ROME - 24 February 2005 - 676 words
Presentation
of Pope's new book: Memory and Identity
On Tuesday evening, Pope John
Paul II's latest book, Memory and Identity, was presented
at a press conference in Rome's Palazzo Colonna. Those present
included Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, director
of the Holy See Press Office, and Paolo Mieli, editor of the Italian
newspaper "Corriere della Sera," which is published
by the Rizzoli group which also produced the Italian edition of
the Pope's book.
"The book," said Navarro-Valls," is a result of
conversations the Pope had with two Polish philosophers, Josef
Tishner and Krystof Michalski, in his summer residence at Castelgandolfo
in 1993. The conversations were recorded and later transcribed.
The manuscript was saved for some years until the Pope read it
and decided to make it into a book after having made some corrections.
"In his book, John Paul II does not reflect on cosmic evil,
that is, on catastrophes and tragedies, but on the evil that derives
from human behaviour. It could be said that this is a book about
the theology of history. The Pope does not wish to guess at or
define the place that events occupy in the divine plan, or to
decipher the ways of Providence. When he writes about the ideologies
of evil, national socialism and communism, he explores their roots
and the regimes that resulted. He also undertakes a theological
and philosophical reflection about how the presence of evil often
ends up being an invitation to good."
"The closing pages, in which he describes the attempt on
his life of May 13, 1981 are, says Navarro-Valls, "not a
mere addendum, although the style is different from the rest of
the book; they have the tone of one speaking about a directly
lived experience. The Pope opens his heart and explains how he
experienced - and experiences - that evil."
In a dialogue with his private secretary,
Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, the Pope recalls each moment from
when he was shot, to his arrival at Rome's Gemelli Polyclinic,
his recovery, his pardon of would-be assassin Ali Agca and his
visit to him in prison.
"Cardinal Ratzinger indicated how the Pope speaks of Agca
as the 'victim of a logic that is, from every point of view, flawed.
He is a Muslim, and perhaps also for this reason he fell into
a spiral of fear from which he has never recovered because he
continues to believe he is a part of some premonition contained
in the third secret of Fatima. But over and above these considerations,
Agca has never asked himself about what he did, the plain fact
of the attempt on the Pope's life has never distressed him. His
only real concern is that he missed his target.'
"The prefect of the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith said the would-be assassin had written
to him frequently to ask if the mystery of Fatima contains an
answer. "But as is well-known, Agca's only link with Fatima
is the date of May 13, and his reflections are limited to this
level."
In his book, the Holy Father also recalls the attack of September
11, 2001 on the Twin Towers in New York, that of May 11, 2004
in Madrid, and the massacre of Beslan, Russia, in September 2004.
"Rereading the transcripts of the
conversations (of 1993)," he writes, "I note that expressions
of violence have reduced considerably" since the 1970s, "yet
so-called 'networks of terror' have spread throughout the world,
and constitute a constant threat to the lives of millions of innocents."
He asks: "Where will these new eruptions of violence lead
us?"
"Memory and Identity" is 200 pages long and has been
published in 11 languages. It is John Paul II's fifth book. In
1994 he published "Crossing the Threshold of Hope,"
in 1996 "Gift and Mystery," in 2003 a book of poetry
entitled "Roman Triptych" and in 2004 "Arise, Let
us be Going."
Source: VIS
© Independent Catholic
News 2005
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