I was 7 when Pope John Paul II died.
Every Catholic I speak to about him adores him. Basically choke up when reminiscing about what he personally meant to them. To the world. Something sorely missed today.
The first election I really remember was Obama v John McCain when I was 10.
From a political and religious leadership perspective, it has been a slow march of messaging that my country was evil and I should be ashamed to be American. That my faith didn’t really matter and Christian Orthodoxy is backwards, rigid, and antiquated.
Hearing the words, “Be not afraid” from a Catholic Vice President with poor Appalachian roots… just incredible. I have never felt so represented in global politics in my entire life.
Every Catholic I speak to about him adores him. Basically choke up when reminiscing about what he personally meant to them. To the world. Something sorely missed today.
The first election I really remember was Obama v John McCain when I was 10.
From a political and religious leadership perspective, it has been a slow march of messaging that my country was evil and I should be ashamed to be American. That my faith didn’t really matter and Christian Orthodoxy is backwards, rigid, and antiquated.
Hearing the words, “Be not afraid” from a Catholic Vice President with poor Appalachian roots… just incredible. I have never felt so represented in global politics in my entire life.
Ok watched the speech twice now. Wow.
His message was simple, but powerful: Leaders of Europe, remember who you are.
The West did not triumph over the Soviet Union to later adopt its ethos. We actually respect the wisdom of voters, not cancel their votes. We don’t arrest people for silently praying. And we don’t accept the slow suicide of mass migration and the chaos that follows.
America will return to its roots of governance by the people, for the people. If the leaders of Europe don’t follow, you will be replaced by people that do.
What a shot across the bow. Certainly not the expected bs of how we ship more money to defense contractors and send more sons to war. The enemy is writhin, and there is a new sheriff in town. “Be not afraid”
His message was simple, but powerful: Leaders of Europe, remember who you are.
The West did not triumph over the Soviet Union to later adopt its ethos. We actually respect the wisdom of voters, not cancel their votes. We don’t arrest people for silently praying. And we don’t accept the slow suicide of mass migration and the chaos that follows.
America will return to its roots of governance by the people, for the people. If the leaders of Europe don’t follow, you will be replaced by people that do.
What a shot across the bow. Certainly not the expected bs of how we ship more money to defense contractors and send more sons to war. The enemy is writhin, and there is a new sheriff in town. “Be not afraid”
JD Vance’s invocation of JPII’s “Be not afraid” to Europe is not random.
In 1979, Karol Wojtla returned to his homeland on a pilgrimage to celebrate the millennium of the baptism of Poland, something the communists would not permit to his successor Paul VI. The Poles were living under a brutal, oppressive, atheistic communist “independent” government.
“The first secretary of the Soviet communist party Leonid Brezhnev had said to Gierek, first secretary of the Polish Communist party, before John Paul II's visit 'Oh we know Wojtyła is a wise man. Tell him he must announce he is sick. It would be better for him not to come to Poland.'”
JPII rebuked the Soviets, kissed the ground upon landing in Poland, and deliver a homily in Victory Square in Warsaw to millions of Poles.
“ It is right to understand the history of the nation through man, each human being of this nation. At the same time man cannot be understood apart from this community that is constituted by the nation. Of course it is not the only community, but it is a special community, perhaps that most intimately linked with the family, the most important for the spiritual history of man. It is therefore impossible without Christ to understand the history of the Polish nation—this great thousand-year-old community—that is so profoundly decisive for me and each one of us. If we reject this key to understanding our nation, we lay ourselves open to a substantial misunderstanding. We no longer understand ourselves. It is impossible without Christ to understand this nation with its past so full of splendour and also of terrible difficulties. It is impossible to understand this city, Warsaw, the capital of Poland, that undertook in 1944 an unequal battle against the aggressor, a battle in which it was abandoned by the allied powers, a battle in which it was buried under its own ruins—if it is not remembered that under those same ruins there was also the statue of Christ the Saviour with his cross that is in front of the church at Krakowskie Przedmiescie. It is impossible to understand the history of Poland from Stanislaus in Skalka to Maximilian Kolbe at Oswiecim unless we apply to them that same single fundamental criterion that is called Jesus Christ.”
“We are before the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. In the ancient and contemporary history of Poland this tomb has a special basis, a special reason for its existence. In how many places in our native land has that soldier fallen! In how many places in Europe and the world has he cried with his death that there can be no just Europe without the independence of Poland marked on its map!“
To which the massive crowds chanted, “We want God! We want God!”
And at that moment, it was the beginning of the end.
In the words of Ronald Reagan, "I have had a feeling, particularly in the pope's visit to Poland, that religion may turn out to be the Soviets' Achilles' heel."
“Be not afraid!” Will be the rallying cry of European countries rediscovering their Western, Christian roots. To rebuke the new globalist order that sees their unique culture and national character as an afterthought, their citizens as interchangeable cogs, and their religion as an obstacle to progress.
In 1979, Karol Wojtla returned to his homeland on a pilgrimage to celebrate the millennium of the baptism of Poland, something the communists would not permit to his successor Paul VI. The Poles were living under a brutal, oppressive, atheistic communist “independent” government.
“The first secretary of the Soviet communist party Leonid Brezhnev had said to Gierek, first secretary of the Polish Communist party, before John Paul II's visit 'Oh we know Wojtyła is a wise man. Tell him he must announce he is sick. It would be better for him not to come to Poland.'”
JPII rebuked the Soviets, kissed the ground upon landing in Poland, and deliver a homily in Victory Square in Warsaw to millions of Poles.
“ It is right to understand the history of the nation through man, each human being of this nation. At the same time man cannot be understood apart from this community that is constituted by the nation. Of course it is not the only community, but it is a special community, perhaps that most intimately linked with the family, the most important for the spiritual history of man. It is therefore impossible without Christ to understand the history of the Polish nation—this great thousand-year-old community—that is so profoundly decisive for me and each one of us. If we reject this key to understanding our nation, we lay ourselves open to a substantial misunderstanding. We no longer understand ourselves. It is impossible without Christ to understand this nation with its past so full of splendour and also of terrible difficulties. It is impossible to understand this city, Warsaw, the capital of Poland, that undertook in 1944 an unequal battle against the aggressor, a battle in which it was abandoned by the allied powers, a battle in which it was buried under its own ruins—if it is not remembered that under those same ruins there was also the statue of Christ the Saviour with his cross that is in front of the church at Krakowskie Przedmiescie. It is impossible to understand the history of Poland from Stanislaus in Skalka to Maximilian Kolbe at Oswiecim unless we apply to them that same single fundamental criterion that is called Jesus Christ.”
“We are before the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. In the ancient and contemporary history of Poland this tomb has a special basis, a special reason for its existence. In how many places in our native land has that soldier fallen! In how many places in Europe and the world has he cried with his death that there can be no just Europe without the independence of Poland marked on its map!“
To which the massive crowds chanted, “We want God! We want God!”
And at that moment, it was the beginning of the end.
In the words of Ronald Reagan, "I have had a feeling, particularly in the pope's visit to Poland, that religion may turn out to be the Soviets' Achilles' heel."
“Be not afraid!” Will be the rallying cry of European countries rediscovering their Western, Christian roots. To rebuke the new globalist order that sees their unique culture and national character as an afterthought, their citizens as interchangeable cogs, and their religion as an obstacle to progress.
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