His Holiness: John Paul II and the hidden history of our time.

Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi, His Holiness: John Paul II and the Hidden History of Our Time

New York, Doubleday, 1996, 582 pp., $37.95 (Can)

REVIEWED BY MICHAEL POWER

The Polish pope has been a pillar of genuine spirituality and moral certainty, a consistent critic of both Communism and consumer capitalism and an indefatigable champion of the right to life. Poet, performer, playwright, philosopher and priest -- John Paul II has given every ounce of his physical and spiritual energy to Christian unity, ecumenical dialogue, world peace and preparing the Church for the next millennium.

No pope in the last two centuries, including Pius IX and Pius XII, has come under more intense scrutiny and hardnosed criticism than the present incumbent. The miracle of his papacy might be that he has simply survived up to now, relatively intact and unblemished, in a divided and cynical world. We have few real heroes left, and John Paul II is one of them.

The latest addition to this scrutiny is a mammoth study by two veteran journalists, Carl Bernstein, of Watergate fame, and Marco Politi, who has covered the Vatican for almost two decades. They have written an exhaustive and fairly sympathetic biography. However, as I read this book, I gained an increasingly clear recognition that Bernstein and Politi had incompatible ambitions when writing it and in effect wrote two different books. This recognition may assist readers in their considerable challenge to sort and discern the disparate threads of this literary partnership.

Bernstein, the investigative reporter, wants to prove that John Paul II and President Ronald Reagan actually worked together to destroy the Iron Curtain and were largely responsible for its speedy collapse. He fails to deliver the goods, and what goods he does deliver are old news. Politi, the would-be biographer, is far more successful in his own undertaking: a portrait of the pope that is at once true to his complex personality and sensitive to the objective criticism that will one day judge his pontificate. In the end, Politi's work suffers at the hands of his co-author, weakening the credibility of the entire endeavour. It would have been a better book with only Politi at the helm.

Bernstein

Bernstein's pet thesis is that there was an informal secret alliance between the Holy See and the "Catholic Mafia" of the Reagan administration to bring down Communism in Eastern Europe. It is too implausible to take seriously. Is this the hidden history referred to in the subtitle?

There is little substance to the tale of collaboration, only slightly titillating tidbits such as meetings between the CIA Director William Casey and the pope; transcripts of the minutes of Politburo meetings; and phone calls between Brezhnev and the Polish leadership.

These and similar details fade in and out of the narrative, leading to nowhere in particular, and finally disappear altogether, leaving us to wonder why there are people who still want to call a hill of beans a mountain. It is melodramatic, cloak-and-dagger stuff, superficially exciting, like many twentieth-century conspiracy tales, but empty on the evidentiary side.

Politi

What can we say about Politi's contribution? The best parts of His Holiness deal with the pope's formative years in Poland. There is his intense friendships with Ginka Beer, a Jewish girl who left Poland for Palestine before the war, and Halina Krolikiewicz, who became a professional actress; his intriguing collaboration with Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka to rewrite his classic work of phenomenology, The Acting Person; the conclave of October 1978; the daring politics of liberating his native land; and his presumably disastrous trips to Latin American in 1987 and Poland in 1991.

We also learn about the pope's Carmelite mysticism, his intense prayer life, his most cherished teachings, and the extent to which Polish messianism led him to believe that Poland would become a beacon for the conversion of Europe in a post-Communist world. The pope's biggest mistake was to trust in the people he helped to free. He is still smarting from their rejection.

John Paul II is a very human pope, who has held up remarkably well under constant pressure from all camps in and outside the Church. Politi has done him justice by producing a rich and compelling story that stays close and honest to its subject.

Nevertheless, Politi's venture into biography also has its share of lapses and blunders. The universal catechism was not the creation of Cardinal Ratzinger behind closed doors but the result of the greatest act of episcopal collegiality in the post-conciliar Church. The pope has never declared that married men cannot be priests. (There are plenty of married priests in the Eastern Rite and numerous Anglican convert clergy). Politi's version of the private meeting between the pope and Nafis Sadik, the Undersecretary of the UN Conference on Population and Development, is solely from Sadik's point of view and is ambush journalism at its worst. Also, the number of unsparing judgments of John Paul II delivered by liberal elements in the Church is excessive and becomes fatiguing. The last fifty pages are rather shrill.

There is only one way to read His Holiness: ignore the Bernstein and tread carefully through the Politi. Be on guard for the implausible. Be prepared to be dismayed and even angered by the cacophony of hostile opinions. But do not feel sorry for this pope. He can survive anything, including this book.

Michael Power, an historian who lives in Welland, ON., frequently reviews books for Catholic Insight.