With the University Students in Cracow.” He characterized them as feeling “very
deeply the evil that weighs upon the social life of nations whose sons and daughters
you are” (144). Responding to the fact that government officials had restricted religious education—and implemented their own official “material” or “economic”
interpretation of history—he exhorted Polish students to build a more just world,
where there were no “restrictions, exploitation, falsification or discrimination of
any kind” (144). John Paul was upholding a longstanding Catholic tradition in
Poland by explaining that Christianity would
bring with it the full truth concerning man and lead to the full actualization of human
rights. The correct actualization of this noble inspiration beating in the heart and will
of the young requires that man be seen in the whole of his human dimension. Man
must not be reduced to the sphere of his merely material needs. Progress cannot be
measured . . . by economic categories alone. The spiritual dimension must be given its
right place. (144–45)
The pope also rejected any pretense to utopianism that might have accompanied
the ideology of Communist leaders: “There will be no better world, no better
arrangement of social life, unless preference is first given to the values of the human
spirit. . . . The order that you desire is a moral order and you will not attain it . . . if
you do not give first place to . . . the human spirit—justice, love and friendship”
(145).
John Paul again contrasted the expansive and liberating nature of Christianity
with the reductionistic and regressive nature of Polish life, as he perceived it was
being lived under an authoritarian government. He described Christianity as the
“correct actualization of this noble inspiration,” and compared it with the “evil” of
autocratic regimes, which imposed a great “weight” that was destroying the social
fabric of the nation. Whereas Christian belief brought “truth” and “actualized”
“human rights,” the Communist government “reduced” Poles “to the sphere of [their]
merely material needs” and “restricted,” “exploited,” “falsified,” and “discriminated”
POPE JOHN PAUL II AND THE CRUSADE AGAINST COMMUNISM
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against them. The “spiritual dimension” “beat” “in the heart and the will of the
young,” which suggested that Christianity animated the thoughts and deeds of young
Poles, and that it met their needs as “whole” persons and could never be suppressed.
Polish government officials, on the other hand, measured all human progress by mere
“economic” terms alone. Thus the pope called for a transcendent “moral order,” one
that linked religion, politics, and conscience and revealed a new stage in the evolution
of Polish life. Christianity was defined as much more than church worship or learning Catholic doctrine—it embodied a way of life that included free expression, access
to knowledge, justice, love, friendship, and dignity. It was the only “correct,” “moral”
alternative in a world of stifling, secular “arrangements.”
The pope’s rhetoric, therefore, revealed that a Christian worldview persisted
beneath the secular superstructure that totalitarian regimes had built upon Catholic
traditions. Apparently, his remarks struck a chord with Polish youth. As Kenneth
Briggs noted in the New York Times, especially among young people, most of whom
appear to view the pope as someone who “understands them” there appears to be “a
broad disillusionment with Communist ideology.” The pope’s words answered their
hankering for traditional values and were one of the “leading reasons for [an]
upsurge of religious enthusiasm.”9
By the time John Paul traveled to Cuba nearly 20 years later, the Cuban economy
was much healthier than the economy of some Central American countries.
However, the population still experienced difficult social and economic conditions,
some of them linked to the $6 billion in annual subsidies lost when the Soviet
Union crumbled. Many Cuban citizens and exiles blamed the Communist government for these conditions while others, mostly pro-Communists, argued that a
longstanding embargo organized by the United States had exacerbated Cuba’s woes.
Once again thousands of Catholics and non-Catholics turned out to greet the pope
as he embarked on both a spiritual and political quest around the nation.
When John Paul addressed social justice and economic practices in Cuba, he
offered comments that were sure to have bolstered many poverty-stricken Cubans
but perhaps troubled anxious Communist leaders seeking economic assistance.
Cuba’s “material and moral poverty,” he said during his “Farewell Address” at José
Martí Airport in Havana, arises not only from governmental restrictions such as
“limitations to fundamental freedoms” and “discouragement of the individual,” but
also from the “restrictive economic measures—unjust and ethically unacceptable—
imposed from outside the country,” by which he meant the American embargo.
“The Cuban people,” he insisted, “cannot be denied . . . economic, social, and cultural development, especially when the imposed isolation strikes the population
indiscriminately, making it ever more difficult for the weakest to enjoy the bare
essentials of decent living, things such as food, health, and education.”10
In Poland the pope enhanced the meaning of his comments by giving public
addresses in places of symbolic importance. He did the same thing in Cuba.
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Speaking in Havana, the capital of Cuba, where the main Communist government
was located and where he could learn firsthand about the nation’s impoverishment,
John Paul’s reflections on Cuba’s “material and moral poverty” brought into sharp
relief the inability of Castro’s regime to provide for its peoples’ “economic, social, or
cultural needs.” He seemed once again to be implying that communism—or any
autocratic or even secular regime for that matter—“restricted” the human person.
In fact, he extended his critique to the United States, which John Paul considered a
primarily secular nation, and whose government directed the embargo that he
believed was devastating Havana from only 90 miles away. The pope knew as well
that Havana was once a tourist mecca for Americans, and that American political
officials would be carefully following his speeches in that city. So they could not
ignore John Paul when he portrayed the United States as acting in an “unjust and
ethically unacceptable way.” His criticism drew attention to how the American government, like the Castro regime, had placed ideological considerations above the
moral, which contributed to the same effect of depriving the Cuban people.
John Paul’s criticism of the embargo provided hope for many Cuban listeners. As
one Cuban businessman reacted, “There’s a feeling that economically things might
be better because the publicity will let the rest of the world know about us. . . . Lots
of businessmen and tourists will realize that Cuba is not such a hostile country.”11
Of course, Catholic authorities in Cuba, who were aware of a growing number
of social problems, not to mention the nation’s seriously dwindling Catholic tradition, anticipated that John Paul would revive Catholic values and practices. Hence,
when the pope visited Camaguey, a city in central Cuba, he claimed there that he
had discovered the sources of Cuba’s many ills. The Cuban government had created
“the identity crisis that affects so many young people” and “moral relativism,” which
“gives rise to selfishness, division, marginalization, discrimination, fear and distrust
of others.” He warned, too, about Cuban youth who “allow themselves to be
seduced [from outside the country] by unchecked materialism,” who therefore “lose
their own roots and long for distractions,” such as “alcohol, abuse of sex, drug use,
prostitution . . . the rejection of legitimate authority, the desire to escape and emigrate.” In his “Message to the Young People of Cuba,” a letter written by the pope
and then disseminated by the Cuban Catholic Church, he complained that Cuban
youth had been “deprived of hope itself ” and worried about “religious indifference
and the lack of a clear moral sense [and that] young people are tempted to worship
the idols of the consumer society, enticed by their fleeting allure.”
The pope demonstrated that when separated from their religious moorings,
Cubans experienced all manner of moral and spiritual “crisis” and were “deprived
of hope itself.” The term “crisis” indicated that the problems were severe and needed
immediate remedy, lest Cubans be “tempted to worship the idols of the consumer
society.” In all of these remarks he appeared to be publicly enacting the rite of confession, exposing the character of his listeners as partially responsible for their
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predicament. After all, young people—and undoubtedly many other Cubans as
well—had willfully become overly acquisitive, allowing themselves to be “seduced
by unchecked materialism,” to overindulge in “alcohol, . . . sex, drug use, prostitution,” to “reject” “legitimate authority,” and to “escape and emigrate.” The pope created an implied audience, provoking Cubans to behave and think like conscientious
Catholics. His words were meant to resuscitate any deeply embedded, sacred feelings these listeners had for their Catholic tradition so that they would understand
that permissive attitudes and actions generate guilt—and guilt forces confession
and atonement. In order to atone they had to look beyond the short-term pleasures
of the secular world, forget about running from their obligations by emigrating,
and openly embrace Christian faith. Western material inducements only diverted
them from more important spiritual and social commitments, which is why, during
his “Homily in the José Martí Square,” the pope urged listeners to “resist every kind
of temptation to flee from the world and from society.” He wanted them to face up
to their moral responsibilities in an ever-increasing secular sphere.
These messages stirred religious sentiment in the pope’s listeners. As reporter
Georgie Anne Geyer wrote, “Their responses were . . . naturally spiritual. They
spoke of feeling peaceful, of vague human [spiritual] yearnings and of God among
them again.”12 However, John Paul was acting politically as well. By mentioning “the
idols” of consumerism he was as much criticizing the irreligious and “fleeting
allure” of Western capitalism as he was paving the way for rapprochement between
the papacy and Castro’s government. For even though John Paul was a staunch antiCommunist—and opposed Marxist interpretations of Christianity (for instance,
liberation theology) in other parts of Latin America—he, like the Marxists, rejected
the free market’s implicit view of humankind as the sum of its material wants. And
he lamented the exploitation of the proletariat, what he once called the one “kernel
of truth” in Marxist thought.13 Moreover, Lorenzo Albacete observes that like the
pope, Castro himself worried about the growing rates of alcoholism and drug abuse
in Cuba, along with increasing levels of divorce. Castro generally feared a loss of
ethical values and lay spirituality following the collapse of the Soviet empire, and
intended to use the papal visit to improve relations between his government and the
Church.14 The pope’s journey was made possible in part by gestures Castro had
made earlier to the Vatican and a somewhat more liberal attitude he had shown
toward Catholic worship on the island. Also, by 1998, Castro and a new generation
of Cuban Catholics had come to see similarities between the social goals of the revolution and the social mission of the Church.15
For the pope, though, any dialogue between Church and State would only occur
within the context of Christianity, where Marxism or any other political ideology
would have to be radically transformed. John Paul was using Christianity as a
means of identifying fundamental human rights, and therefore directing Castro’s
government to recognize these rights and to renounce efforts to reduce human
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needs and Christ’s teaching to totally economic or ideological considerations. As the
pontiff asserted in a homily at a sports stadium in the city of Santa Clara, “No ideology can replace [God’s] infinite wisdom and power. For this reason there is a need
to recover religious values . . . and to encourage the practice of virtues which shaped
the origins of the Cuban Nation.” John Paul grounded secular practices in a transcendent religious order. Cubans, he believed, had to return to the “infinite wisdom
and power” of Christianity as opposed to the “limitations” of Castro’s government,
the fanciful ideology of Marxists, or the “fleeting allure” of capitalism. Only enduring Christian “values” would restore moral order and genuine faith.
CHRISTIAN TRADITION AND COMMUNITY
John Paul tried to alleviate the suffering of Poles and Cubans and to offer them
hope by underscoring the interconnectedness of the Church’s members, despite
ethnic diversity and vast distances of geography and time. The preeminent expression of this belief in a universal community of humankind is found in the Christian
concept of the “mystical body of Christ.” Jamieson and Melady show how both Paul
VI and John Paul II enlist “body metaphors” to illustrate how Christians belong to
one body, one thriving Church.16 The mystical body is the true community of
humanity, composed of all those who share in the spirit of Christ. Also, papal
rhetoric frequently employs what Jamieson calls “fertility” metaphors to describe
Catholic tradition as “the transmission of something valuable from past to present”;
tradition is viewed as a permanent thread, “a bridge spanning the centuries,” and
the divide between geographical places.17
A major concern of John Paul’s was the apparently fractured nature of the Catholic
Church in Europe. Slavs, for instance, the majority of whom were Catholic, were
scattered over vast areas throughout the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union. During
his “Sermon in the Square outside the Cathedral at Gniezno,” the pope addressed this
issue. Gniezno was the old capital of Poland, and St. Adalbert, a former Czech bishop
and Slav, was buried at the cathedral. Catholic Slavs attended the pope’s mass. In fact,
in the audience was a group holding a placard saying, “Holy Father, remember your
Czech children”—a reminder to John Paul that Slavs living in other nations thought
of themselves as Catholics as well.18 But there was another exigency in that Catholics
in Gniezno and other parts of Poland maintained many cultural and intellectual ties
with the West, not all of which had been extinguished by the Communist occupation. In John Paul’s view, Poland had been artificially separated from Western
Europe, first at Yalta and then during the Cold War.
Addressing all of these concerns, he argued, “The descent of the Spirit marks the
beginning of the Church, which throughout all generations must bring mankind—
both the individuals and the nations—into the unity of the Mystical Body of Christ.
The descent of the Holy Spirit means the beginning of this mystery but also its
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continuance. For the continuance is a constant return to the beginning” (39). The
pope recalled “the Christianization of the Slavs,” that of the Croats and Slovenes, the
Bulgarians and Czechs, the Moravians and Slovaks, and all other Slavic people (45).
He claimed, also, that he had come to Gniezno “to speak before the whole Church,
before Europe and the world, of those forgotten nations and peoples. . . . to embrace
all peoples . . . and to hold them close to the heart of the Church” (45).
Jamieson suggests that papal metaphors create “inventional resources” and
thereby give audiences new ways of seeing their situations.19 In this case John Paul’s
body metaphor provided a means by which Slavs could derive political strength
from their participation in an ancient, universal, and “mystical” order. He proclaimed spiritual unity for “all generations” and all “the nations” in Europe, and
included Slavs from different regions and nations because, like the parts of a “body,”
they all belonged to “the whole Church.” This was a Church that the spirit of
“Christ” had animated since “the beginning” of Christendom. By having their ethnic ties with other Slavs reestablished and their rootedness in the ancient Catholic
community confirmed, the pope’s audience knew that the contributions of Polish
Slavs were supported not only by historical precedent and Christ’s will but by vast
numbers of other (Eastern and Central European) Christians who were endeavoring to live meaningful lives during Communist repression. Yet he also uncovered the
plight of Slavs “before Europe” itself as a way of showing that Catholics from the
rest of free Europe would assist the Polish Slavs in their struggle. Liberation did not
mean violent confrontation, although certainly, as the pope’s later discussion of
Christian political martyrs suggests, sacrifices might be warranted. For the most
part, however, membership in the Christian community and the values members
shared illustrated that in spite of theological and political complexities the Church
transcended the ideological divide between the totalitarian world and the free West.
Its very existence and intervention in global affairs implied that at some point the
conflicts of the Cold War would be ended and peaceful reconciliation achieved.
Comments like those that John Paul delivered at Gniezno not only drew attention to the “forgotten” people of Europe but also evoked a sense of solidarity and
unity in a Church that had been strong in spite of government restrictions. As
Willey writes, John Paul’s words had major ramifications for the continent of
Europe as well, marking “the start of radical political changes which were to mature
all over Eastern Europe a decade later. He was the catalyst for a new vision of
Europe. . . . [and] gave his countrymen the impetus to invent a new challenge to the
seemingly immovable Marxist dictatorship in Warsaw.”20
In Cuba, during his homily at the Plaza de la Revolucion in Havana—which John
Paul referred to by its civic name as “José Martí Square,” a tribute to José Martí, a
19th-century Cuban poet and revolutionary whose statue overlooked the square—
he again employed the mystical language of universal community. This time citing a
passage from 1 Corinthians 12:13, he argued that “by one Spirit we were all baptized
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into one body,” into “the Mystical Body of Christ which is the Church. Jesus Christ
unites all the baptized. From him flows the fraternal love among Cuban Catholics
and Catholics everywhere, since all are ‘the body of Christ and individual members
of it’ (1 Cor 12:27).” While “times and situations may change,” he said, “there are
always people who need the voice of the Church. . . . Those who find themselves in
these situations can be certain that they will not be betrayed, for the Church . . .
embraces all who suffer injustice.”
These statements were important because many Cubans had fled or were planning to flee the country, fragmenting families and adding to the sense of “isolation.”
Already Cuba had been economically if not culturally cut off from the West by
virtue of the embargo and Castro’s own distrust of capitalist nations. Nevertheless,
John Paul used the body metaphor to implore those who were thinking of leaving
to stay—not to splinter the body, as it were. Also, Cubans suffering from economic
and other deprivations could find encouragement in the pope’s claim that they were
not alone, unimportant, or forgotten. Offering them a sense of belonging, he
declared that Cubans were “part of the Universal Church which extends throughout
the whole world,” and the Church “embraced all who suffer injustice.” And the pontiff once again urged the United States to withdraw the embargo, an act that would,
by his reasoning, keep the body intact and healthy.
Furthermore, the remarks were significant because they allowed the pope to reach
out to Cuban exiles in America, an offstage player in all Cuban conflicts. Generally,
older members of this group possessed rigid anti-Castro views and were less eager
for a rapprochement between the Church and Castro’s government. However,
younger members were looking for new ways to reengage with their brethren on the
island.21 John Paul seemed to be telling them all that he wanted the Church to survive and grow in Cuba, not in exile. Like a body without its parts, the Cuban Catholic
community would suffer even more if it remained divided.
Of course, the image of José Martí that the pope conveyed at José Martí Square
recalled for listeners the power of the lasting Church, suggesting that in the end the
Christian body could not be divided. As John Paul described Martí, “The teaching
of José Martí on love between all people had profoundly evangelical roots, and thus
overcame the false conflict between faith in God and love and service to one’s country. . . . This great leader wrote: ‘An irreligious people will die, because nothing in it
encourages virtue.’” The Castro regime tried to “relegate religion to the private
sphere, stripping it of any social influence.” However, the pope was telling Cubans
to realize, as Martí had already appreciated in his own time, that Christianity was
no passing ideology “or a new economic or political system; rather, it is a path of
authentic peace, justice and freedom.”
The implication here was that in lieu of a transcendent source, Castro’s government, chained as it was to secular teaching, with its “irreligious people” or leaders,
would eventually perish; Christianity would win out because its “roots” were
POPE JOHN PAUL II AND THE CRUSADE AGAINST COMMUNISM
701
“profound.” The phrase “evangelical roots” suggested fertility—that Christian tradition was vibrant, passed down through generations, and must be preserved.
Undoubtedly, most anti-Communists in Cuba would have found the pontiff ’s
description helpful as a way of grafting (religiously grounded) morality onto political conduct. Even politically naïve and destitute listeners might have been heartened,
since beneath the poverty and decay of modern Cuba lay a vital Christian root that
would eventually replenish Cuban society. Both groups may have been comforted by
the prediction that Castro’s government would eventually crumble. In this context,
the vigorous nature of Christianity, along with its “authenticity,” contrasted well with
the secular world of communism (and capitalism), where “times and situations”
constantly changed and which could not meet peoples’ genuine needs.
In addition, the pope’s vision of community was critical because it reconnected
groups long divided from one another by both the Cold War and post–Cold War
politics. As Walter Russell Mead described the response of many Cuban Americans
who had witnessed the pope’s visit, “they all appeared to share . . . a profound sense
of connection with a tropical island that many could not even remember. They were
coming home, and if that home remains divided and unhappy, there is still no place
like it.”22 For Catholics remaining on the island, John Paul’s comments spurred
many to organize themselves independently of the government, like local Havana
parishioners who passed out informational leaflets listing the precise gathering
points for groups wishing to welcome the pontiff.23 For them, this was just one
small way in which they could reaffirm their role in a larger Christian community,
a move that contained political ramifications as well.
SACRED TIME
Another purpose of John Paul’s rhetoric was to articulate a perspective capable
of accounting for the suffering incurred under totalitarianism. Such a goal seemed
to demand a transcendent strategy, but did not allow for a simple rejection of secular affairs. Perhaps this is why, as Jamieson and Malady point out, the pope uses
history to support both theological and political arguments and to bring these arguments to bear on present circumstances. In the process, he frequently imposes onto
history what Mircea Eliade calls “sacred time,” a “primordial mythical time made
present,” which effects an immediate and total unification of the field of experience.24 Sacred time is cyclical and discontinuous and is something always there that
we occasionally recover. In Christian theology, sacred time implies that divine powers direct historical processes and events toward certain results. God’s plan for
humans works itself out through a complicated but ever-ongoing process that
moves slowly towards God’s purpose.
John Paul created a sense of sacred time by citing many apparent instances of
Christ’s presence in Polish and Cuban history, each of which suggested that the
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struggle against oppression would lead finally to freedom in both this world and
the next, as God intended. In “The Homily in Victory Square in Warsaw, “ the pontiff explained, “Christ cannot be kept out of the history of man in any part of the
globe. . . . Without Christ it is impossible to understand the history of Poland,
especially the history of the people who have passed or are passing through this
land” (28). Specific historic events and personages illustrated John Paul’s argument. At Gniezno he recognized the contributions that Slavs had made toward “the
Christianization” of Europe (45), and spoke particularly about Saint Wojciech’s
martyrdom (43). In Warsaw he described the achievements of Stanislaus, the
revered 11th-century Polish saint “who paid with his blood for his [Christian] mission on the episcopal chair of Cracow nine centuries ago” (25). “In the
Concentration Camp at Auschwitz,” John Paul mentioned Maximilian Kolbe, the
modern Polish saint who sacrificed his life for a fellow inmate at Auschwitz. The
pope utilized similar analogies in Cuba, applauding the efforts of José Martí in his
“Homily in the José Martí Square of Havana.” Overall, a seamless historical pattern
emerged in his rhetoric, where the “Christianized” past informed the present and
future. “We shall go together along this path of our history,” John Paul said in his
sermon at Gniezno. “We shall go there, thinking of the past, but with our minds
directed towards the future” (45).
On the occasions marked here, the particulars of history were contained within
the higher vision of Christianity. He employed the names of saints and martyrs as
dramatic symbols, showing how they imitated the sufferings of Christ. As
Providence sanctioned Wojciech, Stanislaus, Kolbe, and the revolutionary Marti to
undertake their duty against all odds, so modern-day Poles and Cubans were
expected to discharge their Christian responsibilities in the face of tyranny. The
anguish of Poles and Cubans became a model of the suffering of Christ and was
necessary for the redemption of each nation. Christ would assist them as He assisted
others. Stanislaus and Martí were especially poignant examples, since the
Communists considered them to be rebels against proper authority. Indeed Martí,
who died in battle against his Spanish oppressors, had become the martyred symbol of Cuban aspirations to independence. John Paul assimilated these historical
figures and events into his Christian view. He did not use them to call for holy war,
but clarified the sacrifices necessary for nonviolent protest and even Christian charitable acts. Mentioning them linked Poles and Cubans of all eras in a kind of sacred
pact and characterized each nation’s respective history as a series of holy crusades,
sacrifices, and political protests. This was a pact “sealed” in blood, another compelling symbol in light of Christian beliefs about the Last Supper and Christ’s own
blood sacrifice. “The witness of martyrdom,” John Paul said at Gniezno, “the witness of blood, sealed in a special way the baptism received a thousand years ago by
our forefathers” (43). Peter Osnos observed the effects of John Paul’s pronouncements, particularly on Polish nationalism. He wrote that “Poles believe . . . that now
POPE JOHN PAUL II AND THE CRUSADE AGAINST COMMUNISM
703
even more than before, the [Communist] party will have to reckon with the church
as a spiritual authority and, to the country’s majority, the embodiment of Polish
nationalism.”25
Still, whatever way its decisive importance was understood, God’s purpose in
history would have to be apprehended and worked out in every aspect of secular
life, including political deliberation. In Cuba, John Paul enlisted the example of
Father Felix Varela y Morales in his “Speech at the University of Havana” to guide
Cubans toward democracy. Varela was a popular 19th-century Cuban priest and
patriot who challenged Spanish rule, and also one of the first Cubans to advocate
democracy. As John Paul put it, Varela “realized that, in his time, independence was
an as yet unattainable ideal.” Nevertheless, Varela judged democracy “to be the
political project best in keeping with human nature, while at the same time underscoring its demands,” which included “freedom and responsibility,” “a personally
assimilated ethical code” based in “the heritage of civilization and enduring transcendental values,” and “suitable opportunities to perform . . . [an individual’s] historic role giving substance to the Rule of Law.”
Although no one knew for sure what would happen when Castro died or stepped
down, John Paul seemed to be laying the groundwork for a political transition that
he and many others viewed as inevitable. This groundwork was important because,
as in Poland, ordinary citizens in Cuba had little experience with participatory government. The pontiff legitimated democracy when he agreed with Varela that
democracy was the “political project best in keeping with human nature,” but only
if it was grounded in “the heritage of civilization and enduring transcendent values.” The pope, in other words, advocated democratic reform but he also desired to
restore an old European model of government, one that reconnected morality to
civic life through the reconfiguration of basic institutions. He supported a transformative politics in which running the state was secondary to promoting the virtue
and dignity of individual souls. As he said in his “Speech at the University of
Havana,” “Christ is the way which leads . . . to a society which is more just, more
free, more human, more caring.”
However, because democracy was as yet an “unattainable ideal,” and because it
was uncertain how much more Castro’s government would reform itself or its relationship to the Church, John Paul wanted Cubans to be inspired by what he called
in Havana “a profound Christian spirituality,” which enabled Varela to seek “the
glory of God in all things.” This led Varela to believe in “the power of little things,
in the creative force of seeds of truth, in the appropriateness of changes being made
step by step towards great and authentic reforms.”
Religious rhetoric often identifies the riches that are to be gained in heaven as
recompense for present suffering. In Cuba, however, John Paul seemed to be more
interested in relieving current suffering or alleviating it in the near future. Hence he
offered a mixture of material and spiritual appeals as compensation. There was the
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possibility of political reform and economic assistance if the Communists and the
Americans consented to John Paul’s pleadings. To those for whom there was no
immediate political or economic solace, like the many poor people of Cuba, he
defined the presence of “little things” and the “step by step” passage of secular time
as events revealing “the Glory of God in all things.” Exactly when the “great and
authentic reforms” would transpire was unclear. More important at the moment
was that Cuban Catholics derive comfort from John Paul’s rather poetic gesture
directing them to see that even the “little things” of life were filled with religious significance. Insofar as government officials would have frowned upon such everyday
spiritual meditations, religious worship itself became a form of political protest as
well.
Although John Paul did not advocate it, emancipation in America was possible
for some Cubans. In light of his exhortations, though, many dissidents and Catholic
leaders who stayed behind and had not dared to speak out against Castro’s regime
did so with cautious openness during and immediately after the papal visit. As New
York Times reporter Mirta Ojito explained, old revolutionaries like mechanic Jorge
Garcia now thought of going to church as “not only a spiritual act, but also a political one. He wears his cross all the time . . . because he wants to show that he is a
free man.”26
That religious practice could become a form of dramatic political protest was
exemplified in the way John Paul described his own role as an agent of Christ. His
statements in Poland are illustrative. “Is it not Christ’s will,” he asked during his sermon at Gniezno, “that this Pope, in whose heart is deeply engraved the history of
his own nation from its very beginning and also the history of the brother peoples
and the neighboring peoples, should in a special way manifest and confirm in our
age the presence of these peoples in the Church and their specific contribution to
the history of Christianity” (43)? He continued: “Is it not Christ’s will . . . that this
Polish Pope, this Slav Pope, should at this precise moment manifest the spiritual
unity of Christian Europe” (43)?
It should be remembered that John Paul often employs his autobiography to comment upon religious and political issues. In Poland and Cuba, his autobiographical
comments succeeded, as Osnos observed, “in making each communion with the
people as much a personal embrace as a religious ritual.”27 This was because the
pope, like many Poles and Cubans, had for much of his life as a representative of the
Polish Church openly embraced the responsibilities and physical costs of fighting
oppression. Those who saw him in Cuba viewed a by then frail and sick man who
evidently paid a high physical cost for his work. Castro himself reserved the most sincere respect for John Paul because he demonstrated great physical courage, a virtue
of which the pope gave evidence with every crippled step.28
Inasmuch as these experiences were present to some degree in the consciousness
of his auditors, the pope could do more than create personal bonds. He seemed to
POPE JOHN PAUL II AND THE CRUSADE AGAINST COMMUNISM
705
be joining his audiences in a kind of performance, a miraculous meeting between
the secular and the sacred that would involve Communist listeners as well. His very
presence in Poland and Cuba “enacted” protest against oppression and injustice and
exemplified two crucial points. First, others who wished to be free might yet have to
endure further sacrifice. And second, the oppressors themselves would have to
reckon with powerful historical and cosmological forces beyond their control.29
Especially in Poland, he combined his autobiography as a Slav pope with his audience’s experience of oppression to symbolize religious destiny fulfilled in real time,
the embodiment of “Christ’s will” and the action of a “Slav Pope” who, “at this precise moment [should] manifest the spiritual unity of Christian Europe.”
Moreover, John Paul’s papal speech illustrated that the path of Christian consecration and self-denial triumphed over material conditions. For common Poles and
Cubans, his performance as it came together in the huge public gatherings and
masses amounted as much as anything else to a decisive critique of the Marxist
notion that material structures determine consciousness and action. As one young
Pole said after the pope’s journey, “It is a matter more of how we see ourselves rather
than anything concrete, more unified, more optimistic and able to control what we
do.”30
IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION
While the pope’s apparent triumph of Christianity over communism remains
impressive, the limitations of his papal discourse—specifically, the extent to which
the rhetorical tropes undergirding his Christian vision can be sustained in a
Western world that is still overwhelmingly secular—should be considered. As the
pope defined it, Christian piety was exacting—suffering and sacrifice made
redemption possible in the first place. During the age of communism in Poland,
these appeals were well adapted to the situation, since he reaffirmed that at certain
moments the sacred and the profane are ultimately incompatible, suggesting that
one must sometimes break from the profane world. Thus, his messages often had
an apocalyptic ring, with stories of martyrs whose sacrifices destroyed the old community formula of the tribe and of revenge, and offered a community based on a
new way. After the fall of Polish communism in 1989, the new democratic government reflected the pope’s influence by introducing various pro-Catholic policies,
such as the right to teach religion in schools and the criminalization of abortion.
However, in the years following, Church attendance decreased significantly while
Poles became more materialistic, something John Paul lamented in recent visits to
the nation.31 Undoubtedly, there are several reasons for this trend. One possibility
is that, as Jamieson points out, papal rhetoric can create barriers to communication
by drawing attention to the dramatic symbols themselves and not to the message.32
In Poland, many of those who recalled John Paul’s powerful images of heroism,
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pain, and salvation—or who over the years of his pontificate had observed the toll
that the pope’s holy crusades had taken on him—probably found the idea of additional personal sacrifice untenable. For them, in a post–Cold War society of relative
stability and prosperity, secularism was simply a more attractive short-term option
than religion, as the pope’s embattled and sacrificial vision exemplified it. This may
also be why, after John Paul’s visit to Cuba, many Cubans still flee the nation for the
allure of the materialistic West. Perhaps both groups equated Catholicism with
prodigious sacrifice and hurt, not redemption.
In Cuba, where John Paul asked audiences to believe in changes being made “step
by step towards great and authentic reforms,” the precise meaning of these remarks
continues to be subject to disagreement and thus reveals another limitation of papal
discourse—the inherent ambiguity of religious language. For even though the
pope’s visit brought about tangible religious and political change on the island,
many skeptical Cubans suggested that more significant and long-term political
transformations were either unclearly defined or not at all in the offering. “For
them,” wrote New York Times reporter Rachel L. Swarns, the pope’s departure from
Cuba simply meant “a return to the shortages and difficulties of ordinary life.”33
Yet another limitation is revealed if one considers that John Paul might have
encouraged Catholics to cease protest altogether in favor of a monastic retreat from
the secular world. One Cuban dissident, for instance, complained, “People will go
to the church as a sanctuary. It will strengthen, and [the political opposition] will
weaken.”34 These developments suggest that many audiences, like listeners in Cuba,
construe the religious mythification of history and appeals to salvation in sacred
time as surrogate, temporary, or even false realities. As Roderick P. Hart argues,
rhetoric often acts as a temporal “way station” for those anticipating dramatic political changes, even if or especially when the prospects for change remain remote.35
Still, John Paul’s claims to be an agent of Christ working in Polish and Cuban
history implied what Eliade calls a “hierophony,” an opening to the holy or the
divine, a place where communication with sacred power is made possible.36 It is the
point around which, symbolically speaking, the world rotates. Also, his consecration of national heroes, historical sites, and everyday activities was equivalent to
founding a new world that was at least temporarily free of the evil and chaotic experiences faced by Poles and Cubans. The world’s attention was subsequently drawn
to these nations while Polish and Cuban Catholics themselves gained a renewed
sense of destiny. Their respective struggles, long ignored or appropriated by
Communist authorities, were afforded the respect and adulation with which any
sacred person, site, or action is imbued. In each instance what was sacred was ultimate and what was ultimate was sacred, because things suffused with the sacred
appear to possess the power to threaten and to save, to empower life and give it a
meaning, which the vicissitudes of temporal existence under communism or any
other secular system could not destroy.
POPE JOHN PAUL II AND THE CRUSADE AGAINST COMMUNISM
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As for the uncertainty of the Cold War situation or the widely predicted instability of the post–Cold War world, the pope translated geopolitical conflicts into
terms consistent with the unchanging religious identity of his Catholic auditors.
Inhabiting sacred and not only secular time, his audiences could expect to fall back
upon the primal truths of their religious beliefs and therefore cope with whatever
exigencies might arise. As Thomas M. Lessl says, religious rhetoric often transcends
“the ordinary logic of political deliberation (in which actions are conceptualized in
terms of their outcomes), and . . . favor[s] those judgments which are based on the
religious understanding of self that such a prophetic posture would evoke.”37
At the same time, John Paul’s revival of ancient Christian symbols shows that a
church under persecution holds to all signs and rituals as acts of resistance.
Especially important were the interactions between John Paul and the masses of
people who assembled to listen to his speeches or to watch him conduct the
Catholic liturgy. These gatherings suggest that real Christian-political communities
can be instantiated in otherwise profane, restrictive environments. The pope’s audiences knew that even his most oblique references were barely disguised assaults on
the Polish and Cuban governments. He gave them religious images through which
to ruminate about and openly discuss their oppressive conditions and the meaning
of even the seemingly most insignificant events. The politically emboldened among
them could find reasons to pursue ever more pronounced forms of protest, while
the meek could find solace in “the little things.” Insofar as John Paul’s audiences
came together to think or talk among themselves about his dissident messages and
deeds, and to plan for future action, the pope’s religious gatherings also constituted
a form of rudimentary democratic organization and resistance. As Anna Husarska
remarks, a major achievement of John Paul’s papal rhetoric is that it “may end up
serving to mobilize people, to help them shake off their inertia, and act as an independent community, even if they are starting with only small things.”38
NOTES
1. David Willey, God’s Politician: John Paul at the Vatican (London: Faber & Faber, 1992), 1. The pope’s
role in the destruction of communism has been investigated by Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi, His
Holiness: John Paul II and the Hidden History of Our Time (New York: Doubleday, 1996); Eamon
Duffy, Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997); Michael
Walsh, John Paul II (London: HarperCollins, 1994); and George Weigel, The Final Revolution: The
Resistance Church and the Collapse of Communism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992) and
Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (New York: HarperCollins/Cliff Books, 1999).
2. See Kathleen Hall Jamieson, “The Metaphoric Cluster in the Rhetoric of Pope Paul VI and Edmund
G. Brown, Jr.,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 66 (1980): 51–72.
3. Margaret Melady, The Rhetoric of Pope John Paul II: The Pastoral Visit As a New Vocabulary of the
Sacred (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1999), 18.
4. Jamieson, “Metaphoric Cluster,” 64–66.
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5. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, “Papal Rhetoric,”America, May 24, 1980, 444.
6. Malady, The Rhetoric, 153.
7. Carl Wayne Hensley, “Rhetorical Vision and the Persuasion of a Historical Movement: The Disciples
of Christ in Nineteenth Century American Culture,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 61 (1975): 264.
8. Melady, The Rhetoric, 45. The pope’s speeches, sermons, and remarks during official meetings in
Poland are collected in Valerio Volpini, Return to Poland: The Collected Speeches of John Paul II
(Vatican City, Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1979). Volpini is the editor of the official Vatican
newspaper, L’Obsservatore Romano. The English translations of John Paul’s messages that appear in
Volpini’s book were made by Vatican translators, who distribute translations of the pope’s discourse
to journalists, historians, and other scholars interested in the pope’s work. Most of John Paul’s
translated speeches also appear on the Vatican’s official website. In order to assure the reliability of
translations, I have wherever possible checked Volpini’s and the Vatican’s translations against those
that appear in the New York Times, in the Washington Post, in other papal websites, and in the work
of historians who have catalogued John Paul’s visits to Poland and Cuba. All page numbers for the
speeches in Poland appear in parenthesis in the text and refer to Volpini’s collection.
9. Kenneth A. Briggs, “Pope Visit Adds to Fervor of Young Poles,” New York Times, June 4, 1979, 10.
10. John Paul’s messages in Cuba are translated from Spanish to English and are located on the Vatican
website. The messages in Cuba include: “The Holy Father’s Arrival Speech,” <http://www.vatican.va/h
. . . havana-arrival.shtml> (1998); “Homily at Santa Clara,” <http:///www.vatican.va/h . . . sa-santaclara_en.shtml> (1998) ; “Speech at the University of Havana,” <http://www.vatican.va/ha . . .
havana-culture_en.shtml> (1998); “Homily in the José Martí Square of Havana,” <http://www.vatican.va/h . . . 11998_lahavana_en.shtml> (1998); “Homily at Camaguey,”
<http:www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_ . . . hom_23011998_lahavana-camaguey_en.html> (1998);
“Message of the Holy Father to the Young People of Cuba,” <http://www.vatican.va/h . . . laavanayouth_en.shtml> (1998); and “Farewell Address in Havana,” <http://www.vatican.va/h . . . vanadeparture_en.shtml>. The pope’s remarks at the “Mass in Santiago de Cuba” are located in Celestine
Bohlen, “Pope Urges ‘Public Debate’ for Cubans,” <http://www.nytimes.com . . . 12598pope-cubardp.html> (1998).
11. Quoted in Hayes Ferguson, “Post-Papal Cubans Hoping for Changes,” The Times-Picayune,
February 1, 1998, A1.
12. Georgie Anne Geyer, “Re-Christianizing Cuba,” Denver Post, January 30, 1998, B-07.
13. Quoted in Lorenzo Albacete, “The Poet and the Revolutionary,” The New Yorker, January 26, 1998,
40.
14. Albacete, “The Poet,” 40.
15. Alcabete, “The Poet,” 37.
16. Jamieson, “The Metaphoric Cluster,” 56–59; and Melady, The Rhetoric, 142–45.
17. Jamieson, “The Metaphoric Cluster,” 61.
18. Walsh, John Paul II, 59.
19. Jamieson, “The Metaphoric Cluster,” 56.
20. Willey, God’s Politician, 232.
21. Albacete, “The Poet,” 38–39.
22. See Walter Russell Mead, “The Pope: The Coming Shift in U.S.–Cuba Relations,” Buffalo News,
February 1, 1998, 5H.
23. See Anna Husarska, “Miracle in Havana?” The Gazette, February 7, 1998, B3.
POPE JOHN PAUL II AND THE CRUSADE AGAINST COMMUNISM
709
24. I have relied here on Michael Leff ’s discussion of Eliade and sacred time. See Michael Leff,
“Dimensions of Temporality in Lincoln’s Second Inaugural,” Communication Reports 1 (1988):
29–30. See also Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane (New York: Harper and Row, 1961),
68–69.
25. Peter Osnos, “Pope’s Impact in Visit Home Unlikely to Fade,” New York Times, June 10, 1979, A1.
26. Mirta Ojito, “In Cuba, A Rebel Finds Spiritual Rebirth in Faith He Forsook,”
<http://www.nytimes.com/ . . . 698pope-cuba-react.html> (1998). Other positive effects of John
Paul’s visit to Cuba included the release of some political prisoners, more freedom for the Catholic
Church, and increased criticism of the American embargo in the United States. For analysis of these
and other changes see “Loosening Castro’s Grip,” Christian Science Monitor, January 27, 1998, 20;
and “Glimmer of Change in Cuba,” Los Angeles Times, February 17, 1998, 4.
27. Osnos, “Pope’s Impact,” A1.
28. See Alma Guillermoprieto, “A Visit to Havana,” The New York Review of Books, March 26, 1998, 19.
In Poland John Paul witnessed firsthand the deprivations of totalitarianism, initially under the Nazis
during World War II and then under the Soviets afterward. As a young man he had written and organized clandestine theatre during the German occupation. As a Polish priest he represented the concerns of his parishioners and ministered to their spiritual needs during the Communist takeover.
29. Campbell and Jamieson refer to this as a personal “enactment,” a rhetorical form in which the bodily presentation of the speaker is itself proof of the speaker’s argument. See Karlyn Kohrs Campbell
and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, eds., Form and Genre: Reshaping Rhetorical Action (Falls Church, Va.:
Speech Communication Association, 1978), 9.
30. Quoted in Peter Osnos, “Pope’s Impact,” A1.
31. For analysis of recent political, religious, and economic trends in Poland, see Elizabeth Pond,
“Miracle on the Vistula,” Washington Quarterly (1998): 32–45; and Czeslaw Milosz, “A Theocratic
State?” The New Republic, July 8, 1991, 27–32.
32. Jamieson, “Papal Rhetoric,” 444.
33. See Rachel L. Swarns, “The Pious and the Curious Share Historic Moment,”
<http://www.nytimes.com/ . . . 12698cuba-notebook.html> (1998).
34. Quoted in Collier, “Dreams of Protest,” A8.
35. Roderick P. Hart, “The Function of Human Communication in the Maintenance of Public Values,”
in Handbook of Rhetorical and Communication Theory, ed. Carroll C. Arnold and John Waite
Bowers (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1984), 764. Another limitation of John Paul’s rhetoric is that
while it recognized the importance of the respective religious traditions of Poles and Cubans, and
combined local religious and national symbols, the pope’s discourse nonetheless imposed a
Catholic interpretation on history and political affairs. Individuals recovering from subjugation
may require the restoration of truth in the modes of nationalism and Christian faith. However, his
strategy ignored the fact that not all Catholics agree on how to use Catholic standards to interpret
or adapt to changing social and political conditions. Also, sanctifying history in strongly sectarian
as opposed to general civil religious terms is probably not as effective in nations where there is little political tumult and the sources of political deliberation are grounded in more secular traditions.
36. See Eliade, The Sacred.
37. Thomas M. Lessl, “The Social Implications of Genre: A Burkean Interpretation of Aristotle,” Speaker
and Gavel 34 (1997): 9.
38. Husarska, “Miracle,” B3. This movement toward democracy is a notable development if one considers that, as Thomas Noble points out, popes in recent decades have taken a dim view of democracy because they have been “the leaders of a Church that democratic governments were legislating
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out of almost every realm of life from marriage to school.” Writing in the encyclicals Veritatis
Splendor and Centesimus Annus, John Paul himself has argued that democratic vote never determines absolute truth. Nevertheless, he appears to believe that democracy is the most just form of
government. His speeches in Poland and Cuba can be interpreted as attempts to establish a basic
condition of participatory democracy, the right of assemblage. See Thomas Noble, “Popes for All
Seasons,” First Things, October 1998, 40.