Karol Wojtyła had moments to consider his own future rather grimly. He had lost his brother and both of his parents. The Nazi occupiers were replaced by Soviets who controlled the government of the country he loved so much. Even from a young age, he possessed what we might characterize as the “folly of the saints” and it came out clearly in his first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, proclaiming Christ to be the Redeemer of Man.

While others look to the Second Vatican Council as an abandonment or at least a departure from traditional Catholic living, Wojtyła saw it as a necessary step in the ongoing mission of the Church. Only by opening the windows of the Church to the world, as Pope St. John XXIII envisioned the historic meeting of bishops in Rome, could the Church hope to dialogue with a world that had changed so radically in countless ways. Wojtyła didn’t see engagement with the world as abandoning Christ. He saw it as a way of bringing Christ into the modern world.

In the Steps of Paul VI

Cardinal Wojtyla saw the former Archbishop of Milan as a prophetic voice. Cardinal Montini was going to inherit a curious situation when he took the reins of the Church as Pope Paul VI upon the death of Good Pope John. In the Church of Pope Pius XII and Humani Generis, Archbishop Roncalli, Monsignor Montini, and Fr. Wojtyła looked ahead 50 years to the dawn of the third millennium. Aware of the problems of their times, with the risk of nuclear proliferation and worries about tremendous change in society, they were nevertheless more excited about the fact that Jesus was going to influence the third millennium.

In the encyclical, Pope St. John Paul II saw himself in continuity with Pope St. Paul VI even to the point that he continued some of the same self-questioning about the direction of the Church. To be Pope is an amazing thing because the man can do a lot to steer the rudder of the Barque of Peter, but he is mandated to listen closely to the whisperings of the Holy Spirit. He felt a strong calling to foster a new advent in the Church while serving as a good shepherd, called to care for the sheep.

Learning from Architecture

In the Basilica of St. Peter’s in Rome, the words of Jesus and Peter adorn a banner going around the church. When one turns toward the center of the church from the image of Our Lady of Good Help, he sees the words, strengthen your brethren. In addition to feeding the sheep, Peter was called to strengthen his brethren once he turned back from his betrayal of Jesus. The words are emblazoned there to remind all successors of St. Peter that they are called to strengthen their brethren, first their brother bishops and through them the entire Church.

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Walking through the Basilica and reflecting on the various encounters of Jesus with Peter is always striking. How much deeper must the experience be for the Pontiffs wandering through when all the pilgrims are absent? I loved visiting St. Peter’s early in the morning, with barely anyone inside. You felt like you were locked in a museum, but something with greater significance than a museum. For the Popes, it is almost like a time machine, transporting them to the time of Jesus, and they take their marching orders from him. This is not in the sense that they physically hear the voice of Christ, but their habits of prayer help them to make a deep experience. At least, that’s the way I imagine it. The Pope, too, has to remember that he is not the center. Pope John Paul II expresses this beautifully in his poem, “The Floor.” Just like Peter, the Pope is there to strengthen his brethren by pointing them toward Christ.

Walking Toward Jesus

From the first days of his pontificate, and throughout the more than quarter century that followed, John Paul II was always walking toward Christ and inviting the Church to follow.

Our spirit is set in one direction; the only direction for our intellect, will, and heart is towards Christ our Redeemer, towards Christ the Redeemer of man. We wish to look towards him because there is salvation in no one else but him, the Son of God (Pope St. John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, 7).

In the recent note from three dicasteries in the Vatican, the Church reminds us again today that Jesus is the one savior of mankind. While there is a shared heritage between Christians and Jews, Christians cannot look to Judaism as a parallel path of salvation (cf. Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, “Note. A Journey of Hope. Sixty Years of Interreligious Dialogue and Fraternity in the Light of the Conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate”). Remembering the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Declaration Dominus Iesus (2000), there is a consistent insistence on Jesus as the unique savior of mankind. This insistence is due, in large part, to the pontificate of Pope John Paul II.

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The Church has always been aware, and the Council developed the need to see Christ as the head through whom we exist. He is the way, the truth, and the life, and the resurrection and the life. Because of Christ, the Church is a “kind of sacrament or sign and means of intimate union with God, and the unity of all mankind” (Pope St. John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, 7). In the first part of the 20^th century, much theological reflection had revolved around the sacraments and the need for a renewed life of the Church. We can look at the efforts of the Council Fathers as a deep dive into this renewed theology and a presentation of the same perennial truths to the modern world. Wojtyła always admired the work of the Council and did his best to promote its work throughout his pontificate.

Need for Return

John Paul II recognized the need of the Church to return constantly to Christ. With Peter, the Church recognizes the unique role of Jesus Christ. Being God, he speaks to man also as man. This is part of what gives Christ such an incisive insight into the meaning and purpose of the life of every human being.

We may experience suffering and abandonment. In Jesus, we find the God-man who also suffered physical pain and abandonment. In the Eucharist, the Church finds her “‘fountain of life and holiness,’ the efficacious sign of grace and reconciliation with God, and the pledge of eternal life” (Pope St. John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, 7). So much of what the Church is a source of grace and redemption to others, as her mission is an extension of Christ’s mission. This is how she “stays within the sphere of the mystery of the Redemption, which has become the fundamental principle of her life and mission” (Pope St. John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, 7).

When we are going through difficult times, we need to turn to Jesus and his Church, remembering that we receive the sacraments of salvation so that we can be happy with him forever in Heaven. We don’t begin by managing our lives. We begin with Christ.

Champion of Ecumenism

Because of his faith in Jesus as the Savior, Pope St. John Paul II championed ecumenism. This raised more than a few eyebrows and drew criticism from many. His zeal for ecumenical dialogue was evident from the first encyclical of his pontificate, Redemptor Hominis, “The Redeemer of Man,” and its focus on the person of Jesus Christ. He laid out the

problem of Christian unity with evangelical clarity as a simple consequence of the will of Jesus Christ himself, our Master, the will that Jesus stated on several occasions but to which he gave expression in a special way in his prayer in the Upper Room the night before he died: “I pray... Father... that they may all be one” (Pope St. John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, 6).

If Jesus himself is calling for unity with practically his dying breath, John Paul II saw it as his mission to respond to that call. What is amazing in Pope John Paul II’s first encyclical is that it truly outlines the program of his pontificate. He introduces themes in his first writing to the whole Church that he will end up developing over the next twenty-five years of his pontificate. Throughout his papacy, he reflected on the relationship between Christian unity, religious dialogue, and the Church’s universal mission.

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Being a man deeply imbued with the spirit of the documents of the Second Vatican Council, he reflected deeply on the reframing of the Church’s relationship with the world proposed by Nostra Aetate. The Church recognizes what is true within other religions and recognizes that they may seek answers to fundamental human questions. Nevertheless, the Church continues to proclaim Christ as the one Savior of mankind.

Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue

Ecumenism refers to the dialogue between Christian traditions, while interreligious dialogue refers to dialogue with non-Christian religions. John Paul II never missed an opportunity to further ecumenism and interreligious dialogue through his teaching. His enthusiasm did not stem from the false doctrine of universalism: the belief that all people are going to Heaven and that all religions are the same. Nor does it stem from indifferentism, which he condemns in the same breath as he speaks about ecumenism in this first encyclical.

Some even express the opinion that these efforts are harmful to the cause of the Gospel, are leading to a further rupture in the Church, are causing confusion of ideas in questions of faith and morals and are ending up with a specific indifferentism. It is perhaps a good thing that the spokesmen for these opinions should express their fears. However, in this respect also, correct limits must be maintained (Pope St. John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, 6).

Dialogue is not hindered by truth. Rather, truth makes genuine dialogue possible. Believing that truth is real, I can listen to a person I disagree with and take this person seriously without pretending to assent to all of his or her beliefs.

Universal Mission, Not Universalism

He speaks about the universal mission of the Church, which is not the same thing as declaring that all are saved with no consideration for their own faith and life decisions. The mission of the Church is universal in the same way that Christ’s mission is universal. The Second Person of the Trinity takes on flesh and becomes man to suffer and die for all, even if not all choose to receive this salvation.

For John Paul II, ecumenism is not a concession to modernity, but an answer to Christ’s call for unity. Looking at the modern world in which cultures and religious traditions were increasingly encountering one another, sometimes peacefully and sometimes clashing, he recognized the importance of unity among Christians for the purpose of giving credible witness to the rest of the world. This spirit animated both his defense of the faith and his dialogue with others. He would be able to approach other religious traditions respectfully, without ever sacrificing his fidelity to Gospel truth.

Spirit of Assisi

In 1986, Pope John Paul II invited religious leaders from around the world to Assisi to pray for peace. Some people were confused by the gesture, equating it with a statement that all religions are the same. Cardinal Etchegaray explained that it was not a promotion of religious pluralism.

Assisi was the symbol, the staging of what the Church must do by virtue of her proper vocation before a world in a state of flagrant religious pluralism: to profess the unity of the mystery of salvation in Jesus Christ (Card. Etchegaray, “The Spirit of Assisi”).

When they came together to pray for peace, it was not a moment of unity of religious belief. Each one continued in his or her own tradition. They shared the common purpose of peace, while maintaining the integrity of their own traditions. They were not asked to create a common religious prayer. They were invited to come together to appeal for peace, while praying according to their own traditions.

That year at Christmas, Pope John Paul II would address the Curia to explain some of his motives and how he saw religious dialogue. He had not come up with the idea of unity. Rather, his deep contemplation of the Word in Sacred Scripture had moved him to call for this day of prayer.

The fact that we came together in Assisi to pray, to fast and to walk in silence—and this, in support of the peace which is always fragile and threatened, perhaps today more than ever—has been, as it were, a clear sign of the profound unity of those who seek in religion spiritual and transcendent values that respond to the great questions of the human heart, despite the concrete divisions (cf. Nostra Aetate, 1) (Pope St. John Paul II, “Address to the Roman Curia”, 22 December 1986).

Why was it appropriate to come together in the first place? John Paul II understood the world along the lines of the Second Vatican Council document on the joys and hopes of the world. In the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes. This document describes dialogue with other religions as one of the signs of the times. As communication has made international boundaries more relative in some sense, mutual knowledge and learning are not only optional, but necessary. The hopes and joys of the modern world are dependent on becoming increasingly aware of the world community. The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, exhorts us to recognize the “relationship between the very identity and the mission of the Church on the one hand, and the human race on the other” (Pope St. John Paul II, “Address to the Roman Curia”, 22 December 1986).

Drawing on his philosophical training, Karol Wojtyła was at ease discussing topics with people of different intellectual convictions. This did not mean that he was giving in to intellectual, much less moral relativism. Rather, he was convinced that he was always searching for the truth, a truth he found ultimately in the person of Jesus Christ. For Pope John Paul II, ecumenism and interreligious dialogue were always intimately linked to the missionary vocation of the Church.

Mission of the Redeemer

He would revisit the topic of religious indifferentism in his encyclical on missionary work, Redemptoris Missio (1990). He noted that:

great obstacles to the Church’s missionary work include past and present divisions among Christians, dechristianization within Christian countries, the decrease of vocations to the apostolate, and the counterwitness of believers and Christian communities failing to follow the model of Christ in their lives. But one of the most serious reasons for the lack of interest in the missionary task is a widespread indifferentism, which, sad to say, is found also among Christians (Pope St. John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, 36).

To think with the Church (sentire cum Ecclesia) is to recognize her missionary mandate, including the necessity to speak with those of other religious traditions. Critics thought that dialogue would lead to indifferentism, which would lead to a loss of missionary zeal. The Pope believed that indifferentism had diminished zeal, but he looked for another solution. For him, authentic dialogue leads to encounter and witness, meaning a new zeal for the mission. For Karol Wojtyła, this is a necessity laid upon the heart of every Christian, just as it was on the heart of St. Paul.

The mission of Christ the Redeemer, which is entrusted to the Church, is still very far from completion. As the second millennium after Christ’s coming draws to an end, an overall view of the human race shows that this mission is still only beginning and that we must commit ourselves wholeheartedly to its service. It is the Spirit who impels us to proclaim the great works of God: “For if I preach the Gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!” (1 Cor 9: 16) (Pope St. John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, 36).

Some critics have interpreted his approach as an abandonment of objective truth and of the Church’s missionary tradition. John Paul II was always centered on the person of Jesus Christ, even in and perhaps especially, his moments of dialogue with men and women who thought differently. Put simply, for Karol Wojtyła, “the redeemer of man, Jesus Christ, is the center of the universe and of history” (Pope St. John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, 1). Was John Paul II abandoning orthodoxy at Assisi? No. If anything, the meeting at Assisi makes sense only when we understand how radically Christ-centered Wojtyła remained until the end.

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Paul Tillich and Faith as “Ultimate Concern”

Paul Tillich is one of the most renowned theologians of the 20^th century. He explored the topic of faith and described it in a way that could fit the postmodern mind. He described faith as devotion to the “ultimate concern.” Drawing on Kant with the Copernican turn of thought from the objective to the subjective, his description of faith fits in perfectly. The important thing is to be completely devoted to the object of faith.

Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned: the dynamics of faith are the dynamics of man’s ultimate concern (Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith, 1).

This definition focuses on the subjective act of faith and relates it to the polarizing concept that motivates and guides a single individual. He relates freedom to faith as they are both the “possibility of centered personal acts.”

This contrasts with the way that Pope St. John Paul II looks at faith. For him, the center is still the object of faith, at the same time that he is interested in the subjective experience of believing. For him, faith is the free response of the believer to the self-revelation of God. This hearkens to the teaching of St. Augustine, pointing out that every religion expresses man’s desire to come into contact with God. What distinguishes Judaism and Christianity is that we experience the descent of God to man. Through revelation, God opens the path to communion and relationship with him.

Existential Act

Drawing on existentialist philosophy of the 20^th century, Tillich emphasizes the reality of the experience of the whole person though the act of faith. Wojtyla emphasizes the personal act at the same time that he underlines the objective self-revelation of God. Faith consumes all that we are.

It is not just that freedom is part of the act of faith: it is absolutely required (Pope John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, 13).

There is an intersection with the insight of the existentialist philosophers, while maintaining the distinction that the ultimate purpose of our lives is received by us, not created by us. One of the possible pitfalls of adopting existentialist philosophy to reflect on faith is that there is a tendency to deny purpose and meaning. For Wojtyla, life is full of meaning and purpose, precisely because through faith, we come into contact with our Creator who placed us on earth with a mission.

Object of Faith

Wojtyla and Tillich differ not only in their understanding of the experience of faith. They diverge also on the object of faith. When someone believes in God, what does that mean? For Tillich, God is the “Ground of Being,” rather than a being among beings. This is attractive for postmodern thought, giving a place to God but emptying the concept of God of its full meaning. Wojtyla, on the other hand, proclaimed the reality of a personal God who enters into relationship and communion with us.

Referring to the branch of theology that focuses on a philosophical reflection on the act of faith and the contents of faith, John Paul II writes:

fundamental theology should show how, in the light of the knowledge conferred by faith, there emerge certain truths which reason, from its own independent enquiry, already perceives (Pope St. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, 67).

Reason perceives the reality of God. Following the Vatican I reflections on the capacity of man to attain knowledge of God, the role of theology is to explicate the truths of faith, not explain them away into something beautiful to contemplate but fundamentally unreal.

Just a Symbol?

Tillich explores the value of symbols and suggests that they participate in the reality they signify, but are not literal descriptions. Such an interpretation allows theologians to explain away Gospel truths in a way that feels more comfortable and acceptable to a postmodern mentality. On the other hand, John Paul II proclaims that symbols have their value and that revelation communicates real truths about God.

The difference was illustrated by a now famous anecdote from a dinner party that the Southern author Flannery O’Connor attended. Deeply Catholic in a non-Catholic atmosphere, at one point someone discussed the doctrine of the Eucharist and stated: it’s just a symbol. O’Connor is said to have responded: “if it’s just a symbol, to hell with it.” Her somewhat crass remark belied a deep faith. What look like bread and wine become truly the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ and through Communion, we participate truly in the divine life, receiving Jesus into our soul. For this reason too, Pope John Paul II wrote so frequently and profoundly on truths like the Eucharist, the priesthood, and our personal relationship with Christ.

Faith and Doubt

Doubt is part of the experience of faith, according to Tillich. The “ultimate concern” allows for fundamental doubt. This contrasts with the view of realist philosophy that recognizes that truth is hard to ascertain, but not impossible. It is natural to have struggles with faith, but this is not the same as emptying the doctrine of its importance, as happens in postmodern deconstruction of the act of faith.

Doubt is part of Tillich’s description of faith. Because how do you know that your “ultimate concern” is the correct one? And you also notice that it is easy to be devoted to something that is at best of secondary concern.

Common Ground and Confrontation

The existentialist bent of Tillich emphasizes that faith is not merely intellectual assent to a revealed truth. Enriching Thomistic metaphysics through the phenomenological method and coming from a personalist point of view, Wojtyla would have recognized the value of examining the subjective aspect of the act of faith. For him, faith is essentially man’s response to a personal call from the one, true God. It is a free act, whereby the person entrusts himself completely to God.

They would agree that faith cannot be reduced to an emotion or to blind obedience. Wojtyla would recognize the contribution of Tillich, to bring the concept of faith to the forefront again in a world claiming to move away from faith and towards reason. The postmodern world sees itself as the fullest expression of the Enlightenment. Tillich is more palatable to such thinkers, who want to reflect on faith, while holding on to reason.

By confronting the thought of Wojtyla with Tillich, we find its true value. In a postmodern world that distrusts faith, he is able to portray the reciprocal relationship between faith and reason. By engaging with the concept of faith proposed by Tillich, that of “ultimate concern,” we are able to see that faith has a place in today’s world.

Conclusion

For Pope St. John Paul II, faith cannot be described simply as “the state of being ultimately concerned.” It is not simply the structure of ultimate commitment. Rather, it is man’s response to the self-revelation of the loving God. Ultimate concern may describe faith in its intensity, but can be attributed to devotion to God, to the nation, to family, etc. It cannot by itself describe the essence of religious faith. Ultimately, faith is the encounter between a God who loves and a creature whom he loves.

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The Solidarnosc (Solidarity) movement was led by an electrician, Lech Wałęsa. Soon, workers across Poland joined the first independent trade union in the Soviet bloc. The very name they chose, Solidarity, spoke to a truth that communism could imitate but never fully embrace. Our dignity does not come from the State or our class, but from the fact that we are brothers and sisters in Christ, created in God’s image.

The workers wanted freedom to organize themselves. They no longer wanted to have the communist state determining every aspect of economic life. Without necessarily using the word, they were practicing one of the central tenets of Catholic Social Teaching: subsidiarity.

Solidarity and Subsidiarity

Within Catholic Social Teaching, solidarity helps us see we all belong to one human family. Subsidiarity means that decisions should be made at the lowest competent level. Subsidiarity teaches that higher authorities should support the initiative of families, workers, and civic organizations; not replace them.

While shipyard workers in Gdansk were challenging Communist rule from below, another Pole was challenging Communist ideology from Rome. Pope John Paul II drew on his experience under Soviet rule as he articulated a vision of the human person that contradicted the philosophical foundations of Marxism.

Rejecting Marxist claims

John Paul II rejected the Marxist reduction of the human person to economics. Poverty is a real evil, but Marxism is wrong when it assumes that every human problem has a material solution. As he wrote in Laborem Exercens:

In dialectical materialism too, man is not first and foremost the subject of work and the efficient cause of the production process, but continues to be understood and treated, in dependence on what is material, as a kind of “resultant” of the economic or production relations prevailing at a given period (Pope St. John Paul II, Laborem Exercens, 13).

While critical of materialism in Marxism, he was also critical of the consumer society.

It seeks to defeat Marxism on the level of pure materialism by showing how a free-market society can achieve a greater satisfaction of material human needs than Communism, while equally excluding spiritual values (Pope St. John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 19).

Economic freedom is only one aspect of human freedom. While he supported Solidarity’s efforts to gain freedom for Polish workers, indeed for the Polish nation, he served as the moral conscience of the Movement. His contribution to Catholic Social Teaching helps all of us to be more human in the way we view economics and the world. Communism is not the way forward, but neither is unbridled capitalism exercised in a soulless way.

The Marxist system was very much State-centered, with decisions being centralized. The virtue of subsidiarity opposes this directly, moving decisions to a more local level.

Wojtyła’s Experience of Catholic Social Teaching

Throughout his life, Karol Wojtyła lived the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity. He called for solidarity movements to dialogue with others and never to become closed unto themselves. Reflecting on Catholic Social Teaching, he reminds us that the State should be concerned with wage levels, humane working conditions, and the dignity of work and of each worker.

The State must contribute to the achievement of these goals both directly and indirectly. Indirectly and according to the principle of subsidiarity, by creating favorable conditions for the free exercise of economic activity, which will lead to abundant opportunities for employment and sources of wealth. Directly and according to the principle of solidarity, by defending the weakest, by placing certain limits on the autonomy of the parties who determine working conditions, and by ensuring in every case the necessary minimum support for the unemployed worker (Pope St. John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 15).

Understanding that we are all part of one human family changes the way we look at one another. In the world, there is always the temptation to give in to a mentality of conquest. Pope John Paul II proposed rather a civilization of love. When the state works with intermediate autonomous bodies to promote the good of all, they all work together to promote this civilization of love. This is the principle of subsidiarity at work.

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The principle of solidarity has become even more present since Pope John Paul II, notably in the teaching of Pope Francis in Fratelli Tutti, quoted also by Pope Leo XIV in Magnifica Humanitas. Pope Benedict XVI refers to the term in Caritas in Veritate. What began as a workers’ movement had a tremendous influence on Catholic Social Teaching, helping to craft a response to the proposal of Communism to the world. While there can be debate on different economic systems, the Church can never cave to the desire to lose respect for the dignity of each human being. This is at the core of Wojtyla’s thought and teaching as well.

Subsidiarity and the Family

Pope St. John Paul II was known for his love of marriage and family. Respecting the family as the most basic unit of society, he saw in it additionally the best way to promote human dignity and the progress of humanity. Subsidiarity takes on special importance in his reflection on the family in his Letter to Families.

The mission of education must always be carried out in accordance with a proper application of the principle of subsidiarity. This implies the legitimacy and indeed the need of giving assistance to the parents, but finds its intrinsic and absolute limit in their prevailing right and their actual capabilities (Pope St. John Paul II, Gratissimam Sane, 16)

When families fall apart, societies fail. Parents have the ultimate responsibility of the education of their children. Other institutions, whether this be the state, the Church, or others, must give parents their place in the education of their children. A just society involves the parents; it does not exclude them.

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Importance of Economic Freedom

Economic freedom was important for Pope John Paul II, but not because he was promoting consumerism or the market economy. Economic freedom is a means to an end, since it allows the individual to choose what is good. Freedom is not without its limits, and ideally, we should use our freedom to choose what furthers the common good. The risk of the market economy and capitalism is that there can be a strong tendency towards individualism. The rise of selfishness and greed is unchristian and does not promote the common good. Economic freedom is good when we use it so that all can grow and flourish.

Conclusion

When the workers reacted so strongly to the firing of Anna Walentynowicz, they were looking out for one of their own. Self-interest might have suggested ignoring the problem. But they knew they had to stand up for what was right. The Soviet empire eventually collapsed. But the Kingdom of Christ still needs to be built up. The mission of Christians remains the same: to build the civilization of love by defending the dignity of every human person.

The Solidarność (Solidarity) movement was led by an electrician, Lech Wałęsa. Soon, workers across Poland joined the first independent trade union in the Soviet bloc. The very name they chose, Solidarity, spoke to a truth that communism could imitate but never fully embrace. Our dignity does not come from the State or our class, but from the fact that we are brothers and sisters in Christ, created in God’s image.

The workers wanted freedom to organize themselves. They no longer wanted to have the communist state determining every aspect of economic life. Without necessarily using the word, they were practicing one of the central tenets of Catholic Social Teaching: subsidiarity.

Solidarity and Subsidiarity

Within Catholic Social Teaching, solidarity helps us see we all belong to one human family. Subsidiarity means that decisions should be made at the lowest competent level. Subsidiarity teaches that higher authorities should support the initiative of families, workers, and civic organizations; not replace them.

While shipyard workers in Gdansk were challenging Communist rule from below, another Pole was challenging Communist ideology from Rome. Pope John Paul II drew on his experience under Soviet rule as he articulated a vision of the human person that contradicted the philosophical foundations of Marxism.

Rejecting Marxist claims

John Paul II rejected the Marxist reduction of the human person to economics. Poverty is a real evil, but Marxism is wrong when it assumes that every human problem has a material solution. As he wrote in Laborem Exercens:

In dialectical materialism too, man is not first and foremost the subject of work and the efficient cause of the production process, but continues to be understood and treated, in dependence on what is material, as a kind of “resultant” of the economic or production relations prevailing at a given period (Pope St. John Paul II, Laborem Exercens, 13).

While critical of materialism in Marxism, he was also critical of the consumer society.

It seeks to defeat Marxism on the level of pure materialism by showing how a free-market society can achieve a greater satisfaction of material human needs than Communism, while equally excluding spiritual values (Pope St. John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 19).

Economic freedom is only one aspect of human freedom. While he supported Solidarity’s efforts to gain freedom for Polish workers, indeed for the Polish nation, he served as the moral conscience of the Movement. His contribution to Catholic Social Teaching helps all of us to be more human in the way we view economics and the world. Communism is not the way forward, but neither is unbridled capitalism exercised in a soulless way.

The Marxist system was very much State-centered, with decisions being centralized. The virtue of subsidiarity opposes this directly, moving decisions to a more local level.

Wojtyla’s Experience of Catholic Social Teaching

Throughout his life, Karol Wojtyla lived the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity. He called for solidarity movements to dialogue with others and never to become closed unto themselves. Reflecting on Catholic Social Teaching, he reminds us that the State should be concerned with wage levels, humane working conditions, and the dignity of work and of each worker.

The State must contribute to the achievement of these goals both directly and indirectly. Indirectly and according to the principle of subsidiarity, by creating favorable conditions for the free exercise of economic activity, which will lead to abundant opportunities for employment and sources of wealth. Directly and according to the principle of solidarity, by defending the weakest, by placing certain limits on the autonomy of the parties who determine working conditions, and by ensuring in every case the necessary minimum support for the unemployed worker (Pope St. John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 15).

Understanding that we are all part of one human family changes the way we look at one another. In the world, there is always the temptation to give in to a mentality of conquest. Pope John Paul II proposed rather a civilization of love. When the state works with intermediate autonomous bodies to promote the good of all, they all work together to promote this civilization of love. This is the principle of subsidiarity at work.

The principle of solidarity has become even more present since Pope John Paul II, notably in the teaching of Pope Francis in Fratelli Tutti, quoted also by Pope Leo XIV in Magnifica Humanitas. Pope Benedict XVI refers to the term in Caritas in Veritate. What began as a workers’ movement had a tremendous influence on Catholic Social Teaching, helping to craft a response to the proposal of Communism to the world. While there can be debate on different economic systems, the Church can never cave to the desire to lose respect for the dignity of each human being. This is at the core of Wojtyla’s thought and teaching as well.

Subsidiarity and the Family

Pope St. John Paul II was known for his love of marriage and family. Respecting the family as the most basic unit of society, he saw in it additionally the best way to promote human dignity and the progress of humanity. Subsidiarity takes on special importance in his reflection on the family in his Letter to Families.

The mission of education must always be carried out in accordance with a proper application of the principle of subsidiarity. This implies the legitimacy and indeed the need of giving assistance to the parents, but finds its intrinsic and absolute limit in their prevailing right and their actual capabilities (Pope St. John Paul II, Gratissimam Sane, 16)

When families fall apart, societies fail. Parents have the ultimate responsibility of the education of their children. Other institutions, whether this be the state, the Church, or others, must give parents their place in the education of their children. A just society involves the parents; it does not exclude them.

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Importance of Economic Freedom

Economic freedom was important for Pope John Paul II, but not because he was promoting consumerism or the market economy. Economic freedom is a means to an end, since it allows the individual to choose what is good. Freedom is not without its limits, and ideally, we should use our freedom to choose what furthers the common good. The risk of the market economy and capitalism is that there can be a strong tendency towards individualism. The rise of selfishness and greed is unchristian and does not promote the common good. Economic freedom is good when we use it so that all can grow and flourish.

Conclusion

When the workers reacted so strongly to the firing of Anna Walentynowicz, they were looking out for one of their own. Self-interest might have suggested ignoring the problem. But they knew they had to stand up for what was right. The Soviet empire eventually collapsed. But the Kingdom of Christ still needs to be built up. The mission of Christians remains the same: to build the civilization of love by defending the dignity of every human person.

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From a religious point of view, not all Christian denominations viewed this the same way. The Catholic Church never seems to have considered the existence of fossils to be a major obstacle to biblical faith. Pope Pius XII advanced this dialogue in Humani Generis (1950), distinguishing between the scientific investigation of human origins and the theological truths concerning the human person. Reflecting on Humani Generis, John Paul II later observed that Pius XII had already clarified “that there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith about man and his vocation” (Pope St. John Paul II, “Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on ‘The Origins and Early Evolution of Life’”, 22 October 1996).

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The Popes were open to considering evolution a serious possibility, as long as researchers were not making claims from outside their realm of expertise about the meaning of life or revelation. Pope St. John Paul II advanced the conversation further by emphasizing the proper relationship between scientific inquiry, philosophy, and theology.

“More Than a Hypothesis”

When he met with the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, John Paul stated that 150 years later, he had to consider evolution to be “more than a hypothesis”. This statement sent shock waves throughout the scientific community and among more conservative Christian circles. Had the Pope accepted evolution as a fact? Did this mean that he was rejecting the value of Revelation? Of course not, and a closer reading of his discourse makes that easy to understand.

As a philosopher, John Paul II recognized that beyond the given data, there are different possible interpretations of the data, identifying the materialist, reductionist, and spiritualist tendencies off the bat. Faith and reason don’t have to collide, especially when they are responding to different questions.

Characteristically, Karol Wojtyła’s first concern is with the human person, hearkening back to his fascination with Gaudium et Spes 22 that he expressed so eloquently in his first encyclical Redemptor Hominis. Here, it takes the following form.

The Church’s Magisterium is directly concerned with the question of evolution, for it involves the conception of man. Revelation teaches us that he was created in the image and likeness of God (Pope St. John Paul II, “Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on ‘The Origins and Early Evolution of Life’”, 22 October 1996).

Unique Value of Man

Man is the only creature on earth willed for his own sake. God could employ evolutionary processes in preparing the material conditions for humanity while directly creating each spiritual soul. The existence of dinosaurs or countless extinct species poses no theological difficulty. They belong to the richness of creation, whose ultimate purpose is fulfilled in the appearance of creatures capable of knowing and loving their Creator.

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Only man can live in communion, solidarity, and self-giving with his peers. This sets him apart from the rest of creation. His likeness to God comes especially through his capacity to know truth freely and to love. He is called to a relationship of knowledge and love with God himself, a higher vocation than any of the animals of creation enjoy. Along with biblical revelation, this leads to one of the basic tenets of Christian faith, the spiritual soul.

Answering Evolution

Theories of evolution become incompatible with Christianity only when they are transformed into a philosophy that denies the spiritual soul or reduces the human person to nothing more than another rung of the evolutionary process. Pope John Paul II’s philosophical distinction makes clear that this debate is not scientific but philosophical.

His confidence in the harmony of faith and reason explains why he welcomed scientific inquiry rather than feared it. Already in the Gospel, Jesus had said, “the truth will set you free” (Jn. 8:32).

Facts and Interpretation

To understand Karol Wojtyla’s thought on the matter, we have to understand the difference between facts and interpretation. There are certain facts: dinosaur bones exist, there is some sort of evolutionary process, and not all species last forever. These are facts, and there is no reason to dispute them. The interpretation matters immensely, however. If someone argues that evolution therefore proves the human person is nothing more than an advanced animal, science has ended and philosophy has begun.

As there should be a continuous deepening of human knowledge through scientific investigation, faith and religion can offer a purifying influence, making sure that the desire to investigate human subjectivity does not lead men and women to forget that they “are always called to direct their steps towards a truth which transcends them” (Pope St. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, 5). His natural love for the truth made it impossible for the Pope to fear scientific discovery. He just wanted to make sure that it would be interpreted in a way that did not threaten the good of human beings.

Dinosaur fossils, genetics, and evolutionary biology tell us much about how life has developed. They cannot answer why the human person exists or what destiny ultimately awaits him. Those questions belong to philosophy, theology, and ultimately divine revelation. John Paul II never feared scientific discoveries because he believed that authentic science and authentic faith are allies in the search for truth.

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Is Religion Pragmatic or Metaphysical?

This understanding of religion treats its value as primarily pragmatic rather than metaphysical. This view sees religion as important for what it does and does not concern itself with the value of its truth claims. This stands in marked contrast to Pope John Paul II’s vision. For John Paul II, the real question is not whether science can replace religion or philosophy, but whether all three seek the same truth by different methods. Science investigates the natural world, philosophy reflects on reason and being, and religion asks about humanity’s ultimate origin and destiny. Scientific inquiry can itself become a path by which the scientist encounters God.

In his book, Miracles, C.S. Lewis reflected that “Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Legislator.” This goes along well with Karol Wojtyła’s basic intuition that truth is objective and goes beyond what we can make up ourselves. There can be no contradiction between true faith and reason, as they work together to attain the truth. John Paul II famously described faith and reason as “two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth” (Pope St. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, introduction).

His respect for faith and reason motivated his continuous dialogue with science throughout his priesthood and papacy.

He spoke to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, encouraging scientists to use their scientific inquiry to complete their own humanity. “Every scientist, through personal study and research, completes himself and his own humanity” (Pope St. John Paul II, “Address to the members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences”, 13 November 2000). For Karol Wojtyla, the question always returns to what it means to be human.

Tool To Understand Our Place in the Cosmos

He saw science as an important tool to understand man and his place in the universe. Scientific discoveries continually expand our understanding of the universe. Science may tell us how stars form or how life develops, but it cannot determine why there is something rather than nothing, whether human dignity possesses objective value, or what constitutes a good life. These are philosophical and religious questions because they concern meaning rather than mechanism.

No matter how large our body of scientific knowledge grows, there will always be questions that are beyond the realm of science to adequately answer. The number of particles contained within the observable Universe is finite; the amount of information encoded in all the Universe is finite; no matter how much we learn, the amount that we know will always be finite. Beyond all definite knowledge, there will always be room for philosophy (Ethan Siegel, “No, Science Will Never Make Philosophy Or Religion Obsolete”, 30 June 2020).

The issue is not how much scientific knowledge humanity eventually acquires. Even if the natural sciences one day explained every physical process in the universe, they would still leave unanswered questions that belong to philosophy and theology: Why is there something rather than nothing? Is there objective moral truth? What determines the dignity of a person? What is the ultimate meaning of life? Even if scientific knowledge continued to expand indefinitely, the fundamental questions of meaning, purpose, and morality would remain.

A Different Role for Religion

John Paul II proposes a different role for religion than what many secular thinkers assume. It is not meant to be a tool for collaboration, but a vehicle to arrive at the truth.

Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish (Pope St. John Paul II, “Letter to Reverend George Coyne, SJ”, 1 June 1988).

Religion cannot be reduced to superstition, but it risks becoming so when there is not a rigorous confrontation with objective truth. Scientific inquiry offers an important dialogue that helps religion distinguish authentic faith from superstition and continually purify its understanding of the created world.

Boldness and Confidence

Sometimes, it feels like believers approach new scientific discoveries defensively, as if every advance were a threat to faith. This was not the case with Pope John Paul II. His confidence in objective truth, certainly bolstered by his philosophical background, made it so that he could never view scientific truth as an obstacle or a threat to his way of looking at the world.

If anything, new scientific discoveries can force us to rethink the way we look at certain realities of the world. Authentic faith has nothing to fear from genuine scientific discovery. Sometimes, these discoveries require believers to rethink longstanding assumptions about the natural world. But they never change the world as such. A true scientific method is more concerned with discovering the truth that is already there rather than reinterpreting the facts to fit a preconceived theory or ideology.

A New Spin on the Enlightenment

The Enlightenment period ushered in a new appreciation for knowledge and intellectual growth. It fostered much of scientific development and seemed at times to be at odds with religion. However, this exaltation of reason is not inherently threatening to religion. At its best, the Enlightenment challenged only forms of religion that were unwilling to submit their claims to the demands of reason and truth.

When some scientists during the 19^th and 20^th centuries tried to move from their scientific discoveries to make metaphysical claims, they naturally made some churchmen nervous. This was, however, never the case for Karol Wojtyła. For him, these scientific discoveries were only pushing the envelope of human knowledge and could ultimately only help us to understand humanity better and especially our place in the cosmos.

The Heavens Sing the Glory of God

Remembering Psalm 19, “the heavens declare the glory of God,” Pope John Paul II viewed scientific inquiry as an incredible ally for religion and theology.

Can theological method fruitfully appropriate insights from scientific methodology and the philosophy of science? (Pope St. John Paul II, “Letter to Reverend George Coyne, SJ”, 1 June 1988).

What does evolution mean for theological anthropology? How does astronomy deepen our understanding of creation? How might advances in neuroscience illuminate the mystery of the human person? These are not questions to be feared but welcomed. Every genuine scientific discovery enlarges our understanding of creation and therefore offers new opportunities to contemplate our Creator. When we approach the world with curiosity rather than fear, we become better able to hear what the Psalmist proclaimed long ago: “The heavens declare the glory of God.” (cf. Ps. 19)

Scientific advancements do not shrink the areas proper to faith. Rather, they widen the horizon, opening up new spaces to truth. Every genuine discovery in the natural sciences allows us to know more about the created world, and through that, the Creator. Science can explain how the world works, but philosophy seeks wisdom and religion directs the human person to the One who is the source of all truth. For Christianity, truth is not merely an abstract principle but rather a Person. The search for truth reaches its highest accomplishment in encountering Jesus Christ, who reveals both God and the human person to himself. Rather than rendering religion obsolete, scientific advances increase the reasons for wonder.

For John Paul II, communism failed not simply because it was economically inefficient, but because it rested on a false understanding of truth, human dignity, and freedom. Once truth is denied, freedom loses its direction. Once freedom is distorted, human dignity is threatened. Economic and political systems ultimately collapse when human dignity is threatened.

Truth

Communist regimes frequently subordinated truth to ideology. News and information were often manipulated to preserve the image of the state and advance the goals of the party. Marxist thought inherited from Hegel the conviction that history unfolds according to an intelligible process. Marx transformed this idealist framework into a materialist one but retained the tendency to interpret reality through a predetermined theory of historical development. Ideology is imposed upon society rather than tested against reality. In his social encyclical Centesimus Annus, John Paul II said that

Obedience to the truth about God and man is the first condition of freedom, making it possible for a person to order his needs and desires and to choose the means of satisfying them according to a correct scale of values, so that the ownership of things may become an occasion of growth for him (Pope St. John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 41).

Because Soviet Communism was explicitly atheistic, it rejected any public consideration of the truth about God. Yet it also distorted the truth about man. In its emphasis on praxis and production, the human person was often viewed primarily as a worker contributing to the historical project of building socialism. Human beings were valued less for who they were than for their role in transforming society.

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Human Dignity

When truth is subordinated to ideology, human dignity is inevitably endangered. Karol Wojtyła had seen in his experience as a priest and bishop that the authorities were more than ready to trample human rights to achieve their own goals. From his classes at the Jagiellonian University to his walks and outings with the students, Wojtyla loved to affirm the dignity of every human person. His conversations and musings took form as doctrine, building on truths expressed in the Pastoral Constitution of the Church, Gaudium et Spes.

In constantly reaffirming the transcendent dignity of the person, the Church’s method is always that of respect for freedom (Pope St. John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 46).

Karol Wojtyła had a deep respect for the truth and a clear vision of what he believed to be true. This never pushed him to be dogmatic with others, however. He was always happy to engage in religious dialogue and was fascinated by people who did not agree with him. He believed firmly in Jesus Christ, and precisely because of that faith, he believed just as firmly in the inviolable dignity of every human being.

Respect for human dignity naturally led Wojtyla to reflect on the meaning of freedom. If the person possesses an inviolable dignity, then society must create conditions in which that dignity can be exercised through authentic freedom.

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Freedom

Having lived under both Nazi occupation and Soviet domination, Karol Wojtyla understood firsthand how political systems can suppress authentic freedom. These experiences convinced him that freedom cannot mean solely the ability to choose. Freedom must be directed toward what is true and good. Although he recognized the economic shortcomings of communism, he believed that the deeper problem was anthropological: freedom detached from truth ultimately destroys itself.

Although John Paul II regarded democratic institutions and the free economy more favorably than communist systems, he never viewed them as self-sufficient. Freedom detached from truth could corrupt capitalism just as ideology had corrupted communism.

Both capitalism and communism require a foundation in truth if they are to respect the freedom that characterizes the human person. While ultimately judging the free market to be more conducive to human flourishing, he also recognized the corrupting effects of unbridled capitalism.

But freedom attains its full development only by accepting the truth. In a world without truth, freedom loses its foundation and man is exposed to the violence of passion and to manipulation, both open and hidden. The Christian upholds freedom and serves it, constantly offering to others the truth which he has known (cf. Jn 8:31-32), in accordance with the missionary nature of his vocation (Pope St. John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 46).

To understand the value of any system, it is important to analyze whether it lends itself to manipulation, and thus to corruption. Corrupt systems never serve the truth, human dignity, or freedom. Karol Wojtyla was convinced that there is a stable human nature and that social structures must be built according to that reality. When these structures are well-built, they foster the flourishing of all the individuals involved. The truth sets us free, and Christians are called to proclaim this good news to others.

For much of the twentieth century, Soviet communism seemed to be a permanent fixture on the world stage. Pope John Paul II remained convinced that a system built upon false assumptions about God, man, and freedom could not endure indefinitely. It would crumble under the weight of its own false presuppositions.

As human beings, we long for the truth about God, the world, and ourselves. Truth safeguards human dignity, and dignity demands authentic freedom. Freedom, in turn, must be directed toward what is good and lived according to the truth. When we do so, we help to build a civilization of love, with freedom for all.

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1. Why Truth Matters

2. Faith and Reason: Two Ways of Knowing

3. The University and the Search for Wisdom

4. Freedom Requires Truth

Bringing Polish Experience to the World Stage

Upon being elected Pope in 1978, Karol Wojtyła faced the challenge of bringing his experience of Poland to the universal Church. He had developed a strong voice demanding freedom. He had long supported the aspirations that would later find expression in the Solidarity Movement. He had advocated for building a church in the fully socialist city of Nowa Huta. He felt the hand of God, however, in the votes of his fellow cardinals and took up the papal mantle in an attitude of obedience.

He witnessed firsthand how Communist authorities controlled the press, censored publications, and restricted public discourse. His own appointment as bishop had been a miscalculation by Soviet authorities trying to place an innocuous candidate as auxiliary bishop of Krakow in 1958. He would end up being a great champion of truth and oppose the Communist authorities with every fiber of his being.

Although he had to leave Poland behind, his observation of his home country continued from the Apostolic Palace in Rome. Upon witnessing the breakup of the Soviet Union, he celebrated the newfound freedom of Poland. He did lament, however, certain corruptions of freedom he perceived in his homeland.

Freedom in Catholic Social Doctrine

1991 marked one hundred years since the publication of Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII’s groundbreaking document articulating Catholic Social Doctrine in the face of the Industrial Revolution. Several Popes of the 20^th century had written encyclicals building upon Rerum Novarum, responding to the social ills of their own days. Pope John Paul II had already written about the value of work in Laborem Exercens. He had responded to other social problems in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis.

In Centesimus Annus, he spoke out about freedom and truth once again, but sobered by some of the negative tendencies from the West flooding the former Soviet republics, particularly Poland. Instead of true freedom, license was spreading in the formerly oppressed places. John Paul II believed that both totalitarianism and license ultimately stem from a rejection of truth. In his encyclical, he reminded the world of the

essential bond between human freedom and truth, so that freedom which refused to be bound to the truth would fall into arbitrariness and end up submitting itself to the vilest of passions, to the point of self-destruction (Pope St. John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 4).

Truth over Tyranny

It can be hard for us to understand, as we are so inundated with the idea that absolute freedom is a basic value. However, even when standing up to totalitarianism and rejecting the claims of Marxist socialism, Karol Wojtyła recognized that the greatest evil was not the overt oppression of freedom but rather the suppression and manipulation of truth. Truth exposes the lies upon which totalitarian systems depend.

Pope John Paul II witnessed it from afar when the Solidarity Movement achieved a peaceful revolution in the Gdansk shipyard. Lech Wałęsa led the independent trade union and pressured the authorities to concede real freedom. The union would grow to have 10 million members and played a pivotal role in the eventual downfall of Communist rule in Poland. Freedom flourishes when society acknowledges reality rather than ideology.

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Value of Christian Anthropology

Because the defense of truth requires a correct understanding of the human person, Karol Wojtyła devoted much of his philosophical work to Christian anthropology. Knowing who we are as human beings helps to determine so many other questions of life. It is true that

from the Christian vision of the human person there necessarily follows a correct picture of society (Pope St. John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 14).

Through Christian anthropology, we know that man is naturally social. He is called to support the Common Good. These anthropological principles help us build a society that promotes authentic human flourishing and development.

Relation of Anthropology to Ethics

Ethics “has occupied itself very earnestly with the act and with man” (Karol Wojtyła, Person and Act, p. 104). All of ethics is primarily the study of acts that imply the person as agent. Man’s acts determine his moral character. Our human nature invites us to know truth and to do good. By recognizing this, we are able to build up the society that will be most effective at promoting true human development and flourishing.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, one of Pope John Paul II’s masterpieces, describes freedom in the following way.

Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1731).

This ability to act or not to act is inseparable from moral responsibility because every human action proceeds from a person who freely chooses. Here Wojtyła’s understanding of action differs sharply from Marxist approaches that emphasize historical processes and collective force over personal agency.

Refutation of Marxism

Marxist thought tends to evaluate actions primarily according to their historical or economic effects rather than the moral responsibility of the acting person. Wojtyła objected that every action originates in a person who remains morally accountable for what he chooses. By removing the person from the moral calculation, there is a risk in such thought to detach from truth and to judge all actions as morally neutral. When truth about the human person is obscured, power can replace morality as the measure of action. The result is often some form of totalitarianism.

Realism helps us to see that

man, who was created for freedom, bears within himself the wound of original sin, which constantly draws him towards evil and puts him in need of redemption (Pope St. John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 25).

Thus, it is not surprising when human beings use their freedom to commit evil deeds. We all bear the wound of original sin. When evaluating the freedom afforded to its population by a society, there should be consideration for the moral character of the people. They should be using their freedom to choose what is good, not what is evil. Freedom does not survive by casting off all limits. It endures only when it remains rooted in the truth about God, man, and the moral order. Detached from truth, freedom becomes license. United to truth, freedom becomes the path to authentic human flourishing.

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Faith and Reason Series

Why Truth Matters

Faith and Reason: Two Ways of Knowing

The University and the Search for Wisdom

Economic Freedom Requires Truth

Visiting the Church’s Eldest Daughter

His first pastoral visit to France marked the first time a Roman Pontiff had visited France since 1814. The Enlightenment had shaped French intellectual life profoundly, and many modern currents questioned whether objective truth could be known at all. Pope John Paul II would choose the setting of a Catholic university in France to remind academia of its fundamental need to pursue the truth.

The French Revolution and subsequent secularization of society seemed to wrest France from the bosom of the Church. Pope John Paul II’s visit showed the Church’s maternal concern and France’s desire to remain connected. Love for truth characterized Karol Wojtyła, and throughout his life, he sought to share this love with others.

Against this backdrop, he summarized the university’s mission in a single sentence:

Love for truth is the foundation of intellectual freedom without which there cannot be a university worthy of the name (Pope St. John Paul II, Discourse to the Students and Professors of Institut Catholique de Paris).

This affirmation may surprise those who assume that the Church is hostile to intellectual freedom. Catholic teaching is often caricatured as an obstacle to scientific progress or independent thought. Yet John Paul II emerged as one of the twentieth century’s most vigorous defenders of the university and of the freedom necessary for authentic inquiry.

He noted the value of human knowledge but also pointed out a potential weakness. The sciences provide remarkable knowledge about the world, while the humanities illuminate the richness of human experience. Yet neither automatically answers the deepest questions: What is the human person? What is the purpose of life? How should we live? Knowledge alone does not guarantee wisdom.

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Self-knowledge

Yet knowledge of the world is not enough. The deeper question is whether we understand ourselves. A university fulfills its mission not merely by producing experts but by helping men and women discover who they are and what their lives are for. The specific mission of these institutions is to introduce students to intellectual pursuits, answering the thirst for truth and certainty. We seek truths about the world, but we also seek the ultimate truth that gives coherence and meaning to all particular truths. We seek not only particular truths but also the source and unity of truth itself.

From St. Paul of Tarsus to Einstein, the greatest minds have shared a conviction that reality is intelligible and worth exploring. It is not enough to simply gather data. We have to learn the meaning of the data. A Catholic university has a privileged position within the larger panorama of higher education, as faculties of theology and philosophy can foster a deeper learning for their students. A Catholic university offers lay men and women the opportunity to pursue intellectual excellence while remaining rooted in the truths of the faith.

Problem of Splintering Disciplines

The Jesuit theologian Jean Danielou identified a tendency toward intellectual fragmentation within the modern university. The positive sciences have increasingly come to dominate university life, often at the expense of philosophy, theology, and the humanities. When this is the case, there is no true intellectual freedom, since there is no pursuit of a higher truth.

When universities abandon the search for transcendent truth, they become vulnerable to ideological capture. Intellectual life narrows, and education risks becoming an instrument of power rather than a pursuit of wisdom. “To forget God is the perversion of intelligence, if to be intelligent is to know reality.” Intellectual sloth risks cultural death.

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Faith Seeks Understanding

As Augustine observed, “faith should think.” Faith is not meant to bypass reason but to engage it. A Catholic university provides a privileged setting where faith and reason can challenge, purify, and enrich one another. This is why the Church never has to fear the advances of science that come as a result of intellectual research and study. There will never be a newly discovered truth that disproves the truths of the Catholic faith. We may have to revisit assumptions we have made, but truth cannot contradict itself.

The conviction that truth is one and that faith has nothing to fear from reason shaped Karol Wojtyła’s entire intellectual life. It also explains his deep interest in fostering dialogue among theologians, philosophers, and scientists. Because truth is one, the university cannot isolate disciplines from one another. Philosophy, theology, and the sciences must remain in conversation. This conviction led John Paul II to invest significant energy in fostering dialogue among scholars from other fields.

Intellectual Freedom

The Catholic faith has never been afraid of true science. The Church’s understanding of the world has often developed alongside advances in human knowledge. While Christians have sometimes embraced incomplete explanations of reality, the Church has remained open to deeper insights into creation. For this reason, the Catholic Church defends intellectual freedom vigorously.

This is one of the problems for fundamentalist interpreters of Scripture and of the Church. Intellectual freedom is not the same as intellectual isolation. Errors often arise when individuals or groups become convinced that they alone possess the whole truth and no longer remain open to correction. Genuine inquiry requires both conviction and humility.

John Paul II rejected the false choice between Catholic identity and intellectual rigor. A Catholic university should form men and women who love the truth enough to follow it wherever it leads. Intellectual rigor and Catholic identity are not competing goods; each strengthens the other when both are ordered toward truth. In the end, the university remains worthy of its name only when it can say, with confidence and humility: “We are not afraid of the truth.”

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Luther

While the tension has many historical causes, the Protestant Reformation marked an important moment in the growing separation between faith and reason. In the spiritual realm, Luther was critical of reason. We could look at this superficially and assume that he is opting for a fideistic understanding of truth. God becomes arbitrary when we take faith on its own, divorced from reason. Is this what Luther wanted?

No, rather he was reacting to some tendencies within Scholastic philosophy and theology that wanted to apply logical methods without discernment to the Bible. Logical syllogisms could seem to take precedence over the gift of faith that comes through Revelation.

Although Luther did not intend a complete separation of faith and reason, some trajectories unleashed by the Reformation contributed to a growing distinction between the domains of faith and rational inquiry. The Enlightenment would deepen this divide. Reason increasingly sought autonomy from faith, while faith was often relegated to the sphere of personal conviction. It was into this intellectual climate that Karol Wojtyla was born.

As a man of deep faith and at the same time a champion of reason, his pontificate would be a stronghold for truth in a world sliding towards relativism.

Tensions Between Faith and Reason

He saw that modern culture often forced people to choose between faith and reason, as if one had to be sacrificed for the other. His response was not to diminish either, but to show how each depends upon the other in the search for truth. This is why he wrote the encyclical Fides et Ratio, exploring the relationship between faith and reason, always with the important mission of achieving the truth. The opening paragraph makes a bold claim, which he develops throughout the encyclical.

Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth – in a word, to know himself – so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves (Pope St. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, introduction).

The quest for truth is an important element of the human experience. There are many paths that help arrive at the truth.

Men and women have at their disposal an array of resources for generating greater knowledge of truth so that their lives may be ever more human (Pope St. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, 3)

Importance of Philosophy

This search for truth corresponds to something we desire naturally, as we learn through philosophy, the love of wisdom.

Born and nurtured when the human being first asked questions about the reason for things and their purpose, philosophy shows in different modes and forms that the desire for truth is part of human nature itself. It is an innate property of human reason to ask why things are as they are, even though the answers which gradually emerge are set within a horizon which reveals how the different human cultures are complementary (Pope St. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, 3).

Philosophy serves as a help for understanding truths of the faith. Some of the same behaviors of the Scholastics that bothered Luther were actually a route for a genuine deepening of the faith. Although his criticism of simply applying syllogisms indiscriminately to the truths of faith may have been warranted, the use of rigorous philosophical and theological methods to go deeper into revealed truth has borne great fruit in the succeeding centuries.

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Splintering of the Truth

Karol Wojtyła was aware of a certain splintering of the truth with the rise of the modern age. With the impressive and noteworthy expansion of human knowledge, there is a tendency to neglect the search for ultimate truth. This is regrettable, and through this encyclical, Pope John Paul II helps to remedy the situation.

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Already the First Vatican Council taught that “the truth attained by philosophy and the truth of Revelation are neither identical nor mutually exclusive” (Pope St. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, 9). There is a twofold order regarding the object of knowledge, not their source. All truth comes ultimately from God, but some of this truth can be attained only by him revealing it to us. This is the truth that we know primarily through faith, although it is never contrary to reason.

The truth made known to us by Revelation is neither the product nor the consummation of an argument devised by human reason (Pope St. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, 15).

Avoiding an Over-Rationalization of the Faith

This helps to avoid a rationalization of faith, reducing the faith to a series of principles from which all of its truths can be logically deduced. The relationship between faith and reason is important, and can be threatened by some modern ways of thought, particularly nihilism.

As a philosophy of nothingness, it has a certain attraction for people of our time. Its adherents claim that the search is an end in itself, without any hope or possibility of ever attaining the goal of truth (Pope St. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, 46).

For John Paul II, nihilism emerges when reason loses confidence in its ability to know objective truth. The result is not greater freedom but skepticism about whether truth can be known at all. Having a strong trust in reason, Pope John Paul II argued that faith and reason can achieve a proper harmony. He suggested

that faith and philosophy recover the profound unity which allows them to stand in harmony with their nature without compromising their mutual autonomy. The parrhesia of faith must be matched with the boldness of reason (Pope John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, 48).

The question of faith and reason is not merely academic. Every person seeks meaning, purpose, and truth. Wojtyla believed that we were made for this search. Faith without reason risks becoming superstition; reason without faith risks becoming trapped within its own limits. Together, they are the two wings by which the human spirit rises toward the fullness of truth.

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Eventually, the vocational pull grew too strong, and he decided to join the seminary. This meant abandoning his government-ordered job to disappear from the world in his pursuit of the priesthood. To avoid detection, Archbishop Sapieha required clandestine formation, with seminarians living and studying at the bishop’s palace under conditions of strict secrecy. The Nazis were right to fear the formation of future priests. Truth ultimately outlasts totalitarianism.

Struggle Against Totalitarianism

The close of the war meant simply exchanging one sort of oppression for another for the Poles. The Soviets replaced the Nazis, establishing Poland as a puppet state. Lies ruled once again. Wojtyła’s priesthood and episcopacy would be marked by playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with the new regime. His strong philosophical and theological background ensured that he would not cave to their desires to obfuscate the truth. Rather, it hardened his conviction to seek the truth above all else.

As a philosophy professor at Jagellonian University, he helped young people reflect on truth. As a pastor, he proclaimed the Gospel from the pulpit. Yet, as a priest living under communist rule, he constantly had to sift through propaganda and deception to discern what was really happening.

The Soviets famously manipulated information and tried to rewrite history. After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, history itself “became an area of strict political control. It was supposed to serve the current political interests of those in power and the Soviet Empire” (Anna Zofia Cichocka, “Historical Fallacies in Communist Propaganda”).

Every totalitarian regime depends on a series of lies and deceptions. Karol Wojtyła knew from his own experience that totalitarianism cannot survive the truth. His own life would become a sustained witness to reality against ideology. His thought on the subject would also span the question of the relationship between faith and reason.

Theological Reflection

He wrote extensively on the topic in his 1998 encyclical, Fides et Ratio, “On Faith and Reason.” The first lines of the encyclical are some of the most poignant of all his years of the pontificate.

Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth – in a word, to know himself – so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves (Pope St. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, 1).

He had already reflected on truth regarding moral theology in Veritatis Splendor, “The Splendor of Truth.” However, his opening to Fides et Ratio always strikes me as a veritable homage to truth. Veritatis Splendor focuses on truth in moral action, while in Fides et Ratio, Pope John Paul II focuses on truth in intellectual knowing. God himself has placed in the human heart the desire for truth. Knowledge of self and others, leading ultimately to knowledge of God, is a recurring theme in the thought of Karol Wojtyla.

Philosophical Grounding

Wojtyla’s commitment to truth was not merely political or pastoral. It was grounded in a philosophical vision of the human person and our capacity to know reality. A realist epistemology recognizes the existence of objective truth, at the same time that it admits that this objective truth can be difficult to attain. Truth is objective, but our access to it is personal. Each of us approaches reality through our own experiences, knowledge, and limitations. My experience, my past knowledge, and even my emotions can color the data that I perceive from the outside world.

This does not imply any opposition or contradiction between faith and reason. Both modes of knowing can be modes of arriving at the truth, and they even build on one another.

The human spirit is called to rise to the contemplation of truth. This imagery reminds us that truth is a good to be pursued. There is a fundamental relationship, even between what is true and what is good. The transcendentals remind us that truth and goodness belong together. To pursue the good fully, we must also seek the truth about it.

Wojtyła’s engagement with phenomenology, especially through the work of Max Scheler, deepened his appreciation for the world of human experience and value. Value is inherently related to good. Value arises when a good is recognized and freely affirmed by a person. Increasingly, narrative, not truth, becomes the organizing principle of public discourse.

Looking to Today

Rather than truth-telling, much of our public discourse seems to become marketing. Social media rewards attention, not necessarily accuracy. Political discourse rewards loyalty to tribes more than fidelity to reality. In such an environment, Wojtyła’s insistence on seeking truth together becomes increasingly relevant.

Karol Wojtyła understood the value of truth his entire life. Being subjected to totalitarian regimes sharpened his awareness of the danger of lies. If we are going to be truly disciples of truth, we need to learn to question the narratives that whirl around us and go to the heart of the matter. Not only will this help us have a firmer grasp on reality, but it will also make possible a civilization of love. Totalitarian regimes fear the truth because the truth exposes reality. Free societies need the truth because only truth can sustain genuine freedom. For Wojtyła, truth was not an abstraction to defend but a reality to live. Without it, neither freedom nor love can endure.

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