Review
October AD 2007
Our Lady of the Rosary
Parish Bulletin,
Yallop, David. The Power and the Glory: Inside the
Dark Heart of John Paul II’s Vatican.
New York: Carroll and Graf,
2007, XII + 530 pp., $26.95
David Yallop’s earlier investigative work, In God’s
Name, concerned itself with the untimely and suspicious death of Pope John
Paul I. It presented several plausible scenarios in which one interest group
or another anticipated changes which it considered disastrous to be
implemented almost immediately by the new Pontiff:
On September 28th, 1978 these six men-Marcinkus, Villot, Calvi, Gelli,
Sindona, Cody-had a great deal to fear if the papacy of John Paul I continued.
One of these six men applied the Italian Solution: The Pope must die! [In
God's Name, prologue]
Yallop persuasively demonstrated motive. One could not
imagine them working together-the list included liberals, conservatives, and
just plain crooks -but each of the men mentioned had different reasons for
wanting the new Pope to go away. Yallop also presented a plausible suggestion
that someone found a way to make John Paul’s normally low blood pressure,
fatally lower still. But in the end, he gave no really conclusive evidence of
a murder, and did not confirm the identity of the alleged murderer.
The Power and the Glory is far less speculative. John
Paul II probably died of natural causes. But the liberals, conservatives, and
just plain crooks, are every bit as much a part of the plot as they were in
the first book.
From the orthodox Catholic point of view, the power of
Yallop’s writing is diminished by the Modernist perspective he takes on the
matters of morality with which the modern papacy has had to deal. He claims
that “The informed Christian conscience must base all of these [moral]
decisions upon Christian ‘Natural Law’ which within the Church is defined
ultimately by the Pope.” [Page 387, and Chapter 11] In reality the Natural Law is written in the
conscience of every man, and is, in no way, subject to change by any power on
earth; not even the Pope. Throughout Chapter 11, Yallop holds that the Popes
were at fault for not taking a more liberal attitude toward things like
abortion, birth control, and divorce. But if the late Pope had faults, they
will not be found in over zeal to uphold the Natural Law.
Yallop also misses the point by repeatedly referring to
homosexual molestation by priests as “paedophilia.” He makes the
distinction between pre- and post- pubescent molestation, but then goes on to
ignore it. [LINK]
[LINK] More importantly, he confines his narrative of priestly immorality
almost exclusively to those cases which are actionable under civil
law-ignoring the larger problem, of which molestation is but a part-albeit a
very horrifying and damaging part. The only mention of an “homosexual
network” describes the infamous goings-on in an Austrian seminary, which
resembled a pornography shop and brothel more than an institute of religious
higher education. [LINK]
[LINK]
Yallop is more concerned with the efforts of the Church to
avoid scandal then he is with Its failure to correct the root cause of the
problem.
On the other hand, Karol Wojtyla’s contributions to the
documents of Vatican II, as Archbishop and Cardinal, particularly with regard
to fostering religious indifferentism in Dignitatis humanć, have
Yallop’s admiration.
Where the traditional Catholic will appreciate The Power
and the Glory is in the chapters that put the lie to the hagiography that
surrounded the second John Paul’s papacy. “Hagiography” is the term used
to describe those delightful stories about the saints which mix fact and
fiction to edify the reader and leave him without any question as to the saint’s
special relationship with God. There is no attempt at deception, but
hagiography lacks the factual precision of history or biography. For example
the legend of Constantine’s Baptism and cure from leprosy by Pope Saint
Sylvester speaks the grand importance of the fourth century alliance of Pope
and Emperor. [Matins of November 9, Dedication of the
Lateran Basilica] The historical reality is that Constantine put off Baptism until,
on his deathbed, he was baptized by an Arian Bishop. Hagiography is a fine
thing for the edification of the faithful by the glories of the saints-but it
becomes unproductive or even dangerous if it is used to hide the imperfections
of modern day characters. Yallop distinguishes clearly between the hagiography
and the history surrounding the deceased Pope John Paul II-an hagiography
which surrounded him even before death.
The hagiography portrays Wojtyla as a priest and bishop who
actively resisted the Nazis and Communists, and who went out of his way to
protect both the Christians and Jews against these oppressors. Yallop declares
that, quite the opposite, he avoided personal involvement with the victims and
rarely criticized the regime. He was no Wyszynski! The young Wojtyla was more
concerned with networking, getting to know the right people in the right
places. For example, during the Nazi occupation, Wojtyla’s French tutor was
able to secure a position at the Solvay chemical plant making caustic soda for
the German war effort. While the hagiographers describe this as a stint of
forced labor, in reality it was a plum position.
At the time all able-bodied Polish males were candidates for forced labour
in Germany, or working on border fortifications on the Eastern Front. Either
route led to a brutal and usually short life. Working at Solvay carried a
large range of benefits. It was in some respects a self contained village with
residential homes, containing a surgery with a resident doctor, staff canteen,
a shop and a gymnasium. Apart from his wages and the perk of vodka coupons
that could be traded on the black market, Karol Wojtyla carried at all times
his guarantee that he would have a good war: an Ausweis, or identity
card that indicated that the bearer was employed in a kriegswichtig
industry, work that was essential to the Third Reich’s war effort. [Page 6]
The hagiography-Yallop cites a passage by Father Andrew
Greeley-maintains that as layman and cleric Wojtyla was active in the
underground, hiding Jews, providing false identification, and helping them to
escape-and later denouncing the Communists for their anti-Semitism, rebuilding
the Jewish cemetery which they desecrated, and speaking at the Cracow
synagogue. Greeley claimed to be quoting the Jewish Anti-Defamation League and
B’nai Brith.
Despite the fact that Father Greeley’s source was a Rome based official
of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League there is not one single word of truth in
the [account by Greeley which Yallop quoted]. More than twenty years into the
Wojtyla papacy, the Vatican website was still quoting another Jewish
organization, B’nai Brith as a source of these fantasies. Yet B’nai Brith
hold no evidence to justify any of the claims made in the quoted passage and
further denied to this author that they have ever made the claims attributed
to them. [Page 28; see also chapter 8, especially page 243]
Many have wondered how Bishop Wojtyla managed to travel and
speak freely while the Polish Communist regime was beating, imprisoning, and
murdering other priests. Yallop acknowledges the large number of collaborator
priests in Cracow, suggests that Wojtyla was not one of them, but that the
collaborators reported favorably about him.
It has been suggested that Wyszynski was bounced into the decision in 1958
to make Wojtyla a bishop by the regime. Whatever the truth, the Primate
certainly did not want to give a further promotion to Wojtyla, whom he
regarded as little more than an ambitious man preoccupied with networking. [In
1964, in order to fill a vacancy in the Cracow diocese] ... acting on the
traditional protocol, Cardinal Wyszynski submitted three names to the Polish
government. All three had previously been approved by the Pope. Wojtyla’s
name was not on the list. Months later the list came back to Wyszynski with
all of the candidates rejected.... After a further three months the second
list came back..... Zenon Kliszko, the Communist number two [is said to have
explained], “Wojtyla was the best, indeed the only choice.... I’ve vetoed
seven so far. I’m waiting for Wojtyla and I’ll continue vetoing names
until I get him.”
Why Wojtyla? The regime considered him politically naive and as a man who
had never displayed any of the intransigence for which his Primate was
internationally famous, someone who would be open to compromise....
The clinching element, however, was the highly detailed report that Kliszko
had requested from the Communist Party’s top agent in Cracow, Father
Wladyslaw Kulczycki. Kliszko’s tactics worked a charm, When he received a
further nomination from the Cardinal, the list contained the name ‘Wojtyla.’
It is not every Communist leader that can claim to be instrumental in the
making of a pope, particularly a Polish pope. [Page 11-12]
Suffice it to say that Yallop does not credit Pope John
Paul II with the fall of Communism in Poland, let alone throughout the world.
The Chapters which deal with Vatican finances and the
politics of the Curia read like one of Damon Runyon’s prohibition era
gangster comedy movies. The unlikely cast of characters includes archbishops,
bankers, mafia dons, priests, Freemasons, hit men, and Opus Dei types.
The plot would be funny if not for the fact that real people died, bribes were
passed (including “the Mother of all Bribes”), gangster money was
laundered, banks failed, immoral businesses were financed, criminals were
harbored in the Vatican, Church money disappeared, and the Church’s
reputation tarnished for a long time to come.
Nor is any of this the product of David Yallop’s
imagination-most of it has been in the papers over the last few
decades-Sicilian Mafioso, Michele Sindona, really did manage Vatican finances
before going on to crash the Banco Ambrosiano of Milan, and the Franklin Bank
in the US, and on to death in jail-the “P2” Masonic lodge nearly crashed
the Italian Government-Archbishop Paul Marcinkus did hide out in the
Vatican-the Italian government just recently reopened the investigation of
Roberto Calvi’s Masonic “suicide” under London’s Blackfriars
Bridge-and the Opus Dei people really do have a multimillion dollar
building near Wall Street, and do make up a goodly part of the Vatican
deficit. If the newspapers ever tire of reporting the bankrupting, church
closing, settlements the Church has made with the victims of child molesters,
the “Magic Money” scandal is waiting in the wings to keep the reporters
employed.
Nonetheless, we must lament the dearth of footnotes that
might have helped substantiate the many controversial statements throughout
the book. Of the thirteen footnotes for over five hundred pages, only the
three which cite Scripture are specific enough to verify the reference.
For those interested in contemporary Church history, The
Power and the Glory is worth reading. Just don’t pay much attention to
Yallop’s theology.
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