The Pope and the Dictator

One of the first articles I ever wrote for publication was entitled, “The Lost Art of anger.”  It grew out of my consternation arising from a heinous crime.

On May 10, 1961 the bodies of two children were found at the bottom of Crooked River Gorge in Central Oregon. At that location the gorge has sheer vertical walls and it ranges from 300 to 500 feet deep. Someone had thrown both children into the gorge.

Authorities discovered that the children had been bludgeoned and sexually mutilated before their deaths. It looked like the work of a sexual predator, but authorities soon deduced that the mutilation was a cover for something even more shocking. The children had been killed by their mother and her companion because the children were a hindrance to the women’s Lesbian love affair.

The mother, named Gertrude Nunez, and her companion, Jeannace Freeman were convicted of the murders. Freeman, who was dominant and deemed the worse offender of the pair, became the only woman ever sentenced to death in Oregon.

My article at that time said that anger, indeed, burning indignation against these women, was not only justified but was morally mandated. I wrote it to disagree sharply with a tendency in psychology then to excuse and explain away all wrongdoing. 

Now I am writing about saving civilization, and I think the Crooked River Gorge case is germane to the subject. How should society react to unspeakable cruelty? Should the murderers be transported to the same site to watch an executioner approach, tire iron in hand, then be mutilated and cast into the gorge?

Maybe that would be justice of a sort, but it would also be cruel. To exact a life for a life from murderers is one thing. To do it in a manner calculated to cause the most suffering is another. At this point, an important issue emerges. It asks not what kind of people the murderers are but what kind of people we are. In other words, can we be cruel to the cruel without debasing our own humanity?

Pope John Paul II thought we could not.

A Remarkable Life

As a young man, Karol Wojtyla saw the face of cruelty close up. Friends wanted him to take up arms with them against the Nazis who occupied his beloved homeland, and terrorized the Polish people. However, his priest told him there were other ways to fight evil. In due time Wojtyla became a priest himself. Eventually he saw the end of Nazi occupation, only to have Communism take its place. Despite all the evil around him, Wojtyla continued to believe in man’s inherent dignity.   

This belief, which defined him when he became Pope John Paul II, was no sentimental notion that we should always be nice because no one is really bad. Rather it was based on his profound belief in the incarnation: God himself showed man’s essential dignity by becoming a man.

A close associate of John Paul, Cardinal Justin Rigali explained, “He would insist that, no matter if people harm you, you remember always that the human dignity in them cannot be obliterated. They always share humanity with the Son of God” (The Catholic Standard and Times, April 7, 2005).

Asked how the pope honored these principles when he dealt with his enemies, Rigali said, “The pope didn’t have enemies. There were many people he disagreed with—forces of evil, anti-life forces—but the pope was not against people. It was his job to proclaim the dignity of everyone” (ibid).

His practical application of this principle was perhaps best revealed in his encounters with Polish Communist dictator General Wojciech Jaruzelski. Before the first meeting of the two, the pope’s fearlessness in opposing Communist oppression had already been demonstrated. The Soviets had massed tanks on the Polish border to intimidate supporters of the freedom movement called Solidarity. The pope sent a wire to Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev. If Brezhnev sent in the tanks, the pope would resign  and join the Polish people in the barricades.

The Soviets did not invade, but Jaruzelski imposed martial law on the Polish people to squash Solidarity. That was in 1981. When the pope visited Poland in 1983, he met with Jaruzelski. The dictator said that he knew the people hated him and saw him as a monster and a traitor. “But,” he insisted, “I am a patriot. I saved Poland. If I had not acted, the Soviets would have invaded.”

The pope replied, “You are a patriot; I am a patriot. As one patriot to another, may I embrace you?” After their embrace, the pope calmly told the dictator he would not be able to stop Solidarity. The pope’s open support energized Solidarity and led to the collapse of the Communist regime in Poland.

When Pope John Paul II died in 2005, more than 20 years after he embraced the Communist dictator, one of those who walked into the Vatican’s embassy in Warsaw to pay respects was General Jaruzelski. “It was from me,” Jaruzelski said in an interview afterward, “not something I felt I had to do as a former president . . . . Rather it was my privilege to personally meet with the pope, and those meetings, even now, remain in my deepest memories” (Chicago Tribune, April 7, 2005).

Later Jaruzelski said, “Don’t misunderstand me . . . I don’t think we’re on the same level. I consider the pope to be one of the greatest men in history.” He added, “I am not talking about this as a religious experience because I am not a religious man. I’m talking about that which comes from a deep respect for a man” (ibid). Jaruzelski undoubtedly referred to his deep respect for the pope, but his words also described the pope’s consistent treatment of him as a person with essential human dignity.

            The moral of the story about the Pope and the dictator could be that kindness and respect will win the day. Well, it apparently did for Pope John Paul II, but I’m not sure that’s normative. It would not be difficult to find compelling examples of eminently decent people whose reward was to lose their lives. The case of David and Uriah comes immediately to mind (see pp. 60-61). The example of the pope and the dictator is powerful, but it is not the whole story.

Human Dignity and the Death Penalty

The pope was opposed to capital punishment. With all due respect, I don’t think that position is required by belief in man’s essential dignity.

Indeed, society’s failure to hold a person accountable can itself be an expression of disrespect. It suggests that the wrongdoer is less than an authentic, responsible human being and is simply a product of influences beyond his control.

People need to be held accountable for their actions. In particular, some violent crimes against other people are so horrendous they merit death. A certain degree of satisfaction in such a death is appropriate; justice has been done.

However, any satisfaction over the punishment meted out to vile offenders must be tempered by sadness. This after all is a human being, somebody’s child, somebody who could have been a noble person. Such a death is a tragedy, not a triumph.

King Solomon wrote in Proverbs: “Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when he stumbles do not let your heart rejoice, or the Lord will see and disapprove” (Proverbs 24:17-18).  All people deserve at least a modicum of respect. That’s something we need to keep in mind as we work to save civilization. Otherwise, we become part of the problem.