"The Pope's True Revolution": One View

In this week's TIME, in the concluding Essay--this week by James Carroll--we find the following view:

This may be what you think: John Paul II was the conservative Pope. His pontificate was marked by a resurgent Roman Catholic traditionalism, setting the church against liberalizing forces of all kinds. John Paul II is remembered above all for shoring up structures of the past.

This is wrong. John Paul II boldly presided over the maturing of political and theological revolutions in Catholicism. Perhaps despite himself, he was a Pope of change, accomplishing two radical shifts—one in the church's attitude toward war and the other in its relationship to the Jewish people. Taken together, those represent the most significant change in church history, and they lay the groundwork for future changes that could well go beyond what this Pope foresaw or even wanted. In each case, John Paul II brought to completion a movement that was begun by his predecessors John XXIII and Paul VI, the Popes of the Second Vatican Council.

In the concluding paragraph of the essay, Carroll writes:

At the millennium, John Paul II expressed sorrow for the two historic crimes of Christianity—the use of coercion in defense of the truth and the tradition of contempt for the Jewish people. But this Pope did more than say he was sorry. He put in place new structures of belief and practice, affirming peace and advancing tolerance, changing the Roman Catholic Church forever.

To read the whole essay--titled The Pope's True Revolution--click here.