Pontifical global, and very, public relations

by Frank Barbaro

In October 1978, when Karol Wojtyla was plucked from obscurity to become the Catholic Church’s 263rd Pope most of the focus was on the fact that he was the first non-Italian Pontiff in 455 years.

The selection process, steeped in pomp and privacy, gave little away as to the factors behind the College of Cardinals’ choice. It would be foolish to think that the considerations were solely spiritual. The Vatican is a state like no other. It has sovereignty over a small piece of real estate within Italy with all the elements of a small monarchical kingdom. It has diplomatic relations with other nations but it is through the virtue of its Catholic adherents, global and in the millions, which gives it force and influence in foreign affairs.

The Catholic Church is one of a handful of great religions. What distinguishes it is that it has been the church of the West. There is a subtle irony that from its roots in Christianity, in defence of the defenceless, it has grown into the global religion of the developed world. This church, of the prosperous and powerful, followed the great mercantile and industrial expansions. While capital conquered new worlds the church converted them. It was a successful tandem partnership but one of its legacies is linked to Third world indebtedness which is at the base of extreme poverty among the Catholic faithful in Central and South America, South East Asia and the African continent.

Awareness of the global contradictions tied to this industrial and colonial experience was reaching a peak at the time Pope John Paul II came on the scene. In diplomatic parlance it was known as the North-South dialogue and referred to the discrepancy between the First and Third worlds. It was linked, it was obscene and, for many of the world’s poor, it was a matter of survival. The most active Catholic constituency around the world lived in poverty. Catholic priests and Catholic leaders in poor regions had come to the conclusion that it was not enough to pray for food on the table. The cause of the poverty was in human hands and its solution demanded human, not divine, intervention.

For many the answer was in the thinking and the movement of Liberation Theology. It put the Church at the centre of the North-South debate and in some cases its priests became ministers of State as well as ministers of religion. It was open political activism and was uncomfortable to many in the Church and outside the Church.

Pope John Paul II, relatively young at 58, a committed conservative, energetic and convinced of his values, was the Pope to deal with the pressure cooker situation facing Catholicism. The pressure was not just from the growing popularity of Liberation Theology. Demands were coming from the more layback Catholics in the West. There was a desire for a more open and democratic Church. It was driving issues such as opening up the chance for priests to marry, giving women equality by allowing them to conduct mass and administer the sacraments, acknowledging divorce, condoning contraception and accepting same sex relationships.

Internationally, despite the politics of the North-South debate, the practice of capital and production was taking the globe into further social, economic and environmental disrepair. It was unforeseeable that the Catholic Church could have a global popular base actively seeking political intervention. This was too open-ended, too uncertain. The management of major changes, such as those being heralded by the computer revolution and which gave enormous boost to productivity and wealth, was the prerogative of governments.

But, they were governments increasingly formed from sterile processes that were supplanting the popular political participation that had been the result of struggles from the industrial revolution. The new and creative activism was more and more to be found in the spectacular success of public relations or its more accurate political pejorative - spin.Pope John Paul II’s reign coincided with the emergence of public relations and its adjuncts such as poll-driven decisions, media centred politics, high-cost electioneering and corporate funded politics.

Among his achievements commentators highlighted that he liberated Poland from communism. How was it that he was not able to liberate the poor? This more than anything else exposes the shortcomings and contradictions of his papacy. He actively advocated for an end to communism in favour of Western democracy but exercised autocratic rule over his Church, clamping down on dissent and divergence.

He was modern in that he travelled and the media made him a global figure. Yet, he was archaic in his acceptance of the scriptures to the point where he opposed contraception, which made it harder to stop the spread of AIDS in Africa.He was active against communism but relatively passive in his criticism of capitalism. In short Pope Paul II exercised leadership without taking his people anywhere. It was a leadership to prohibit rather than to proceed. In this sense his was a very political leadership in the vein of many contemporary national leaderships in the West whose impact served to stifle participation among their respective memberships.

Examples include disgraced socialist Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, whose main impact was to keep the communists out of national government, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.Blair redefined the Labour Party but “New Labour” in many regards was anti-Labour and not only stifled participation of members but ushered in a new autocratic practice that left even government ministers our of central decision making. Blair showed something of his true anti-Labour nature when he dragged his party and his country into the illegal, immoral and unjust war against Iraq.

A similar stifling of membership participation happened in the USA within the Democrats under President Bill Clinton and in Australia under Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. They ruled over the Australian Labor Party with an authority that Gough Whitlam would have envied. It is not uncommon for modern leaders to be accused of being weak by the media if there is any challenge to their authority within their party. Notwithstanding the public virtue of democratic principles the private vice is for central control, particularly in times of great change. Public relations are a key to reconciling enormous gaps such as this when the reality is far from the perception.

So, how much of Pope John Paul II was pious and how much was public relations? He was well travelled, he was deeply conservative, he was well recognised and his international stance at a time of superpower rivalry made him popular in the West. Within his Church it could be argued that developments came to a standstill at best and regressed at worst.

Knowing a public figure well is always going to be difficult because most of what is known is indirect and susceptible to the ministrations of public relations. However, sometimes a peek is offered that reveals unintended insights.For me one such window of opportunity was during Pope John Paul II’s open air mass in Nicaragua. The scene is caught in David Bradbury’s documentary “No Pasaran”.

There were at least a half a million devout Catholics and among them, near the staged altar, a group of mothers who had lost sons in a battle with Contra insurgents in the preceding days.They were expecting some acknowledgment if not words of comfort. It did not happen, and the congregation took up their ensuing chants.No public relations could hide the Pope’s fallibility. He ignored the mothers’ grief and their right to some spiritual consolation, and he lost the most Catholic of crowds.It was a hard stance, perhaps against the revolutionary Nicaraguan Government, but it seemed syncopic with his stern moral code and far removed from the view of a tolerant and humble, holy leader.

His funeral could easily be explained as another celebrity event if not for the millions of genuine mourners.Had they been taken in by public relations? A yes answer would be too simplistic and offensive to the great capacity for public common sense even in the face of concerted attempts to confound.

Pope John Paul II had successfully projected himself as the standard bearer of healthy universal values, often referred to as Christian, but found in all doctrines of good faith.At a time when the rich world has again accepted the dogma of the sword any leadership that subscribes to peace and justice is prized by people who have understood the need. A distinction of whether that leadership stance is superficial or soulful is virtually irrelevant.