WWJD: What Would JPII Do?

Learning from John Paul II's Appeal for Solidarity against Soviet Oppression

Many Americans—together with much of the human family—are facing an emerging situation of oppression and grave injustice. After introducing some significant indications of how people are beginning to respond to this evolving crisis, I will look back to the example of St. John Paul II, and how—in three of his social encyclicals—he discussed solidarity as central to a proper response. Even if most contemporary American Catholics have little appreciation for the richest treasures of the Catholic social tradition, “the signs of the times” are becoming sufficiently urgent that there may be an opportunity to recover them. To the extent that happened, Catholics could be a renewed source of “salt and light” in the world. They would be so by picking up the neglected call of the Second Vatican Council to inform it with the spirit of the Gospel (Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, nos. 2.4, 4.4, 5, 14.2, 20.3), thereby manifesting the Church as what the Council described as “an efficacious sign and instrument of union with God and with the whole human race” (Vatican II, Lumen gentium: Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, no. 1).

In what follows, I will first introduce the most significant responses so far to these “signs of the times.” Second, I will review how Pope St. John Paul II led a fruitful response to an earlier example of oppression and injustice, with an eye toward the lessons we might take from his experience.

1. Signs of the Times: The “Hands Off!” Demonstrations

On Saturday April 5, 2025 large numbers of Americans joined together in public demonstrations at over 1,300 Hands Off rallies in all 50 states and a dozen locations across the globe. Although making reliable estimates of crowd-sizes is notoriously difficult, the New York Times reported that the organizers claimed over 600,000 were pre-registered for these events, but that number was greatly exceeded by actual attendees. Perhaps the largest of these demonstrations was the one on the National Mall in Washington, DC. According to Wikipedia, the organizers claimed that over 100, 000 attended at just this location, which was over ten times the number that was anticipated! According to the previously-cited New York Times article, the Atlanta police estimated a crowd of over 20,000 at the statehouse. Similarly, WBEZ in Chicago estimated 30,000 demonstrators in the Windy City, while the Wikipedia article on the protests estimated 100, 000 in Boston. Although the lack of a consistent and trustworthy methodology across the 1,300 locations makes it impossible to know the total number of Hands Off demonstrators, the total was almost certainly in the millions, ranking these gatherings among the largest in American history.¹ If the national turnout exceeded registrations by a similar factor to those on the National Mall, they would be even more significant in historical perspective.

[Hands Off Rally on the National Mall in Washington, DC April 5, 2025]

I will not provide a detailed discussion of the situation that drove millions to the streets because there are so many aspects of it. Everyone who avails themselves of trustworthy media should already recognize the perhaps uniquely precarious time in which we are living. In summary, this situation centers in a radical, “shock and awe” transformation of the United States by the Trump Administration, with grave implications for much of the human family. Domestically, this transformation has been from what was once the exemplar of postwar liberal democracy to some combination of autocracy, oligarchy, and chaos, with checks and balances and human rights a thing of the past. Internationally, the Administration is abandoning the American place at the center of the postwar order of constitutional democratic states and taking on the role of a rogue state in alliance with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, with repeated threats to forcibly take Greenland and the Panama Canal, and to similarly make Canada the fifty first state. Economically, the Administration is waging a trade war against basically the whole world including uninhabited islands, but excepting—of course—Russia. This economic mayhem has placed the global economy at risk of collapse with the bedrock financial safe haven of 10-year US treasury bonds giving clear signals that investors are losing confidence in American financial stability. Given their massive holdings in these bonds, China now has the ability to further destabilize the Treasury bond market at the time of their choosing.

For the Catholic Church in the United States, the situation is particularly delicate as an estimated 56% of Catholic voters—and about 60% of whites —supported the Republican ticket in the recent election, which promised exactly the policies that it is carrying out. Some of the most prominent Catholics in American public life, moreover, have been integral to bringing the administration to power, to supporting it legally, to planning its agenda (i.e., Project 2025), and to providing direct and indirect intellectual and media support.

Sound theology suggests, however, that we should not underestimate the potential of American Catholics to awaken to the truth and beauty of the authentic social doctrine of the Church. This would have us at the forefront of work for justice and the common good, incarnating the spirit of the gospel into the world. On the other hand, such an awakening of the lay apostolate would seemingly depend upon communicating that doctrine in an attractive and contemporarily relevant way. Not only—however—is little being done along those lines, but the authentic voice of Catholic Social Doctrine has long been drowned out by distorted versions tainted by ideology, partisanship, and the machinations of aspiring oligarchs and their agents. Despite the impression one might have that Catholics are much more part of the problem than the solution, sound theology encourages us to hope that the divine assistance can do far more than we can ask or imagine (Eph 3:6).

Along those lines, the picture below shows a group of contemporary American Catholics at the April 5, 2025 Hands Off rally in Washington, DC. There they joined in solidarity with their fellow citizens to speak out in love of neighbor, to support the marginalized, to defend immigrants and our constitutional order, and to bear witness to the inviolability of human dignity and human rights.

[GSR photo/Chris Herlinger, National Catholic Reporter]

In so doing, they manifest their grounding in the Old and New Testaments of Scripture, and therefore in the teaching of Jesus who preached good news to the poor. They also show their place in the tradition of the social Catholics I have discussed in previous posts. These included Fr. Felix Varela, Bishop Wilhelm E. von Ketteler, Msgr. John A. Ryan, Maurice Blondel, Yves Simon, Jacques Maritain, Stanislao Medolago Albani, Romolo Murri, Blessed Giuseppe Toniolo, Servant of God Fr. Luigi Sturzo, Fr. Louis J. Twomey, SJ, Blessed Robert Schuman, Fr. Ted Hesburgh, Pope St. John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI. I have also introduced others who should inspire us including the Baptist Jimmy Carter, and the Philippine journalist Maria Ressa, who was raised Catholic. Contemporary social Catholics would also stand in the tradition with many others on whom I hope to write in the future including Fr. John Lafarge, SJ, St. John XXIII, St. Paul VI, St. Oscar Romero, Joseph Cardijn, Dorothy Day, and others.

2. John Paul II on Solidarity in Response to Oppression

Pope St. John Paul II is rightly credited with playing a decisive role in helping the Polish people join in solidarity to uphold human dignity and human rights against the oppression of the puppet regime backed by the Soviet Union. In what follows, I will sketch some of the highlights of (A) his formation for the work of helping millions on the path to true freedom, (B) how his pastoral visits inspired and supported the famous solidarity movement, and (C) how his social encyclicals not only (C1) provided indirect support for those coming together in solidarity against oppression. They also (C2) advocated the cultivation of a broader sense of solidarity, and included (C3) a reflection upon the fruits of such solidarity as they could be seen in the 1989 collapse of Soviet totalitarianism which he saw as providing important lessons for the future.

A) Formation for Spiritual and Moral Leadership

Some basic information on the formative experiences of the future pope will be helpful for understanding how he became a global champion of human dignity, human rights and solidarity. Karol Józef Wojtyła was born in 1920 in Wadowice, Poland to devout Catholic parents.² He suffered his first great loss at the age of 8 with the death of his mother, a schoolteacher who suffered from kidney and heart failure. He was particularly close to his older brother Edmund, whose work as a physician led to his death from scarlet fever. Young Karol was a gifted student and athlete, with a great interest in and talent for acting. Perhaps influenced by his experience of suffering, he was inclined to kindness toward—and friendship with—the Jewish minority. He helped out their local soccer team, for example, by playing as goalkeeper for them. In 1938, he moved with his father to Kraków and began studies at the Jagiellonian University. While enrolled, he not only began learning what would eventually be fifteen languages, but performed in various theatrical groups, and began writing plays.

By 1939, however, years of additional hardship were dawning upon the young Wojtyla as his university was closed by the occupying Nazis. By 1940, he was working as a manual laborer—both at a quarry and in a chemical plant—to avoid deportation to Germany. The year 1940 was an important one for his spiritual development, as he not only suffered two major accidents, but was introduced to Carmelite spirituality, which helped him to more firmly order his life to the love of God and neighbor through self-denial. During this time, he also participated in “Living Rosary” youth groups, which deepened his appreciation for the communal activities that fostered an appreciation of solidarity.

In 1941 he suffered another great loss as his father died of a heart attack. This not only made him an orphan at the age of 21, but also the last living member of his immediate family. With this loss, he began serious consideration of putting aside his love for theatre to study for the priesthood. In October of 1942, he knocked on the bishop’s door and asked to be accepted for priestly studies, although the seminary had been closed by the Nazis. He was therefore accepted into clandestine studies, during which he had at least one narrow escape from the Gestapo who were rounding up young men and boys for the camps.

When the Nazi’s left in 1945, the formerly underground seminarians reclaimed their seminary building and Wojtyla volunteered with a friend to clean the frozen excrement from the clogged toilets. At about the same time,

Wojtyła also helped a 14-year-old Jewish refugee girl named Edith Zierer, who had escaped from a Nazi labour camp in Częstochowa. Edith had collapsed on a railway platform, so Wojtyła carried her to a train and stayed with her throughout the journey to Kraków. She later credited Wojtyła with saving her life that day.”

This was not an isolated incident as “B’nai B’rith and other authorities have said that Wojtyła helped protect many other Polish Jews from the Nazis,” whom he later described as bestial. For his heroic work on behalf of persecuted Polish Jews, “the Israeli government created a commission to honour” his legacy, and Emmanuele Pacifici—the head of Italy’s Jewish community— proposed that he be awarded the distinguished medal of Righteous Among the Nations, although it was not granted.

Karol Wojtyla was ordained a priest in 1946. During his early years of ministry, he supplemented his pastoral work with the teaching of ethics at Jagiellonian University and later the Catholic University of Lublin. His teaching naturally extended into a richly communal form of Catholicism as he befriended students and brought them together for study, prayer, social outreach to the blind and sick, and annual skiing and kayaking trips. This group eventually grew to about 200 members, many of whom remained friends for life. Such activities—especially communal study and prayer leading to social outreach—placed him squarely within the tradition of the social Catholics tracing back to Bishop Ketteler, and overlapped with the multifaceted communal life of the medieval guilds, with deeper roots in Scripture.

B) A Pastor Uplifting the Oppressed with A Transcendent Vision

By the time Wojtyla became Archbishop of Kraków and later a Cardinal, he was well-grounded in Catholic Social Teaching, including how it related to Soviet Communism in its ideological and geopolitical struggle with Western liberal democracy. He clearly recognized that Catholicism represented a distinct view in critical dialogue with each, although American propaganda would later misrepresent him as a Reagan Republican. As Cardinal Archbishop, Wojtyla had first-hand experience dealing with an explicitly atheistic government that not only sought to suppress the Church, but denied various human rights to the broader population. These rights included those of workers to receive just wages, to labor under humane conditions, and to organize in unions.

When he was elected Pope on October 16, 1978, John Paul II naturally retained a great solicitude for his Polish compatriots and an intimate understanding of their plight. To support them, he promptly worked to arrange a pastoral visit to Poland, which took the form of a nine day trip in June of 1979, which he made despite warnings from Soviet leadership that he should cancel it. About 11-13 million poles—one third of the population—saw Pope John Paul II in person during this visit, and almost everyone else in the country at least saw him on television.

[John Paul II’s 1979 Pastoral Visit to Poland that Inspired the Solidarity Movement]

The government hoped his visit would demonstrate that even though the Pope was a Pole, he still obeyed their dictates, thereby exemplifying that the population should do so as well. If, on the other hand, John Paul II’s visit fostered rebellion, the government would be ready to respond harshly. The international relations scholar Angelo Codevilla provides the following summary of how John Paul II successfully navigated this situation.

The pope won that struggle by transcending politics. His was what Joseph Nye calls “soft power” — the power of attraction and repulsion. He began with an enormous advantage, and exploited it to the utmost: He headed the one institution that stood for the polar opposite of the Communist way of life that the Polish people hated. He was a Pole, but beyond the regime’s reach. By identifying with him, Poles would have the chance to cleanse themselves of the compromises they had to make to live under the regime. And so they came to him by the millions. They listened. He told them to be good, not to compromise themselves, to stick by one another, to be fearless, and that God is the only source of goodness, the only standard of conduct. “Be not afraid,” he said. Millions shouted in response, “We want God! We want God! We want God!” The regime cowered. Had the Pope chosen to turn his soft power into the hard variety, the regime might have been drowned in blood. Instead, the Pope simply led the Polish people to desert their rulers by affirming solidarity with one another. The Communists managed to hold on as despots a decade longer. But as political leaders, they were finished. Visiting his native Poland in 1979, Pope John Paul II struck what turned out to be a mortal blow to its Communist regime, to the Soviet Empire, [and] ultimately to Communism.³

I think the key takeaways were that John Paul II presented a compelling Christian vision which brought people together in a solidarity that reflected their shared human dignity and care for each other. By presenting a vision that both transcended politics and implicitly called for a much richer understanding of it, John Paul II fostered a more just society while addressing the manifest injustices facing the oppressed only implicitly. His visit soon inspired the formation of the Solidarity movement in 1980, which—along with John Paul II himself—would be a central actor in the drama that would unfold.

C1) Solidarity in Laborem exercens: On Human Work (1979)

As an essential part of this drama, the Polish Pope promptly published his first social encyclical in 1981 under the title Laborem exercens: On Human Work (LE). This publication was delayed for four months by the May 13 assassination attempt by Mehmet Ali Ağca. Although the Soviet KGB intelligence agency was immediately suspected for obvious reasons, their responsibility for this despicable deed has long been disputed. The grounds for doubt included the many and conflicting stories offered by Ağca, which rendered him untrustworthy, and the difficulty of finding direct evidence of the KGB’s role. More recent work, however, cites a document authorizing action against the Pope that was signed by Soviet leader Gorbachev and 9 Politburo members.⁴

Whereas the communists claimed to be the defenders of workers, LE staked the Church’s claim to be the true friend of not only workers but of every human person. In so doing, the encyclical also offered a kind of indirect support for the solidarity movement. For our purposes, therefore, the key section is no. 8 on worker solidarity. Among the ten references to the term by LE, nine occur in this section, illustrating how the encyclical provided at least indirect support for those in the fledgling Solidarity movement in Poland. In a nutshell, this section reflects upon how the shared suffering of injustice naturally leads to workers joining together in solidarity, which enables them to act collectively for human rights and for justice. LE sees this dynamic playing out in the whole history of modern social teaching, moreover, tracing back to Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 Rerum Novarum: On Capital and Labor. It further recognizes this dynamic as applying beyond industrial workers, to those in various contemporary situations of injustice. The tenth occurance of solidarity, which comes later, indicates a broader sense of the term, by discussing how such coming together through organizations like unions should be understood within the wider struggle for social justice.

C2) Solidarity in Solicitudo rei socialis: On Social Concern (1987)

In his second social encyclical, Solicitudo rei socialis: On Social Concern (1987), John Paul II continues his emphasis on solidarity. Consistent with the occasion and purpose of his document, however, he advances a much broader understanding of this reality. The occasion of Solicitudo rei socialis (SRS) was the twentieth anniversary of Pope St. Paul VI’s 1967 encyclical Populorum Progressio: On The Development Of Peoples. Twenty years later, John Paul II was writing in a historical context where Paul VI’s hopes for a new humanism that would foster authentic or integral development (chapter 3) had been dashed by several factors. These include the political and economic failures of the developing nations themselves (nos. 16.1-4). These internal failures, however, were inseparable from the Cold War struggles between the Soviet and Western blocs that often undermined the hoped-for collaboration with poorer nations (nos. 20-23). Such collaboration between rich and poor was often overshadowed by efforts of the powerful nations to cultivate poorer nations as proxies in their global struggle. In especially the American-led West, the emergence of a false and consumerist understanding of development further undermined the humanistic vision of Paul VI. Given this historical context during which the whole project of development was called into question, the purpose of SRS was to both offer an explanation for why these noble hopes of Paul VI and other postwar humanists had been frustrated, and—more importantly—to encourage renewed efforts to realize them (chapter 4), despite the grave obstacles.

This richer discussion of solidarity is developed through 27 references to the term in SRS. These cover much of the range of meanings signified in the modern social tradition including by Leo XIII’s “social friendship,” Pius XI’s “social charity,” and Paul VI’s references to “a civilization of love.” SRS employs solidarity variously as a principle, an attitude, a duty, and a virtue. For John Paul II, solidarity is not just “vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortune of others” but “a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good…” (38). Forming this virtue is a central part of conversion and a duty for all. It is a spiritual attitude upon which integral development depends. It is also “the path to peace and …development” that leads us to work for the common good (39). Whereas for Pope Pius XII, “Peace [was] the fruit of justice,” and for Pope St. Paul VI “development [was] the new name for Peace,” for St. John Paul II “Peace is fruit of solidarity” (39).

C3) Solidarity in Centesimus annus: On the Hundredth Anniversary of Rerum novarum (1991)

St. John Paul II’s 1991 encyclical Centesimus annus (CA) offers another perspective from which to consider his understanding of solidarity. This perspective includes the hundredth anniversary of the birth of modern Catholic social teaching with the publication of Rerum novarum: On Capital and Labor in 1891. More proximately, the occasion includes the momentous year 1989 during which the Soviet Communism that had oppressed a significant part of the human family for over four decades quickly and peacefully collapsed.

CA highlights solidarity as “one of the fundamental principles of the Christian view of social and political organization” (10.3). For our purposes, the most important discussion of solidarity in CA concerns the Pope’s reflection on the “The Year 1989,” which begins in no. 22. It starts with a broader recognition of how:

In the course of the 80s, certain dictatorial and oppressive regimes fell one by one in some countries of Latin America and also of Africa and Asia. In other cases there began a difficult but productive transition towards more participatory and more just political structures. An important, even decisive, contribution was made by the Church’s commitment to defend and promote human rights. In situations strongly influenced by ideology, in which polarization obscured the awareness of a human dignity common to all, the Church affirmed clearly and forcefully that every individual—whatever his or her personal convictions—bears the image of God and therefore deserves respect. Often, the vast majority of people identified themselves with this kind of affirmation, and this led to a search for forms of protest and for political solutions more respectful of the dignity of the person.

Here John Paul II notes how this replacement of “certain dictatorial and oppressive regimes” with “more participatory and just ones” was aided by the Church’s promotion of human rights. This democratic wave—it should be noted—was also significantly effected by corresponding efforts by the United States since especially the administration of Jimmy Carter, whose foreign policy aligned closely with Catholic Social Doctrine, as I have previously discussed. In other words, the promotion of human rights by major political powers like the United States combined with their advocacy by Catholics bore abundant fruit in freeing populations from oppression. The Holy Father rejoices in the “new forms of democracy” that have emerged which offer hope to others, and he thanks “God for the often heroic witness borne in such difficult circumstances by many Pastors, entire Christian communities, individual members of the faithful, and other people of good will” (22.2).

Tragically, recent decades have witnessed the influence of prominent American Catholics committed to a shifting understanding of “conservatism” in alliance with a network of institutions funded by right-wing money focused on profit and power. Instead of advancing the authentic social doctrine of the Church, these forces have tended to rail against “liberalism,” to criticize human rights, and to participate in the conservative attack on public institutions. In so doing, they have helped to create a tragic situation posing grave threats to not just immigrants and American citizens, but to the entire human family, and even the planet.

Returning to CA, in no. 23, John Paul recognizes that “many factors” contributed to the collapse of Soviet oppression, including the “inefficiency of the economic system” which denied private initiative (24). He insists, however, that “the decisive factor” was the coming together of Poles “in the name of solidarity” to address the “violation of the rights of workers.” These working people “recovered and, in a sense, rediscovered the content and principles of the Church’s social doctrine.” Contemporary Catholics have an opportunity to do the same.

John Paul II continues that “[a]lso worthy of emphasis is the fact that the fall of this kind of ‘bloc’ or empire was accomplished almost everywhere by means of peaceful protest, using only the weapons of truth and justice.” The “protests which led to the collapse of Marxism tenaciously insisted on trying every avenue of negotiation, dialogue, and witness to the truth, appealing to the conscience of the adversary and seeking to reawaken in him a sense of shared human dignity” (23.2). Whereas it seemed that Soviet domination of Eastern Europe “could only be overturned by another war,” it has instead “…been overcome by the non-violent commitment of people who, while always refusing to yield to the force of power, succeeded time after time in finding effective ways of bearing witness to the truth” (23.3).

Conclusion: What Would JPII Do?

I began this post by noting the contemporary phenomenon of Americans and others responding to new forms of injustice and oppression by joining together in solidarity for peaceful protests. We saw how roughly one third of the Polish population came to see Pope John Paul II speak of the dignity of the human person created in the image of God and redeemed by Christ. On this basis, he told them to stick by one another, to remember their high calling in Christ, to “be not afraid” but instead stand up for human rights and dignity, even if it was hard to imagine how they would be freed from their oppression. Sooner than they imagined, divine providence freed them, giving the world a chance to build a more just and peaceful future.

I think he would encourage us to follow a similar path, even if it looks to be a long and difficult one.

1. The Wikipedia entry for “List of protests and demonstrations in the United States by size” currently has a disputed estimate of 3-5 Million, which would make it between the third and fifth largest in American history.

2. All biographical information on Wojtyla in this subsection is drawn from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II.

3. The full reference is Angelo M. Codevilla, “Political Warfare: A Set of Means for Achieving Political Ends,” in Waller, ed., Strategic Influence: Public Diplomacy, Counterpropaganda and Political Warfare (IWP Press, 2008). Cited from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II.

4. The history and contours of the debate are traced in the relevant wiki article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Pope_John_Paul_II. It discusses the most recent and extensive argument for KGB involvement which was published by John Koehler, a former Army intelligence officer, who drew upon secret police archives.