John Paul II's Legacy

Early in the pontificate of JPII, the British historian Paul Johnson wrote about religion in his book Modern Times. Some of his observations were striking and may give some hint about the path of the Church in the next century.

While theologians at the Universities of Tubingen and Utrecht were diminishing the total of Christian belief, strange charismatics in the slums of Mexico City and San Paulo, of Cape Town, Johannesburg, Lagos and Nairobi, were adding to it. The first group spoke for thousands; the second for scores of millions.

Johnson also noted that the new Pope was aware of the two tendencies and was not neutral between them:

John Paul II gave the movement the stamp of approval in January 1979, when he insisted on visiting the shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe and placed the people of Mexico under the protection of that Indian-style Madonna.

Commentators sometimes note that the Church has become more global under JP II, but they do not do very good job explaining what that means in terms of doctrine or in terms of the health of the flock.