American Minute with Bill Federer
The Pope that stood up to Socialism -- John Paul II
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Pope John Paul II
visited
Poland
in 1979.
His arrival was met by
hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens
who had suffered under socialism since the 1945 Yalta Conference, when
Franklin Roosevelt
and
Winston Churchill
surrendered
Poland
to
Stalin
at the end of World War II.
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The
Pope's visit
sparked an unprecedented
spiritual revival in Poland.
The next year, labor leader
Lech Walesa,
rallied Polish citizens to
reject socialism
and establish a free representative government.
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This sparked uprisings in other communist countries, and by 1989, the
Berlin Wall came down.
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Pope John Paul II
stated:
“The fundamental
error of socialism
is ... (it) considers the
individual person
simply as an element,
a molecule within the social organism,
so that the good of the
individual is completely subordinated
to the functioning of the
socio-economic mechanism.”
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He continued:
“Socialism
... maintains that the
good of the individual
can be realized
without reference to his free choice
... The concept of
the person as the autonomous subject
of moral decision
disappear
s ...
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... From this
mistaken conception of the person
there arise(s) ...
an opposition to private property.
A person who is deprived
of something he can call
‘his own,’
and of the possibility of
earning a living
through his own initiative, comes to
depend on the social machine
and on
those who control it.
This makes it
much more difficult
for him to recognize
his dignity as a person
and
hinders
progress towards the building up of
an authentic human community.”
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Pope John Paul II
wrote in his encyclical
Centesimus Annus,
1991:
“In recent years the range of such
intervention
has vastly expanded, to the point of creating
a new type of state,
the so-called
‘Welfare State'
...
The
principle of subsidiarity
must be respected: a
community of a higher order
should
not interfere
in the internal life of a
community of a lower order
...
An inordinate increase of public agencies,
which are dominated more by
bureaucratic thinking
... are accompanied by an
enormous increase in spending
..."
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He continued:
"Needs
are best understood and satisfied
by people who are closest to them
who
act as neighbors
to
those in need.
It should be added that
certain kinds of demands
often call for a response which is
not simply material
but which is capable of perceiving the
deeper human need.”
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Pope John Paul II,
whose given name was
Karol Wojtyla,
was born in a small town in Poland, MAY 18, 1920.
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He was a chemical worker during World War II and
risked punishment from Communists
for being ordained a priest.
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In 1967, he became
Archbishop of Krakow
and, in 1978, he became
Pope John Paul II,
the first non-Italian pope since 1522.
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Leader of
one billion Catholics
worldwide,
Pope John Paul
spoke
eight languages
and traveled over a million miles to
170 countries
-- more than any other pope.
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He made history by visiting
Yad Vashem,
the national Holocaust memorial in
Israel
on March 2000.
He then visited the
Western Wall
in
Jerusalem
and placed
a prayer in the Wall for forgiveness
for past actions against Jews. He stated:
"I assure the
Jewish people
the
Catholic Church
… is
deeply saddened
by the hatred, acts of persecution and displays of
anti-Semitism
directed
against the Jews by Christians at any time and in any place
...
No words (are) strong enough to
deplore the terrible tragedy of the Holocaust."
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In 1993,
President Clinton
greeted
Pope John Paul II
in Denver, after which he addressed Regis University.
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He stated:
"The inalienable
dignity of every human being
... in the first place
the right to life
and the
defense of life
... are at the
heart of the church's message
and action in the world ...
No country,
not even the most powerful,
can endure if it deprives its own children of this essential good."
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During the Saturday night
prayer vigil,
August 14, 1993, at Cherry Creek State Park, the
Pope
addressed nearly
a quarter of a million people:
"The family especially is under attack.
And the sacred character of human life denied. Naturally, the weakest members of society are the most at risk: the unborn, children ...
There is spreading an
anti-life mentality
-- an attitude of
hostility to life in the womb
and life in its last stages.
Precisely when science and medicine are achieving a greater capacity to safeguard health and life,
the threats against life are becoming more insidious.
Abortion and euthanasia
-- the actual
killing of another human being
-- are hailed as 'rights' and solutions to 'problems.'"
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On August 15, 1993, the
Pope
addressed
over 375,000 people
from 70 different countries at Cherry Creek State Park as a part of "World Youth Day," with
Vice-President Al Gore
in attendance:
"A 'culture of death'
seeks to impose itself on our desire to live ...
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... As at no other time in history, the
'culture of death'
has assumed a
social and institutional form of legality
to justify
the most horrible crimes against humanity:
genocide, 'final solutions,' 'ethnic cleansings' and
massive taking of lives of human beings even before they are born,
or before they reach the natural point of death ...
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... In much of contemporary thinking, any reference to a 'law' guaranteed by
the Creator is absent.
There remains only
each individual's choice
...
Vast sectors of society are
confused about what is right and what is wrong
and are at
the mercy of those with the power to 'create' opinion
and impose it on others ..."
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Pope John Paul II
continued:
"The
weakest members
of society are
the most at risk.
The unborn, children,
the sick, the handicapped, the old, the poor and unemployed, the immigrant and refugee ...
Do not be afraid
to go out on the streets and into public places ...
This is no time to be ashamed of the Gospel.
It is a time to
preach it from the rooftops
...
You must feel the full urgency
of the task. Woe to you if you do not succeed in
defending life
..."
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Concluding his
Youth Day
address, he challenged:
"The
church
needs
your energies, your enthusiasm, your youthful ideas,
in order to make the
Gospel of Life
penetrate the fabric of society,
transforming people's hearts
and the structures of society in order to create a civilization of true justice and love."
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Evangelist Billy Graham
lauded Pope John Paul II's 11th papal encyclical, titled "Evangelium Vitae" (Gospel of Life), issued April of 1995, as:
"A forceful and thoughtful
defense of the sacredness of human life
in the face of the modern world's reckless march toward violence and needless death."
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On October 8, 1995, at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport with
Vice-President Al Gore,
Pope John Paul
admonished America again:
"At the center of the
moral vision
of
your founding documents
is the recognition of the
rights of the human person
and especially respect for the dignity and
sanctity of human life
in all conditions and at all stages of development.
I say to you again, America,
in the light of your own tradition: love life,
cherish life, defend life, from conception to natural death."
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In 1981, he survived an assassination attempt by a fundamental Islamist, Mehmet Ali Ağca, whom
he forgave during a prison visit.
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In comparing religions,
Pope John Paul
wrote in
Crossing the Threshold of Hope
(1995):
"Islam is not a religion of redemption. There is no room for the Cross and the Resurrection ... The tragedy of redemption is completely absent ...
In Islam, all the richness of God's self-revelation, which constitutes the heritage of the Old and New Testaments, has definitely been set aside ..."
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He continued:
"The god of the Koran is a god outside of the world, a god who is only Majesty, never Emmanuel, God-with-us ...
Not only the theology, but also the anthropology of Islam is very distant from Christianity."
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Having the third longest papal term in history,
Pope John Paul II
was the
most recognized person in the world.
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He met with
Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton
and
Bush,
as well as many other world leaders.
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When he died, April 2, 2005,
President Bush
ordered
flags flown half staff.
In 2014, he was canonized a Saint in the Catholic Church.
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In 1979,
Pope John Paul II
had appointed the
Most Reverend Robert Sarah of Guinea,
West Africa, as
Archbishop.
He was elevated to
Cardinal
in 2010.
Cardinal Sarah,
September 1, 2010, rejected
Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi's
call for Europe to become Muslim as being disrespectful of all of Catholic Italy and the Pope:
"To speak of the European continent converting to Islam makes no sense because it is the people alone who decide consciously to be Christian, Muslim or to follow other religions."
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Cardinal Robert Sarah
stated in his synod on the family, October 12, 2015:
"Like two 'apocalyptic beasts' located on opposite poles: on the one hand, the idolatry of Western freedom; on the other, Islamic fundamentalism: atheistic secularism versus religious fanaticism.
To use a slogan, we find ourselves between 'gender ideology and ISIS.' Islamic massacres and libertarian demands regularly contend for the front page of the newspapers.
From these two radicalizations arise the two major threats to the family: its subjectivist disintegration in the secularized West through quick and easy divorce, abortion, homosexual unions, euthanasia etc. (cf. Gender theory, the 'Femen', the LGBT lobby, IPPF ...)
On the other hand, the pseudo-family of ideologized Islam which legitimizes polygamy, female subservience, sexual slavery, child marriage etc. (cf. Al Qaeda, Isis, Boko Haram ...)"
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Cardinal Sarah
continued:
"Several clues enable us to intuit the same demonic origin of these two movements.
Unlike the Spirit of Truth that promotes communion in the distinction (perichoresis), these encourage confusion (homo-gamy) or subordination (poly-gamy).
Furthermore, they demand a universal and totalitarian rule, are violently intolerant, destroyers of families, society and the Church, and are openly Christianophobic.
'We are not contending against creatures of flesh and blood ....' We need to be inclusive and welcoming to all that is human; but what comes from the Enemy cannot and must not be assimilated. You can not join Christ and Belial! ..."
Sarah conluded:
"What Nazi-Fascism and Communism were in the 20th century, Western homosexual and abortion Ideologies and Islamic Fanaticism are today."
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Cardinal Robert Sarah
stated at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., May 18, 2016:
"Good becomes evil, beauty is ugly, love becomes the satisfaction of sexual primal instincts, and truths are all relative ...
The legalization of same-sex marriage, the obligation to accept contraception within healthcare programs, and even 'bathroom bills' that allow men to use the women's restrooms and locker rooms.
Should not a biological man use the men's restroom? How simpler can that concept be? ..."
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Cardinal Robert Sarah
concluded his comments on the radical sexual agenda which:
"... cause damage to the little children through inflicting upon them a deep existential doubt about love ... They are a scandal - a stumbling block - that prevent the most vulnerable from believing in such love ...
(Same-sex marriage) can never be a truthful solution ...
The result is hostility to Christians, and, increasingly, religious persecution ... I encourage you to truly make use of the freedom willed by your founding fathers, lest you lose it."
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This sentiment was echoed by
Italian Archbishop Carlo Liberati
stated
(Breitbart,
January 14, 2017):
"We have a weak Christian faith ... Seminaries are empty ...
Italy and Europe live in a pagan and atheist way, they make laws that go against God and they have traditions that are proper of paganism....
All this paves the way to Islam ... Europe will soon be Muslim."
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In Denver, Colorado, 1993,
Pope John Paul
stated:
"In spite of divisions among
Christians,
all those
justified by faith
through baptism are incorporated into
Christ
...
brothers and sisters in the Lord.'"
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He addressed the
Youth Day event,
August 15, 1993:
"Young pilgrims,
Christ needs you to enlighten the world
... The struggle will be long, and
it needs each one of you."
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Schedule Bill Federer for interviews & PowerPoint presentations: 314-502-8924
wjfederer@gmail.com
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