The Catholic Church and the collapse of Communism

Untold story of 1989
Jonathan Luxmoore

The dramatic collapse of Communism has been extensively analysed, but recent accounts have notably ignored the significant role played by the Churches, and in particular the contribution made by John Paul II in uniting people peacefully around a common objective.

It has been a year of anniversaries, culminating this autumn when the great and the good gathered to commemorate the fall of Communism. Yet the commentaries and reminiscences, however stirring, have also been selective, often revealing as much about current prejudices as about what really happened 20 years ago. The region’s Churches, in particular, which played a key role in 1989, appear to have been expunged from the accounts just as the victims of Stalin were airbrushed out of photographs.The BBC’s continuous account, 1989: Day by Day, presented by Sir John Tusa, recalled Mikhail Gorbachev’s ground-breaking visit to the Vatican on 1 December, but otherwise barely mentioned Church involvement. Meanwhile, though a spate of books has appeared on the year’s events, only Victor Sebestyen’s Revolution 1989: the fall of the Soviet Empire gives a proper account of the part played by Pope John Paul II and the Catholic Church.

Some selectiveness may be understandable. The collapse of Communist rule, some argue, could be traced to systemic faultlines and a false view of mankind which were present from the very beginning. When attempts are made to retrace its final overthrow, most analyses highlight economic stagnation, ideological meltdown, Western pressure and imperial overstretch. They point to a chain of intended and unintended consequences which spiralled into a full-scale meltdown. the rest