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 the 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: “[T]he 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.
George Weigel’s column “The Catholic Difference” is syndicated by the Denver Catholic, the official publication of the Archdiocese of Denver.
George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington, D.C.’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies.
First Things depends on its subscribers and supporters. Join the conversation and make a contribution today.
Click here to make a donation.
Click here to subscribe to First Things.
Image in the public domain. Image cropped.
