Those who hoped that the College of Cardinals would select an American Pope for the Catholic Church were disappointed, but they can rejoice that the new Pope took the same name as one of the most revered of American patriots. In selecting his name, Pope John Paul I may not have had John Paul Jones in mind, but his choice reminds Americans of the clarion call that has echoed through the pages of our history, “I have not yet begun to fight.”
For generations, Jones’ valiant exhortation to the Bonhomme Richard’s crew to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat has been used and reused by leaders in military, political and religious battles.
In the years following World War II, the Catholic Church was admired by many not of that faith as the world’s greatest bulwark against the spread of atheistic Communism, then sweeping across Eastern Europe. Today the Catholic Church is not even able to persuade its members in still-free Italy to vote against Communist candidates. The Communist Party has captured control of Rome and nearly every other major Italian city.
In 1965 and 1966, a group of American religious and lay authorities on Communism made two trips to Rome to urge Catholic Church officials to conduct a large-scale educational program on the strategy and tactics of Communism. The American delegation included leaders such as the late Bishop Cuthbert O’Gara and others who had had first-hand experience with Communists in Red China, Hungary, Cuba, and other parts of the world.
In particular, the American delegation urged the Church to strengthen and expand the effective work of the Rev. Anthony Gliozzo, S.J., who operated a study center on Communism in Rame. His educational work had been instrumental in defeating the Communists in Italian elections.
Unfortunately, Father Gliozzo’s center was closed soon afterwards, his faculty dispersed, and he was transferred to Sicily out of the educational and political mainstream of Italy. Apparently a high-level Vatican decision was made to abandon anti-Communist leadership and to terminate educational efforts to inform Catholics on how to defend themselves — psychologically, politically, or militarily — against Communist advance.
Given no training in how to refute the false propaganda and clever tactics of the Communists, and shown news photographs of cordial meetings between the Pope and Communist emissaries from Russia and Eastern Europe, Italians voted for the Communist Party in increasing numbers.
A major success in the conquest by the Communists of one-third of the world and in their continuing march through Africa today is their unshakable faith that history is on their side, that they will surely win, and that the rest of the world is powerless to turn back the tide of the future. This isn’t true, but the Communists blind faith in that dogma has helped to shape events their way.
As the first Pope in a thousand years to pick an original name, Pope John Paul I could be signaling a new approach to church policies. If the Catholic Church chooses to be a leader in the worldwide battle against Communism, it has the talent, resources, and organization to do it. There is ample incentive; millions of Catholics behind the Iron and Bamboo Curtains are being persecuted for their religion.
But those who want to win any battle, ideological as well as military, must first have faith in their ultimate victory and an iron determination to win. John Paul Jones had it. We hope John Paul I has, too.
