Whether you love him, hate him, or can’t quite figure him out, there is no denying that Pope John Paul II has left his mark on both the church and the world during the last twenty years. Certainly one indication of the pope’s stature was the decision of PBS’s prestigious series "Frontline" to inaugurate its new season with a two-and-a-half-hour examination of Karol Wojtyla’s life and papacy on September 28. When it comes to the intricacies of history and the paradoxes of personality, television has inherent limitations. But "John Paul II: The Millennial Pope" was for the most part a visually and dramatically compelling portrait of a complicated, and contradictory, man.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the broadcast was the varied cast of commentators "Frontline" gathered to offer perspectives on someone all agreed is one of the seminal figures of the age. In addition to the more familiar suspects, including University of Cambridge historian Eamon Duffy, Wojtyla biographer (with Carl Bernstein) Marco Politi, reporter Robert Suro, writer James Carroll, and Jewish scholar Arthur Hertzberg, "Frontline" solicited the views of novelist Robert Stone, modern Europe expert Tony Judt, feminist Germaine Greer, and physicist David Berlinski. If the commentaries on the pope’s Marian devotion and opposition to abortion were predictably reductive and psychologized, "Frontline" avoided pat formulations for the most part. Still, the outlandish did put in an appearance. Hans Küng was trotted out to make one of his patented over-the-top indictments, charging the pope with responsibility "for innumerable abortions" because of his position on birth control. For the defense, Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete contended with equal exaggeration that just "a glimpse of this man can mean...[one’s] whole life changes and hope is possible."
Sometimes the same expert is heard getting one thing right only to get the next thing wrong. Germaine Greer was extravagant and compelling on the power of liturgy but sophomoric on God’s responsibility for evil. Tony Judt was defeated in trying to explain the pope’s views about women in light of his Marian piety. However, in summing up John Paul’s broader significance Judt proved sure-footed. "His legacy is the debate," Judt said. "His legacy is the angry conversation that he provoked over faith vs. modernity....He has forced upon his opponents a conversation that they would never have had with the previous popes. And in terms which were his terms. And he did, to that degree, shape the conversation at the end of the millennium in a way no one else has."
Much emphasis was placed, rightly, on John Paul’s efforts to bring Jews and Catholics together in the wake of the Holocaust and to disavow anti-Semitism in unmistakable terms. Pointedly, the program alleges that the pope himself did nothing overt to help the Jews during the Nazi occupation of Poland. This sin of omission, it is suggested, is one reason for his unprecedented gestures of remorse and good will toward the Jewish community. With the exception of an egregious bit of speculation by feminist Marina Warner about a connection between the Holocaust and the pope’s opposition to abortion (she also offers a prochoice interpretation of the Annunciation!), John Paul’s deeply felt connection to Judaism was well conveyed.
"The Millennial Pope" also shows how profoundly the Romantic nationalism of Poland has shaped John Paul and how shrewdly he used his instinctive understanding of his countrymen to confront and eventually defeat totalitarian communism. More perfunctory was "Frontline’s" effort to explain the pope’s condemnation of liberation theology. Although John Paul’s uncomprehending treatment of Archbishop Oscar Romero deserves censure, the program too easily conflates the very different crises in El Salvador and Nicaragua. Yes, in some sense John Paul’s experience of Soviet communism blinded him to the possibility of good in Marxist-influenced liberation theology. His refusal to listen to Romero, who was no wild-eyed radical, was a profound tragedy. However, the effort of Nicaragua’s Sandinistas to subordinate the church to "the revolution" was nothing the pope could tolerate. "Frontline" didn’t keep these two issues straight.
"The Millennial Pope" is even less discriminating in trying to come to terms with John Paul’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Since Marian piety is as old as the church itself, and historically more popular among women than men, attributing John Paul’s devotion merely to some ill-defined psychological need for a maternal protector and refuge is hardly persuasive. The way in which the pope’s Marianism is linked to his views on abortion and ordination is equally clichéd and simplistic. The idea that Mary’s incorruptibility might have more to do with how the Christian hope for bodily resurrection sanctifies human physical intimacy than with denigrating female sexuality never seems to have crossed anyone’s mind at "Frontline." As a consequence, the program’s discussion of the pope and women is patronizing and self-satisfied.
Yet just as you might be about to give up on "The Millennial Pope" it surprises you. Robert Stone’s remarks early in the program about the supposedly devastating effects John Paul’s policies have had on morale within the church seemed hyperbolic and ill-informed. "This pope is killing them," Stone says of his still-practicing Catholic friends, "he’s destroying their religion. He’s destroying their belief and he’s destroying their faith." This overestimates the pope’s power while underestimating the resiliency of most Catholics. Stone shows a much firmer grasp of reality when he voices his own reservations about abortion. "He’s on to something," he says of the pope’s defense of the unborn. "It’s-there’s a contradiction there...that we have to deal with....The ending of life, even fetal life, for the convenience of an individual, does tend toward a situation in which living people can be killed for the convenience of individuals."
It is always refreshing to hear the truth spoken plainly. And that, of course, is what millions have responded to in hearing John Paul II speak out in the defense of human dignity. If you missed "The Millennial Pope" on its first showing, keep an eye out for a possible rerun. John Paul II’s life, "Frontline" reminds us, "is a journey that says as much about us as it does about him."
