“We are moving forward with hope! The new millennium is opening up to the Church like a vast fruit on which we are to sail, counting on the help of Christ.” In his Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte, reviewing so many new things that emerged from the Jubilee of the Year 2000, John Paul II was able to bring out guidelines for a profound ecclesial, pastoral and missionary renewal.
Perhaps this was not yet the great reform that the more open groups expected. Perhaps this has not yet been a solution to some of the difficult problems left open by the Second Vatican Council: from the celibacy of the clergy to the relationship between renewal and tradition, between power and freedom. However, it was a very different situation, more advanced in comparison with the Church – admittedly still divided and marked by a deep crisis of faith – which the new Pope took into his own hands at the end of the seventies.
I would say more. Settling accounts with it past, reconciled with itself, the Church undoubtedly grew at the spiritual level. It was more evangelical, more focused on the word of God, more present and active in society. The new evangelization was directed in two directions: towards the territory still missionary and towards the West, especially Europe, where, as the Holy Father said – “the quenching of hope” – was noticed.
Moreover, if it is true that Catholicism has retained its characteristics as a folk religion, it is equally true that we have witnessed the flourishing of new movements. Pope Wojtyła believed that it was born by the Council, on the initiative of the Holy Spirit, precisely as a response to the crisis. At the same time, another phenomenon was noticed, definitely positive, young people discovered spiritual matters and were interested in them. They came in great numbers to listen to the Pope, attracted by his demanding words, without a concessionary tariff, and this invitation – which they had not heard from anyone else, often neither in the family nor in the parish – led them to go against the tide, even to become saints.
With the permission of Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz – “At the side of the Saint”
St. Stanislaw BM Publishing House, Krakow 2013
