On October 20, 1994, something unprecedented in the modern history of the papacy took place: the reigning pope published a book that was not an act of the papal magisterium but rather a personal reflection on Christian faith, prayer, the divinity of Jesus, the problem of evil, salvation and eternal life, world religions, Christian ecumenism, the necessity of Vatican II, the right to life, Mary, and other subjects.
It was entitled Crossing the Threshold of Hope, and in four years, it had sold millions of copies in forty languages. Given what the magazine’s editors wrote about it, Threshold was likely instrumental in making John Paul II Time’s 1994 Man of the Year: “In a year when so many people lamented the decline in moral values or made excuses for bad behavior, Pope John Paul II forcefully set forth his vision of the good life and urged the world to follow it.”
Curiously (or, as John Paul would have insisted, providentially), Threshold was born from something that never happened. Plans were afoot for the first-ever live papal TV interview, in which the pope would discuss the fifteen years of his already historic pontificate with journalist Vittorio Messori. But the relentless papal schedule intruded, the interview couldn’t be filmed and edited in time for the fifteenth anniversary, and Messori, who had sent the pope the questions he would raise, thought that was the end of the matter.
It wasn’t.
Some months later, John Paul’s press spokesman, Joaquín Navarro-Valls, called Messori with this message from the pope, which is worth quoting in full for what it reveals about Karol Wojtyła, his respect for others’ freedom, his insatiable curiosity, and his passion for helping late modernity find answers to the questions many were raising:
Even if there wasn’t a way to respond to you in person [i.e., in the canceled TV interview], I kept your questions on my desk. They interested me. I didn’t think it would be wise to let them go to waste. So I thought about them and, after some time, during the brief moments when I was free from obligations, I responded to them in writing. You have asked me questions, therefore you have a right to responses. I am working on them. I will let you have them. Then do with them what you think is appropriate.
On its thirtieth anniversary, Crossing the Threshold of Hope remains eminently readable as food for thought. Considering contemporary controversies and conflicts, one of its most penetrating passages comes in the pope’s discussion of Islam. John Paul praised the regularity of Muslim prayer and urged fallen-away Christians, “who, having deserted their magnificent cathedrals, pray only a little or not at all,” to follow that example of piety.
Yet he also drew a sharp distinction:
In Islam, all the richness of God’s self-revelation, which constitutes the heritage of the Old and New Testaments, has definitely been set aside. Some of the most beautiful names in the human language are given to the God of the Koran, but he is ultimately a God outside of the world, a God who is only Majesty, never Emmanuel, God-with-us. Islam is not a religion of redemption. There is no room for the Cross and Resurrection. Jesus is mentioned, but only as a prophet who prepares for the last prophet, Muhammad. There is also mention of Mary, His Virgin Mother, but the tragedy of redemption is completely absent. For this reason, not only the theology but also the anthropology of Islam is very distant from Christianity. [emphases in original]
And then there was this about Christianity and Judaism:
…the New Covenant serves to fulfill all that is rooted in the vocation of Abraham, in God’s covenant with Israel at Sinai, and in the whole rich heritage of the inspired Prophets who, hundreds of years before that fulfillment, pointed in the Sacred Scriptures to the One whom God would send in the ‘fullness of time’ (cf. Gal 4.4).
In Crossing the Threshold of Hope, John Paul II spoke to the world as one who, over a lifetime of reflection, had found the truth that makes other truths make sense in Jesus Christ, the fulfillment of God’s self-revelation to the world. He did not speak as an oracle whose views on the issues of the day had special salience, thanks to the office he held, because he knew that playing the oracle would cheapen his evangelical witness.
And being a witness to the Gospel was the prime directive that the Lord had given Peter and his successors.
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Nice piece. What a tragedy the Catholuc Church was betrayed in Assisi in 1986. Ecumenical New Church is but a sad spectacle, an ape of the eclipsed Catholic Church.
The sole purpose of Ecumenism
is to bring others to Our Only Savior, Jesus The Christ. Pope John Paul II made this clear as did Pope Benedict XVI. The Baptism Of Desire has always been a teaching of The Catholic Church, as we witnessed the words of The Good Thief, who at the hour of his death, recognized Christ, In His Glory , and came late to The One Body Of Christ.
ND, you are certainly correct that the purpose of ecumenism is to bring others to Christ. But there is a distinction to make in its redefinition. Before VII ecumenism meant what you say. However, post VII it has been redefined as accompaniment, dialogue, walking together or whatever term is in vogue but certainly not a courageous uncompromising attempt at bringing souls to Christ for their salvation.
It still means what it has always meant however much the small minds of progressivism abuse it for self-gratifying false enlightenment. I identify more with “trads,” but too many of them get this matter as wrong as libs. No less a figure then Marcel lefebvre reminded his followers that those not formally within the Church can find salvation with an interior soul honestly desiring God. God is the exclusive judge.
And, we can note that the clear and solid “Crossing the Threshold of Hope” is discreetly the personal mEssage of a pope from within the perennial Catholic Faith; and not an ambiguous and slippery “paradigm shift” scripted indiscreetly on Vatican letterhead to mAssage the laity into one zeitgeist apostasy or another.
Maybe sometimes “time is greater than space,” or maybe space is still greater than time, but the transcendence of the Incarnation is greater than both. You can always tell a synodaler or a study-group expert, but you can’t tell them much. Or, whatever.
Or maybe, with Time, The Universe is expanding😌, but you are spot on, “The transcendence of the Incarnation is greater than both”, because God, The Author Of Love, Of Life, And Of Marriage, Created Time And Space, and is thus not subject to Time and Space…
The Truth Of Love, remains True, on every point of Time and Space In God’s Created Universe.
I love Saint John Paul II. When he speaks, the Holy Spirit always accompanies the communication. His words clarify, inspire, uplift, and comfort. The absence of such a saintly pope is painful; I miss him deeply.
How grateful I am for his teachings on the importance of the family and the sanctity of life. He is one of the most significant reasons that I found my faith in the Catholic Church. I hope we can one day have a pope of his caliber again.
JPII left the Church much worse off in almost every measure.
St. John Paul II, please pray and intercede for us sinners before the Most Holy Trinity. Jesus became Man and told us that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. JPII reminded the entire world that God loves us and asks only the we love God and one another. His holy life was a witness of hope for all!