Summary
Cardinal Avery Dulles of America Magazine hypothesized that philosophical personalism serves as a key to understanding Pope John Paul II’s thought, noting that the pope identifies it as the central concept. As a professor of ethics at the University of Lublin in Poland from 1942 to 1958, Karol Wojtyla initially aligned himself with Thomistic philosophy but criticized its narrow focus on objective reality. In his early writings, such as “Thomistic Personalism,” published in 1961, Wojtyla highlighted Saint Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine of the person in terms of general being categories and intellectual nature. Wojtyla later became a personalist during his tenure at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), where he contributed to documents like “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World” (Gaudium et Spes). The council document emphasizes the dignity of human persons and their inviolable rights. After the council, Wojtyla continued his opposition to communism in Poland, seeing the doctrine of the person as a critical element of their ideology. In 1968, he wrote to his Jesuit friend Cardinal Henri de Lubac about dedicating “scarse free moments” to writing a work on the metaphysical meaning and mystery of the human person. This work was seen as crucial for undermining communism, which Wojtyla considered a form of degradation or pulverization of individual dignity.
Key Topics
John Paul II, Personalism, Thomism
