Peter Lineham: Decades of striking change

On October 9, 1958, Pope Pius XII died. He had come to the papacy in 1939, and although best remembered for his failure to condemn the treatment of the Jews, in fact played his most critical role in steering the church through the harsh divisions of the Cold War, and continuing opposition to liberalism.

Nearly 50 years and four popes later, the papacy and the Catholic Church in general have been through a transformation. For more than half of those years the church has been led by John Paul II. He came to the papacy after the 33-day reign of John Paul I in 1978 and had one of the longest papal reigns.

The result has been that the papacy has been catapulted into the modern world, handling this with remarkable success. Nevertheless, the Pope from Poland could not have done it if it had not been for the brief reign of Pope John XXIII with his calling of the second Vatican Council, and the reign of Paul VI, with his purposeful reshaping of the modern church, and the determination to see Vatican II as not a starting point for uncontrolled change, but rather to find a new steady state for the church.

In the past 50 years the papacy has changed immensely. An institution which has regularly been seen as in the throes of collapse has radically transformed itself. The role of John Paul II in this will be an interesting exercise in interpretation.

What most people have noticed is the travelling of the Pope. The significance of these journeys, with the kissing of the ground in each place, is hard to estimate. In some respects the papacy, or more precisely the Vatican as a whole, has achieved a measure of control of the world Catholic community, which it has never had in the past.

In many respects the church is more united than ever. Sharp differences have not been tolerated.

Strong words have been spoken to bring recalcitrant provinces into line. New Zealand has been one of the problem cases to which the Vatican has applied correction, by the choice of bishops and by instructions.

Another aspect of the pontificate of John Paul II has been further steps in ecumenism. Pope John XXIII did much to establish modern ecumenism, and since then there has been a steady shift in patterns. John Paul II has even indicated a willingness to discuss the role of the papacy in the future, but the church has in certain respects reduced its radical fringe on the left and right. There are less heady experiments than 40 years ago.

Probably his greatest work has been the development of the papacy and the Papal Curia, so that it has become a strong and efficient body, negotiating and extending the range of the church to being a vigorous institution in the modern world. In some respects the papacy has been an important institution to hold up the side of Christianity.

Outsiders and academics are bound to note the huge caution with which this is done.

The papacy of John Paul II has not been the thinking or experimenting papacy, but developing its world profile and direction is a significant achievement.

* Professor Peter Lineham is a religious historian at Massey University.