John Paul II: The Quintessential Religious Witness in the Public Square

During the past quarter-century, powerful, thoughtful, and eloquent dissertations – by such as Richard John Neuhuas, Stephen Carter, and the Mirror of Justice’s own Michael John Perry – have affirmed the proper place and essential role of religious voices in the public square. They thereby enriched intellectual discourse on subjects of public moment. Over that same quarter-century, Pope John Paul II has been the model case example for the religious witness in public life, leaving a broad and meaningful legacy of social action with his catalytic role in bringing about the fall of communism, his fundamental and radical reminder of the innate dignity of each human person, his simultaneously reproachful and hopeful call to western societies to abandon the Culture of Death and build a Culture of Life, his heart for the poor and disenfranchised, and his words of peace in a troubled world.

Still, more work obviously remains to be done, as secularist societies and institutions continue to be uncomfortable with and insistent upon diminishing the religious element in public life. After the death of John Paul II, United Nations General Secretary Kofi Annan said: “Quite apart from his role as spiritual guide to more than a billion men, women and children, he was a tireless advocate of peace, a true pioneer in interfaith dialogue and a strong force for critical self-evaluation by the church itself.” No, that’s exactly backwards. Pope John Paul II engaged the world, and provoked the world in turn to engage with the Church and its teachings, not “quite apart from his role as spiritual guide,” but quite precisely because of it. John Paul II, the vicar of Christ and heir to Peter in the apostolic succession, and John Paul II, the social and political activist, were always and inextricably one and the same.

Greg Sisk