Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: When John Paul II went into Poland in June of 1979, he lit a fire. It's kind of like if, if you've got gas, heat, right? There's always this little pilot light. Well, what he did was he reignited that pilot light and it burst into flame. He reawakened this sense of God in the hearts of the polish people.
You.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Welcome to the catholic theology show presented by Ave Maria University. This podcast is sponsored in part by Annunciation Circle, a community that supports the mission of Ave Maria University through their monthly donations of $10 or more. If you'd like to support this podcast and the mission of Ave Maria University, I encourage you to visit avemaria.edu Join for more information.
I'm your host, Michael Doffiney, and today I am joined by Patrick Novakovsky, the author of 100 ways that John Paul to change the World. So welcome to the show.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: Great to be with you, Michael.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: Great to have you here, Patrick. And Patrick Novakowski is also the executive director of the Warrington Pregnancy center in Warrington, Virginia. He is also the founder of Media, a public relations firm specializing in helping catholic groups really develop their stories and communicate their messages. He also served as Legatis magazine's editor in chief for over twelve years.
And it's just great to have you on the show, Patrick, and to be able to talk about really one of our common heroes. Indeed, St. John Paul the Great.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: Indeed, I often say that Ave Maria University wouldn't exist without John Paul II.
Tom on had met J. P. Two for the first time, May 7, 1987, looked into his eyes and was transformed. He was already on a faith journey toward his rebirth of his faith. And I think at that moment he knew that's where he got the idea for Legatis, that moment, that day, May 7, 1987. But it was also a time where he understood that he needed to do something with the influence and the platform that God had given him. And Ave Maria was born out of that encounter with J. P. Two.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: That's really beautiful. And of course, Ave Maria University itself has the fetus at Razio Excorde eclasier very tied to splendor, right. These great encyclicals or apostolic teachings by John Paul II, excorteclasier on that catholic universities come from the heart of the church, right. That there's not a fundamental contradiction between the church and learning in universities. Faith and reason. Right? Again, there's not a fundamental contradiction between our faith and our reason. It's actually faith that helps us understand that reason can come to know the truth and has come to know the truth in the person of Jesus Christ. And then Veritat is splendor. Right again. That the truth has a kind of splendor to it that can guide us in the moral life.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: Indeed.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: And these great teachings are both not only part of the very crest of the university, but have also been the inspirations indeed.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: And they're a magnet. They're a magnet for young people who are hungry for the truth. And one of the things I love about John Paul II is his passion for young people. I'll never forget the world youth day where he was on the stage. He was very tired. He wanted to go home. And the young people started chanting, stay with us. Stay with us. J. P. Two, we love you. And he came up to the microphone, he said, j. P. Two, he loves you. And they just erupted. He just had this.
He was so charismatic. I mean, I always say Elvis and John Paul II, the two men of the 20th century who had the most charisma just dripping from their fingertips, and John Paul II used it as a magnet for Jesus.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: Now, you have written and spoken about John Paul II countless. I mean, I don't know, probably what you've given probably 50 to 100 talks on John Paul II across your career.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: And a couple of dozen podcasts and radio interviews. Yeah, it's kind of been my passion. So part of my backstory is I worked for the Marions of the Immaculate Conception in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, from 1996, actually, to 2001. And in that five years, I met John Paul II five times, three private audiences and twice in St. Peter's Square. And those encounters are coupled with a dream that I had of him. An embrace with him, actually, when I was 16 years old. He visited Canada in 1984, and I was your typical teenager. I was 16 years old. I went to mass every Sunday with my parents confession once in a while. But it was wall to wall coverage of J. P. Two. First pope ever to visit Canada. Young, vibrant, dynamic pope who had already changed the world. 1984. And one morning, I woke up and had this profound dream that he visited my house. He embraced me. And so when I met him for the first time, I wanted to give him that hug in person. I asked my friend, my boss, the Marians, if I could do that, and he said, probably not a good idea.
Even though I didn't get that chance to embrace him, I know what that felt like because I carry that dream, a 16 year old me, with me every day. And interesting how that dream led to my career in journalism, led to my five encounters with John Paul II, and ultimately realizing that God was also calling me to use my talents and my experiences to kind of be a megaphone for John Paul II. He's been gone for 18 years now, almost 19 years. And we're talking about Francis a lot. We're still talking about Benedict, but we can't forget the teachings of John Paul II. We have to continue to amplify them in the culture. College students now were either little babies when he died or not even born yet. So we still need to unpack his teachings because it's so deep. There's so much there, the encyclicals that you mentioned, but also his history of giving us St. Faustina, the divine mercy message, and his unpacking of what Jesus asked of Faustina when he asked her to prepare the world for his second coming. That's a big deal. And John Paul II recognized that he had a hand in Providence to give that message to the world. And there's just so much more. That's just one little piece of who he was and what he did. And we have to continue to talk about that.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: Now. This book, published by our Sunday visitor Press, has actually a hundred different ways that John Paul II read has changed the world. And it's very, I think, very readable each way gets about a page or two. So kind of a quick summary that kind of allows you to, I think, the reader just to kind of really, in a way, get a sense for the forest by looking at 100 of the trees. Yes, I want to take your top ten that you have here and actually go through them. But before we do, maybe just again for maybe students who might be listening, or again, just older people who might remember John Paul II. But what are some key kind of aspects of his biography, both growing up, but then what are some major kind of themes or maybe events from his papacy?
[00:08:03] Speaker A: Sure. Well, let's start with his childhood, actually, because he was formed in the crucible of the Second World War. His mother died when he was nine years old. His brother died when he was twelve.
His father died shortly after he started college. I think he was 21. So he was born in the small town of Adavitza, Poland.
Grew up surrounded by jewish boys. As a matter of fact, he loved to play soccer. And quite often the jewish boys didn't have enough players, so he would play goalie for them. And they called him Lolek. And he was, in a sense, like an only child. So he had an older brother, a much older brother who was a doctor and died when he was twelve. And his mother was not there anymore, so he gravitated toward friendships. And when his mother died, his father introduced him to our lady, who had already been part of his spirituality, but kind of as a surrogate mother.
And then he was 18 years old. He moved to Krakow. He moved in September of 1938, and in November of 1938, St. Faustina died in the same city. So they actually lived in the same city for a few months before her death. And then the german tanks rolled into Poland, and he ended up being a worker in a couple of different places, a laborer, and also in an underground seminary. One thing that we forget is that he decided he was going to be an actor. His friends were shocked that this talented, charismatic young man was going toward the priesthood when he had this visible talent of being on stage and captivating people and telling stories on stage. But when those german tanks rolled in and Poland became essentially a satellite of the Soviet Union, it was a pivotal moment for him. First of all, when his father died while he was in college, that was a pivotal moment. But I think it gave him this awakening that I need to devote myself fully to God and to things of God. And the priesthood was calling. We do forget, though, that joining the seminary under the nazi regime in Poland during the war was a death sentence. They were rounding up priests and seminarians and regularly shooting them. And so he was taking his life in his hands by embracing his vocation. And that's a very foreign concept to those of us who live in the very free United States. So that formed John Paul II. He saw the horrors of the Second World War. And I really think that the golden thread that runs through his papacy is the inherent dignity of the human person who is man. He was a philosopher, and he developed this philosophy of the human being, the dignity of the human being, every human being created in God's image and likeness from the time of conception to natural death.
And he unpacked that in virtually everything that he did, everything that he said, everything that he wrote, elevated the human person.
[00:11:11] Speaker B: And, of course, in 1945, when Poland is liberated from the National Socialists of Germany, right, it's actually Stalin and the Soviet Union who come in, indeed, and occupy Poland for the next 45 years.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: And things did not get better. After the Soviet Union takeover of Poland, the oppression of the human person continued. And when he was elected pope in 1978, his greatest desire was to return to Poland. He was elected in October of 1978. He wanted to go back in May of 1978, but it was the anniversary of Stanislaw. I forget which anniversary, but it was an anniversary of St. Stanislaw, the patron of Poland. And the Soviets didn't want him to kind of amplify that message. They had spent decades trying to suppress Catholicism in Poland and throughout the Soviet Union. But Poland has a catholic heart, and they could not kill the Catholicism in Poland as much as they tried.
They also tried to prevent him from coming. But how do you prevent a pope from returning to his homeland?
It was impossible for them to even have any authenticity on the world stage and to say, no, the gates are closed to the leader of the Catholic Church. So he came in June of 1979 as a conquering hero. The Soviets tried their best to suppress the message on tv. They only showed little old ladies. They didn't show the wide shot of the millions of people. I think it was about a third of Poland came out to see him in person in June of 1979. Those nine days were a hinge point not only in his papacy, but I think a hinge point in human history, because Ronald Reagan was at his office in LA watching the tv coverage of John Paul II. And if you remember, during the 1950s and particular, there were two very loud voices exposing the evils of communism, Ronald Reagan and Fulton Sheen. Reagan's watching this, and he says out loud, the pope is the key. And his aides were like, excuse me, and he said, the pope is the key to ending of the. And he was at the time preparing his run for the presidency. So one of the first things that he did when he was elected was to establish diplomatic relations with the Holy See, and that led to his friendship with John Paul II, which led to eventually, after a few years, just over a decade, the end of the Soviet Union.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I think there's that book, nine days that changed the world.
[00:14:04] Speaker A: Yes. Nick Gingrich documentary. But there's also a pope and a president by Paul Kangor, which.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: And Paul Kangor is the one who wrote the forward to your book. Yeah, the pope and the president.
[00:14:14] Speaker A: A pope and a president. And I've read it two, three times already. And if you really want to understand the 20th century through a catholic lens, I really think there's no better book.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: And it is so interesting because I think some people who are aware of the fall of the Soviet Union and kind of the fall of communism see it kind of just that, well, we outproduced the west, out produced the east. That's part of it.
We had better gadgets and better widgets, and we made a lot more of them. And so our factories were growing, their factories were shrinking, and it was an economic victory. And in many ways, that's obviously a part of things.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: Indeed.
[00:14:55] Speaker B: But again, that's just not an actual and just historically, it's not an adequate explanation, because part of what happened in these eastern european countries, especially in Poland. Right, was a recovery and this incredible resilience, a refusal to forget a memory, in a way, about their catholic heritage, that the human person was created free by God.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: Indeed.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: And before any regime, no regime has the final claim, and that's what the Soviet Union claimed.
[00:15:33] Speaker A: Indeed. Indeed. So when John Paul II went into Poland in June of 1979, I always call it the first crack in the Iron Curtain, he lit a fire under Catholic. It's kind of like if you've got gas, heat, right? There's always this little pilot light. Well, what he did was he reignited that pilot light and it burst into flame during one of his homilies in, I think it was in Krakow during his homily. He wasn't talking about anything political. He was talking about this flame of light in each human heart that yearns for the Lord and the entire audience, the congregation, million people started chanting, we want God, we want God. And he didn't say, hold down now. I've got something to say here. He just kind of stood back from the microphone and let them go. They needed to express that and he allowed them to express that. He reawakened this sense of God in the hearts of the polish people.
And that spread like wildfire. Ten years and a few months later, the Berlin Wall fell. So he was there in June of 79, November of 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, and that was the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. Yeah.
[00:16:53] Speaker B: So in your book, as you go over 100 different things, but you do go through the top ten, and so I want to go through them.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:17:02] Speaker B: And we'll see. So let's just start with number ten.
Number ten, devotion to Mary.
[00:17:07] Speaker A: Yeah. So he always had a Marian heart. And I think his. I mentioned earlier that the death of his mother when he was nine years old, his father would quite often take him to Our lady of Chestahova, the shrine at Yasnagora, where the black Madonna is. And he came back there, I think it was in 1979, and he said, how many times have I come to you here and poured out my heart, totus tuis. Completely yours. So he took the episcopal motto, totus tuis, when he became a bishop in 1958. And his papal coat of arms is essentially the same as.
Papal coat of arms is same as his episcopal coat of arms with the m for Mary. And the cross and the totus tuis and St. Louis de Montfort kind of lit the spark of his marian theology. Great devotion to St. Louis de Montfort and his true devotion to Mary. So that's where that came from. So he gave us a Marion encyclical, I think it was 1987, gave us a Marion year, 87, 80.
You could tell just his passion for our lady.
There was an assassination attempt on his life in May of 1981, on the feast of Our lady of Fatima. He said very clearly, one hand fired the bullet, another hand guided the bullet, completely understood that our lady saved his life, and a year later went to Fatima, had the bullet that was closest to his heart extracted and welded into the crown in Fatima, still there to this day.
[00:18:48] Speaker B: Yeah, it's really amazing.
And for people who are interested, a really wonderful, huge book on John Paul II is called a witness to hope by George Weigel.
But in there he even talks to that. He says that when John Paul II wanted to put an m on his coat of arms, the papal coat of arms, they said, we don't do that.
And he just was kind of like, well, I'm going to. Because it was like he wanted just an know for Mary and that sense of. Right. Totus tuis, totally yours. Totally yours. And the interesting thing, too, is that John Paul II is not only probably one of the most marian popes, he also turns out to be one of the most christological popes. Right. He's always about proclaiming Jesus Christ, that Jesus Christ is the center of everything.
Right? Like, even in his beautiful veritatus splendor, where he deals with very complex topics of moral theology, at the heart of it is Jesus'call of the rich young man. He says, all of moral theology is the sequela christi, the following of Christ. Will you give up everything and follow me? So he always sees Mary oriented to Jesus Christ. And in some ways, too, if we think about that in part, in different ways, in the. There was kind of a little bit of a marian recession. Yes, there was in theology and in catholic Catholics maybe had so emphasized Mary. There was a lot of confusion after the council and a lot of real, just confusion in the doctrinally and culturally and culturally, Mariology began to. But in some ways, you can kind of say John Paul II is one of the people who kept this kind of beautiful tradition of marian theology, especially among the Dominicans, Louis de Monfort and Garagula Grande, who was his dissertation director at the Angelicum. Anyway, so I think he really has this beautiful thing. And of course, he ends up adding five mysteries.
[00:20:50] Speaker A: Yes, indeed.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: To the.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: Which is also in my top ten.
[00:20:53] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. Oh, that's another one. Okay, well, we'll get there then, soon. So let's go to number nine unpacking Vatican two.
[00:21:00] Speaker A: Yeah. So John Paul II was one of the most active fathers of the council, kind of behind the scenes. He was one of the youngest bishops. He was appointed a bishop in 1958. So six years later, it was 64 that the council began.
Very young bishop, but brilliant bishop, and he really distinguished himself.
Honestly. One of my theories is that the bishops who became cardinals in the early 70s remembered Voitiwa from the council and his genius and his charism, his charismatic. His charismatic personality.
And when it came time to elect a new pope after the death of John Paul I, they thought, remember Voitiwa? Right. So very active.
He helped form the dogmatic constitution in the council and the.
Thank you. The pastoral constitution. And also cardinal. Well, Bishop Ratzinger, not even. He was Father Ratzinger at the time. Both of these men were part of the council. They didn't meet until the conclave that elected John Paul I. Both then cardinals, Cardinal Ratzinger and Cardinal Foitiwa. But George Weigel made it very clear that the council was in continuity with the church's tradition. John Paul II really unpacked the council through his 26 and a half years as pope. One thing that I discovered in researching for the book is that almost every document that he wrote, every encyclical, many of his letters always referenced the council. So he had 26 and a half years to teach the council. Paul VI had other issues to deal with in the. He couldn't effectively teach the council. So I think really that's one of the reasons God gave us Carol Voitiwa, John Paul II was because this council needed to be taught properly. It needed to have someone who was a master teacher, someone who understood it, was intimate with it, who could teach us that the church needed to really adapt, in a sense, to the modern age in the way it communicated the.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: Gospel message, and also that the modern age needed Jesus.
[00:23:25] Speaker A: Indeed.
[00:23:25] Speaker B: It's such a beautiful thing. And he's always citing Gaudy Mesbez, 22, I think, and where it's basically, it's only in the mystery of the word incarnate that the mystery of the man is made fully, is revealed to himself.
[00:23:36] Speaker A: Indeed.
[00:23:37] Speaker B: And that basically Jesus, of course, reveals us to ourselves by revealing to us the heart of the father.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: Indeed.
[00:23:44] Speaker B: And this is really our vocation. And apart from Jesus, without the creator, the creature vanishes. And so again, you go back to the text of Vatican, too. They're very challenging to the modern culture. They're saying the modern culture has gone down a path that will not end well and it needs to return.
But again, there was that tendency in the perhaps to this day of people who would emphasize that the council was fundamentally a rupture, discontinuity. And you quote here, right, in 2000 he wrote this, that we have to interpret the council in reality as it stands in continuity with the faith of all times. To interpret it as though it marks a break is a definite mistake indeed. And so it's like, again, he just is kind of, we have to interpret it in continuity. So let's go ahead and take a break and then we'll return and go.
[00:24:36] Speaker A: Through the top eight indeed.
[00:24:38] Speaker B: Thanks for being on the show.
[00:24:46] Speaker C: You're listening to the catholic theology show presented by Ave Maria University and sponsored in part by Annunciation Circle. Through their generous donations of $10 or more per month, Annunciation circle members directly support the mission of AMU to be a fountainhead of renewal for the church through our faculty, staff, students and alumni. To learn more, visit avemaria.edu join thank you for your continued support. And now let's get back to the show.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: Welcome back to the Catholic Theology show. I'm Michael Dolphine, your host, and today I am pleased to be joined by Patrick Novakowski, the author of a hundred Ways John Paul II changed the world. So thanks for being on the show today.
[00:25:28] Speaker A: Good to be here.
[00:25:29] Speaker B: And so glad that you're not only an author.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: Right.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: But also somebody who's kind of helping to work in the new evangelization as the director of a crisis pregnancy center. Yes. That's a real gift. And you've been doing that for five years now?
[00:25:41] Speaker A: Three. Okay.
[00:25:42] Speaker B: And you've been involved in the pro life movement for at least five years.
[00:25:46] Speaker A: For many directly for five years.
[00:25:48] Speaker B: Five years. That's wonderful to be serving in that capacity. So we're going through the top ten ways that John Paul II changed the world. And number eight, the culture of life.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
So John Paul II coined the phrase culture of life. I think it probably had been expressed before by others, but he really brought it to the fore early kind of in the middle of his papacy. I think in 1993 he addressed the culture of life at World Youth Day in Denver. But he also wrote very profoundly, and I talked about this before, that really the golden thread running through his teaching was the inherent dignity of the human person. And I mentioned, too that he had been formed in the crucible of the second World War and lived as a priest and seminarian, priest and bishop under the soviet government that was running Poland, and saw the inhumanity of man to man and understood that that was distant from what we were created for. And at heart, he was a philosopher. So he said, we really need a true anthropology of the human person. And I think he gave that to us in his writings. In developing this idea of the culture of life. We need to build a culture of life where every human life is respected from conception to natural death. And I always say that even beyond natural death, because we deal with the human body after death with great dignity, and that's enshrined in law. So it's well beyond natural death that we deal with the human person with great dignity.
[00:27:30] Speaker B: And when he writes that encyclical in 1995, evangelium vitae, the Gospel of life.
[00:27:37] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:27:38] Speaker B: Where he contrasts the culture of life with the culture of death. And again, after having experienced the Nazis and having in the 90s, now the west has. We no longer have the cold War, right? It's this great moment of triumph. But he directs his attention to the whole world and including the West, Europe and thing, and says, you are falling into the culture of death. Indeed, this is not something that was just part of the oppressive Soviet Union. This is actually something that is infecting our common western heritage. A disdain of the human person, the willingness for society to say that some people, either the aged or the unfit or the unborn, that we can dispense with them.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: Right? And he did contrast, as you said, with the culture of death. And when he talked about the culture of death, he expressed very clearly that it was the strong against the weak who had no choice but to submit. He wrote that in Evangelion. Vite, that that's what the culture of death is, the strong against the weak who have no choice. I mean, the other side, the culture of death. Folks talk about this being pro choice, but their choice is to oppress the weak, the unborn, the elderly, the sick, those who are unable to defend themselves.
And that's the culture of death. It's the oppression of the human person rather than the elevation of the human person.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: Exactly. And even sometimes, and this, I think what can be counterintuitive is even themselves, I don't have a right to dispense with myself because I am a gift. Others are gifts. So there's such a rich thing. And again, I love it. Not only, though condemning the culture of death, but calling for the culture of life.
[00:29:37] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:29:37] Speaker B: And so there's this every time. I think John Paul II creates a problem, he always creates a solution. And the solution is to recover life in Jesus Christ. So I'm going to go over the next three or four kind of quickly. Okay, just so we get through this. So, number seven, world Youth Day.
[00:29:53] Speaker A: Yeah. So he had this idea in the mid 80s.
Let me take a step back. As a young priest, Carol Voitiwa would minister to young people, and he always had a heart for young people. I think he was always young at heart. But during the soviet era, as a young priest, he would often take young people out camping, kayaking, hiking. And you have to remember that this was a culture of oppression, that they were living, a political oppression, where young people were afraid. Their parents had been through this war, they had seen war as children, and now they're teenagers and young men and women, and they're afraid to ask the tough questions. The questions, who am I? How am I created? How does God fit into all this? Questions about sexuality? So once they're out of the city, away from prying eyes and listening ears, they're free to ask these questions of this charismatic young priest who was, again, a philosopher at heart. And so I really think that was formative for Carol Voitiwa to listen to these questions. So in 1960, he writes this book, love and responsibility, about human sexuality, and we'll talk about that more in theology of the body. But that heart for young people, I think, came from his young priesthood. And so he had this gathering of youth in 1985, the first World Youth Day, I think, was, if memory recalls, 1986. And then it continued every, every three or four years after that, internationally, and thousands of vocations to the priesthood, to religious life. Hundreds of thousands of really beautiful marriages, including my own, that came from, in a sense, from World Youth day and meetings at World Youth Day. It's a beautiful thing for young people to go to this gathering and learn about their faith and be surrounded by a million people and hear the pope speak to the youth.
Just world changing.
[00:32:02] Speaker B: That's beautiful. We even have a priest at Ave Maria, a younger priest from Brazil who discovered his vocation at, I think, the first world Youth day of Pope Francis. So this legacy, even through John Paul II, and then, of course, Pope Benedict, then Pope Francis. It's beautiful.
[00:32:18] Speaker A: Continues to.
[00:32:18] Speaker B: So number six, luminous mysteries of the rosary.
[00:32:22] Speaker A: Sure. There was John Paul II, of course, being a Marian priest, bishop, pope had devotion to Mary, prayed the rosary daily, carried a rosary. As a matter of fact, I have three rosaries that he pressed into my hand. So he was a rosary priest. He was a rosary bishop, rosary pope. I think he understood early in his life that the rosary is a reflection on the life and life, death and resurrection of Jesus, but that there was this something missing. So an italian priest in, I want to say it was the 1960s or 70s, wrote, proposed this idea of the luminous mysteries, the mysteries of the work of Jesus.
What year was it?
[00:33:12] Speaker B: No worries. That was about, like, around. I think it was the rosarium virginist, Marie. I remember when it came out was in 2002. Right. And that's when he called it.
[00:33:25] Speaker A: Right.
[00:33:25] Speaker B: The mysteries of light. Remember, luminous. Don't overcomplicate it. Luminous just means light and that Christ is the light of the world. And so right from his baptism to the last supper, there's a story of light.
[00:33:37] Speaker A: Yeah. So there's a gap. Yeah. I think he understood that there was this gap in reflecting on the life of Jesus in the rosary and proposed five new mysteries. And the people of God, for the most part, really embraced this idea of five new mysteries.
Thank you, JP. Two for filling.
[00:33:57] Speaker B: And it's a beautiful thing, too, I think. I remember reading that actually, 20 some years ago when it came out, too. It's like we want to contemplate the face of Christ as seen by Mary. So it's really just overall, when we pray the rosary, we want to look at Jesus, but we want to look at Jesus with the eyes of Mary. So it's just kind of like, I don't know, put it.
If you visit a city with somebody who knows the know, if you go over to Rome or Paris or something, but you visit with somebody who can walk around. If I just walk around by myself, I don't see them. If I just pray the rosary by myself, I don't see as much if I pray the rosary, though, through the eyes of Mary, but again, I'm looking at Jesus. It's a beautiful whole theme. So let's go on to number five, the catechism of the Catholic Church.
[00:34:38] Speaker A: Yeah. So the catechism, I really think, is one of his greatest gifts because it's the what and the why of our faith. No other faith does this. The Muslims don't do this. The Buddhists don't give us a book that says this is what we believe and why we believe it. No protestant faith does that. They usually vote on what they believe is true. So the catechism of the Catholic Church came out of a council of bishops in 1985, the. The 20th anniversary of the close of the council one of the recommendations was a new universal catechism. Well, many in the Curia said, well, holy father, we don't need a new catechism. We've got the roman catechism. We've got the Baltimore catechism here in the United States. Father Hardin had a catechism, many catechisms. Why do we need a new one? Well, I think he understood that most catechisms were A-Q-A and that's fine, that works, and we have them. But there's no real, modern, comprehensive catechism that can kind of take in the teachings of the council and everything that's happened over the last couple hundred years and encapsulate that in a way that's accessible. So he pressed forward with the idea of the catechism from 1985, and he put a group of bishops and priests in charge of it. One was a man who became Cardinal Schomborn of Vienna, Austria. And in the late 1980s, and this is a little tidbit that maybe some of your listeners don't know, in the late 1980s, the project kind of hit a wall, and Tom Monahan happened to be in Rome, met with Cardinal Sean Byrne, with his legatus group, and they were talking about this catechism that they were developing. And Tom says, well, how's it going? And Cardinal Schomburn says, it kind of hit a wall here. And he's like, what's the problem?
We don't have any money to finish it. And Tom said, well, how much do you need? And he quoted a figure, and Tom wrote a check. And in 1994, we got the first edition of the Catechism in French. In 1995, the english version.
Maybe the catechism would have come about anyway without Tom Monahan and his generosity. But as it is, he was generous and he helped fund the project. And thanks be to God, we have the catechism because of it. And one thing, too, that some of your older listeners might remember. When it came out in English, you could buy it at the grocery store checkout. It was that ubiquitous. It was everywhere. It was a best selling book in maybe hundreds of dozens of languages, millions of copies sold. So he truly proved, John Paul II proved to his courier that there was a hunger, there was a need for this document that told us the what and the why of our faith.
[00:37:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
And I think you and I will remember this. In the 80s, it was sometimes there were a lot of, frankly, there were a lot of bishops that were confused about the doctrines of the faith or humane vitae or other elements. And there were a lot of theologians who were teaching at catholic universities who were dissenting. And sometimes it was a little bit, well, what does the church really teach? And it wasn't that hard to figure out, but you had to be somewhat pretty serious about it to figure out, well, what does the church teach? Because I heard this from one priest and I heard this from another, and so there was a lot of confusion. And really, ever since then, it's kind of like, well, no, it's like, wait a second, you can teach that. You can look at it and you're like, oh, so if somebody says, wait a second, as long as I'm following my conscience, then it's okay. No, because the catechism tells that we have to have a well formed conscience.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: Indeed.
[00:38:24] Speaker B: Right. And I think that really is a tremendous gift, and it is a great story. And in some ways, I think a lot of the good things that the church has done have often been financed by laypeople.
[00:38:36] Speaker A: Indeed. Right.
[00:38:36] Speaker B: I mean, this goes all the way back to Priscan Aquila, who's in the gospel or in acts. It's the church meets in their home. Right. Because, well, this relationship is not just a new one, but it is kind of fun to see how the catechism came forward.
[00:38:52] Speaker A: And it really is, I think, one of the best tools for catechesis and evangelization, which is so necessary in our day.
[00:39:01] Speaker B: Absolutely.
What a blessing. So let's go on. Number four, the fall of communism. We spoke a little bit about this, so maybe just a quick word.
[00:39:09] Speaker A: Yeah. So Ronald Reagan, I mentioned earlier, saw John Paul II in Poland in 1979. That led to a really profound friendship, not only in person meetings, but the Holy See. Well, one of the first things that Ronald Reagan did when he became president was to establish diplomatic relations with the Holy See. John Paul II and Ronald Reagan were like minded when it came to the evils of communism and something that Ronald Reagan called the divine plan. He saw God's hand in everything, and his friendship with John Paul II and their like mindedness, the fact that there were attempts on their life six weeks apart brought them closer together. Their recoveries brought them closer together.
Interesting story. After the fall of communism, Ronald Reagan was at his office in Los Angeles, and a delegation from Poland came to visit him to kind of get his wisdom on how to implement democracy in Poland. And he was out of the public eye a year or so. And one of the polish delegates noticed a picture of John Paul II and Ronald Reagan on Reagan's mantle. And he was looking at it, and Reagan said almost a direct quote, he said, he's my best friend. I know I'm Protestant, he's Catholic, but he's still my best friend.
And Nancy Reagan affirmed that, that he had this devotion, this affinity for John Paul II, that they were like minded. They had so many similar experiences growing up, and their synergy is really providential, which led to the demise of the Soviet Union through diplomacy, through, I think, also a great deal of prayer. Obviously, atheistic communism could not be defeated by man alone, but by God's grace, called down by prayer.
[00:41:11] Speaker B: Yeah. So let's go on to the top three.
[00:41:13] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:41:13] Speaker B: Number three, the theology of the body.
[00:41:15] Speaker A: Indeed.
[00:41:15] Speaker B: And by the way, listeners or viewers, one of our first episodes was with Dr. Mikhail Waldstein, who translated and has been teaching on the theology of the body. So there is one of the early episodes of the podcast on this topic, if people want to have a deep dive into that, and it's a fantastic. Right.
[00:41:37] Speaker A: Yes. Yes.
[00:41:38] Speaker B: That's great. I think you've listened to it. And we also have one of our doctoral students at Ave Maria, Father Joseph Lugalambi, wrote a dissertation on the theology of the body and suffering. So there's a lot of great content on this, but let's go ahead and just.
[00:41:51] Speaker A: Yeah, so I talked earlier about the love and responsibility, the book that John Paul wrote in 1960, and that was kind of the foundation of his understanding of human sexuality. And the theology of the body was set to be a book that he would publish as Cardinal Voitiwa, a second volume, if you will, on human sexuality. He was elected pope, and the chorea said, holy Father, popes don't write books. So he started it as a teaching in September of 1979, series of over 100 discourses. I guess you will, if you will, during his Wednesday audiences in St. Peter's Square, he would unpack this understanding of the human person, who we are, created in God's image and likeness, asking these questions, who are we? Why did God create man and woman? What's the purpose of married love? What's the purpose of celibate love? Does it matter that we're man and woman? Does it even matter at all? And what he said was, the answers to those profound questions are stamped into our very being. So if we have this correct anthropology of the human person, we can understand who we are and what our purpose is, what our sexuality.
[00:43:12] Speaker B: And that whole idea, right? That the theology of the body, our bodies matter. Our bodies are not mere mechanical parts to be dispensed with, to be manipulated by others, or even by ourselves.
But in a way, matters, right? Bodies express the human person.
And so therefore, my body and my soul are given by God to reveal a truth. And so then I see in even things, right? Like in the sexual urge, I see a desire for communion, right?
Since the communion, of course, is not merely an animal communion, but a spiritual communion expressed through the body, I can even have a communion with God, right? And that's why even the theology of the body, even the spousal gift of the body, is that I can actually, with my words, espouse my body to God, right? And so it's like the theology of body is a really rich concept.
And let's go on then, to number two, divine mercy.
[00:44:14] Speaker A: Yeah. So I used to have divine mercy as number three, but I worked for the national shrine of divine mercy, the Marion helpers, for five years, and had the great honor and privilege to not only be at St. Faustina's canonization, but to be friends with the two people who were healed for her beatification miracle and her canonization miracle. Wow. Both Americans, as a matter of fact. So let me tell that story a little bit. Well, let's talk about Faustina a little bit first. So, between 1930, 119 38, Jesus appeared to a polish nun named Helena, Faustina Kowalska, and gave her a task. He said, you are to prepare the world for my second coming.
Yeah, that's a big deal. And so she only had about five years of education. Her writing was very simple, like that of a child. A lot of mistakes, a lot of grammatical, spelling mistakes. And this is shortly before the second World War. I get to that a little bit. But he gave her two commands. One, have an image painted according to the likeness that you see with the signature Jesus, I trust in you, jesu ufam tobia. And the second one was to have the second Sunday of Easter declared divine mercy Sunday. So her spiritual director said, write this all in your diary. She died in 1938, just before Carol Vitiwa moved to Poland. The war happened, and the image of divine mercy was widely distributed and printed. The problem was with her diary that there were some bad translations that got out, and the Holy See said, no more spreading this divine mercy, according to Sister Faustina. Well, Carol Voitiwa soon became Bishop Voitiwa and then Archbishop Cardinal Voitiwa. And in the early 60s, he appointed his top theologian to authenticate her diary. He opened her cause for canonization, and six months and one day before he was elected pope, the Holy See lifted the ban on spreading divine mercy, according to Sister Faustina. So he said this later in his writings, that providence gave him the task of bringing what Jesus gave to Faustina to the world.
And people say, well, yes, it's just a polish devotion. Well, yes, it is a polish devotion, but it's for the universal church. It's for all of humanity that this is a time for mercy. And that's really the heart of this. We're living in a time where God wants to pour out this ocean of mercy on the world.
Quick story. So the beatification miracle. Maureen Dygan, she had lymphedema. She had one leg. Lymphedema is this swelling of the limbs. She had one of her legs amputated. She went to Poland, prayed at St. Faustina's tomb, was instantly cured. She didn't have to have her second leg amputated. She's still with us. She's in her eighty s and living in Massachusetts with her husband, Bob. She was my coworker. I met her about ten years after her healing. I'd been working for the marians in late 90s, up to 2001, and in the late ninety s, a priest from Baltimore, Father Ron Pitel, he was the rector of the diocesan shrine to divine mercy. He had a heart ailment, and the way he described it to me was, if you take a balloon and you blow it up, you can never get it back to the way it was. And I forget if it was a ventricle or something of his heart that had been distorted. So he was taking medication to keep that under control. And one night, I think it was on St. Faustina's feast day, as a matter of fact, there were some people praying at the church, and they prayed over him with the relic of St. Faustina. He went back to his room, and he realized that he forgot to take his medication that night. So he took his medication and had a bad reaction to it. He went to his cardiologist the next day, and they did a full exam, and they said, father, your heart's normal.
Wow. And he was like, my heart's never been normal. Now, again, providence. He had some of the top cardiologists in the world already, before the healing, working on his case, many of them not even Christian, who basically testified that this doesn't happen. It's impossible for your heart to go back to normal after the way it was. So father Ron became a good friend. He since died. But April 30, 2000, st. Faustina's canonization day. I was in Rome for it as a journalist, and I'm in St. Peter's Square early in the day, and I'm taking pictures, and Father Ron crosses my path. He's got his album, he's stolen. He's on his way to can celebrate the canonization mass with the Holy Father. So excited, picture of health, just glowing. And he called me a couple of days later, and he said, patrick, you're not going to believe this. I went to dinner with the Holy Father.
He brought his mother and had dinner with the Holy Father with a group of people that evening. And John Paul II said, this is the happiest day of my life.
And I've often speculated, why did he say that? Why did he say it was the happiest day of his life? I really believe because Jesus asked the Faustina two things. Have the painting done. She did that. She was unable to declare the second Sunday of mercy, divine mercy Sunday. But in his homily that day, he had just elevated St. Faustina to the canon of saints. A few minutes later, in his homily, he said to wild applause, from this day forward, the second Sunday of Easter shall be known as divine Mercy Sunday, fulfilling Jesus'second command. So that's, I think, why it was the happiest day of his life.
[00:50:05] Speaker B: That's an amazing story. And I do think that recovering divine mercy, I mean, that's what we people have the sense that God is out to get them. God is disappointed with them. God doesn't love them. God does not have the heart of the father. They think God is, like us, kind of mean, vindictive, resentful. But instead, God is a merciful father. Right. Who sent his son.
[00:50:29] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:50:29] Speaker B: So that we could be saved.
[00:50:31] Speaker A: Prodigal. Prodigal means lavish. And I really think that story should be the prodigal father because he lavished his son. Who lavished his. Squandered.
It'd be the squandering son and the prodigal father, because the father was the one who lavished on his son.
[00:50:49] Speaker B: And in 2000, I think John Paul II had also written Novo millennial Inuente. Right. Beginning the new millennium. And I think he wanted the third millennium to be the millennium of God's mercy.
[00:50:58] Speaker A: Indeed. And Pope Francis gave us your mercy.
[00:51:02] Speaker B: The year of mercy. That was amazing. So just so people can make sure we're following along the top ten. Number ten, devotion to Mary. Nine, unpacking Vatican two. Eight, culture of life. Seven, world youth day six, the luminous mysteries of the rosary. Five, the catechism of the Catholic Church. Four, the fall of communism. Three, the theology of the body. Two, divine mercy.
[00:51:25] Speaker A: And what's number one, the new evangelization.
And why the new evangelization? I always get that question. Paul VI. St. Paul VI said it very clearly. The church exists to evangelize. The last thing Jesus gave us was go out to all the world, preach the good news, and baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He created the church. Jesus founded the church to evangelize, to bring people into right relationship with Jesus Christ and to know the Father. So really, if you look at John Paul II and everything he did, it was all geared toward the new evangelization. Divine mercy, World Youth Day, the rosary, all of these things are geared toward evangelization, into understanding and like I said, bringing people into right relationship with Jesus. John Paul II wrote that. I think it was in 1990 that I sense the time has come that the church devote all of her energies to the new evangelization. And when a pope says the church needs to devote all of her energies to something, we as the laity and clergy need to listen up and say, yes, there's something here that we need to embrace this.
[00:52:38] Speaker B: Yeah. And that deep sense, too, that just because cultures a. I think it was Pope Benedict that said something like, God has no grandchildren, but the idea that just because cultures were christian at one time doesn't mean they are at all anymore. And we need to re evangelize right to this. This new evangelization is really at the heart of, you know, Father John Ricciardo, who's been on the show, loves to quote from John Paul II's on catechesis. Catechesis. Treden. Right. But he talked that fundamentally, catechesis follows upon evangelization, which is an ardent proclamation of the. To be overwhelmed by an ardent proclamation of the gospel and then to be invited to make a decision.
[00:53:25] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:53:25] Speaker B: Right. And this is right from John Paul II. And so it's a really beautiful message. And by the way, it is kind of funny as well. Just so you know, this podcast, the catholic theology show was started on the feast of John Paul II, October 22 in 2022. And I think it was our second episode with Josh Canning was on the new evangelization. So obviously, your choice of the top ten is pretty close to my choice of the top ten.
[00:53:53] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:53:54] Speaker B: Patrick, we are running a little late, but I do want to go ahead and just ask you three quick questions.
[00:53:57] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:53:58] Speaker B: What's a book you're reading?
[00:53:59] Speaker A: Well, I just finished reading Jim Tui's new book on Mother Teresa. I actually went through it the second time because I'm working on my second book, which I don't have a title yet, but it's really the friendship, the relationship of Mother Teresa, John Paul II, their impact on the 20th century and beyond, and the way in which mercy was key to both of their ministries. So to love and be loved by Jim Tooy.
[00:54:25] Speaker B: That's great. We'll look forward to seeing your book sometime in the near future. Number two, what's a practice you try to do on a daily basis to draw closer to God?
[00:54:35] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. Prayer and prayer individually by myself, prayer with my family as a family every night, and prayer with my wife before we go to sleep. I often tell young couples that it's very difficult to be angry with someone when you're holding their hand and praying together. So it just leads to a beautiful bond and to reconciliation and forgiveness and uniting our hearts together as they're supposed to be in the Lord.
[00:55:06] Speaker B: And last question, what's maybe a belief you held about God that was false and what was the truth you discovered?
[00:55:13] Speaker A: Oh, gosh. Wow. Well, I think I probably grew up thinking that God was this big, distant being in the sky, that I needed to be good and follow the rules. Otherwise, I will get my knuckles wrapped and end up in a very bad place. And as you related earlier, that God is just this lavish father who wants nothing more than to give us that embrace of love and to bring him into his kingdom where all of our sorrows will disappear, that he wants to share himself with us so intimately that our fallen selves will disappear.
[00:55:56] Speaker B: Well, that's a beautiful place to end. And so again, we've been with Patrick Novakowski. The book is 100 ways John Paul II changed the world by our Sunday visitor. And thanks again for being on the show, people, by the way, that are interested, you have a website, is that correct?
[00:56:15] Speaker A: Yes, booksbypatrick.com and catholicpublicist.com.
[00:56:20] Speaker B: That's great. And also the executive director of the.
[00:56:24] Speaker A: Warren Warrington Pregnancy center in Warrington, Virginia, if you want to look that up. Wpcpartners.org.
[00:56:31] Speaker B: Excellent. Well, thank you very much, Patrick, for being on the show, and thank you for listening or watching us today.
[00:56:38] Speaker C: Thank you so much for joining us for this podcast cast. If you like this episode, please rate and review it on your favorite podcast app to help others find the show. And if you want to take the next step, please consider joining our Annunciation circle so we can continue to bring you more free content.
We'll see you next time on the Catholic Theology show.
