The travels allowed the Holy Father not only to know personally terrifying reality of the Third World, but also to go into in very close contact with these nations. What’s more, it must be said that it was a spontaneous, direct, extremely natural contact. Also, because there were many analogies between Poland and these countries: the fact of religiosity, poverty, injustice, lack of freedom. As the Pope noted in Angola, (thirteen years after the first trip to his homeland): “This is the same process. Geographical regions are different, but this is the same system programmed by ideological atheism. “
And so, John Paul II became the spokesman for these nations and their dramas. He was the only world leader who could speak openly about poverty and marginalization, about solidarity, dignity of a person, the need to reverse the triumphal path that the logic of profit took. He was the only one who proclaimed worldwide liberation, globalization of brotherhood rather than markets, peace of hearts rather than violence.
At the permission of Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz – “At the side of the Saint”
St. Stanislaus BM Publisher, Kraków 2013
