Summary
Title: The Pontiff in Winter: Triumph and Conflict in the Reign of John Paul II
Author: John Cornwell
Publisher: Doubleday
ISBN: 0385514840
Pro:
• Includes both praise and criticism
Con:
• Critics of Cornwell’s past books probably won’t be generous this time
Description:
• Analysis of the life of Pope John Paul II
• Not a complete biography — focuses on major themes and issues
• Argues for a complex, but perhaps ultimately negative legacy
Book Review
The quality and intention of various books on John Paul’s life vary considerably. Some border on hagiography (not unintentionally, I am sure, as his many supporters surely expect him to be canonized sooner rather than later). Others are highly critical of what he has done. Both perspectives surely have some merit to them — John Paul’s reign has been anything but simple.
Tending towards the negative side is John Cornwell’s The Pontiff in Winter: Triumph and Conflict in the Reign of John Paul II. Cornwell wrote the much discussed and heavily criticized Hitler’s Pope which discussed the Nazi-era reign of Pope Pius XII. Cornwell now believes that that book could have been more balanced and attempts to put this lesson into practice here.
There is no question that Cornwell is critical of John Paul II and that he personally has been very disappointed by this papacy, but at the same time there seems to be a genuine effort to show as many sides (including the good) to John Paul as he can. It’s unlikely that supporters of the current pope will regard the attempted balance as sufficient, dismissing nearly all criticisms of the pope as unacceptable, but others will benefit from the approach.
On the one hand, John Paul II has been a tireless traveler and evangelist who has gone all over the world visiting churches. His activities have helped make Catholicism a living, breathing reality to faithful believers who might otherwise have grown more distant. Both critics and supporters have generally agreed that the force of his personality has played an important role in the resurgence of Catholicism today.
On the other hand, the Catholic Church is not ideally supposed to be ruled by a single person through the force of their personality. It is indeed a monarchy, but one where the authority of the pontiff is derived through a legal connection to the original apostles and Jesus Christ. The papacy is not supposed to be a charismatic office: the office is supposed to be higher than the person rather than the other way around.
In part because of the force of his personality, though, John Paul II has managed to promote polices that have been welcomed by traditionalists and conservatives but abhorred by progressives and liberals. Authority has been taken away from local bishops and invested in the papacy and centralized Roman Curia. Women have been shut out of offices of power. Theologians who question or dissent from official teachings are harshly silenced. He is a fierce champion of liberty of conscience in society, but just as fierce of an opponent of liberty of conscience within the church.
The Pontiff in Winter: Triumph and Conflict in the Reign of John Paul II
Perhaps one of the worse outcomes of the entire situation has been the way in which John Paul’s style of rule may have contributed to the sexual abuse crisis. The roots of the sexual abuse can be traced back long before he became pope, but the cover-ups occurred on his watch and for many, the cover-ups were at least as bad as the original abuse.
Under John Paul II, local bishops’ power and authority have been limited; he often acts as though he were the bishop of each diocese while the actual bishops are little more than his assistants. Cornwell argues that by treating the bishops as “middle managers,” that’s exactly the sort of management style that John Paul has encouraged — and with disastrous consequences.
It is precisely the manner in which John Paul II has reinforced the centralized authority of the Vatican that Cornwell thinks his legacy will prove to be negative. However good his intentions may have been, history has demonstrated that ever greater centralized power in fewer and more unaccountable hands makes things worse in the long run. It doesn’t seem credible to think that the Catholic Church will escape such problems in the coming years — the sexual abuse scandals may only be a foreshadowing of what is to come.
