The Role of the Catholic Church to End Terrorism
Karol Wojtyla
September 6, 2005

The mounting issue of terrorism can be healed by going back to look at the root cause and addressing it, and those who are responsible for creating this issue can work to resolve it. Terrorism takes on many different levels. We are going to look at the root cause first of the Muslim insurgency in the Middle East and how its intense hatred of the Catholic Church can be resolved. The rift between Israel and the Arabs will be addressed at another time, and during another issue. This is just addressing the issue related to Christianity. We are going to resolve this and allow another group of individuals to address that complex issue during another hearing.

This will work to resolve the rift caused by the Crusades during the Middle Ages.

The Catholic Church at the present time has been going through a series of transitions. It is as if the frustrations of not addressing these issues is building to the point where it can fracture the Church into many parts, into another Reformation, and I would like to prevent this from occurring. So we are going to start addressing several of these ideas, and how to unite the Church under a common goal.

First I would like to address the idea of assuming responsibility for what you have done, and to find a common goal behind this, one that everyone can agree to.

The idea behind this is that when the Crusades occurred it started a loop, or a paradox. It created a rift in the fabric of the earth, and now it is time for it to be healed. The responsibility for the healing must come from those who created the rift in the first place. So I address this to the Catholic Church in America, who have felt the frustration, and those who are willing to strike out on their own to find a solution. By doing so, you will draw the rest of the Catholic Church with you, because you will demonstrate the traditional idea of “taking on the sins of the world,” which the Pope should be doing but isn’t at the present time.

This is not a judgment on Joseph Ratzinger. I will refer to him by this name because this is his common name that will unite him with all the others. I will put him on an equal standing as an individual rather than on a pedestal where all can look up to him as their “savior of the Church.” The purpose of this is to encourage people to assume responsibility rather than depending on “an idol,” or someone outside of themselves to save them.

We will empower the people to make the changes. You are the Church. It is not the pope is the Church. It is the people are the Church, and to empower the people, and enable you to make the changes necessary. The shepherd is not the flock. The sheep are the ones who decide with guidance what to do.

The same is occurring in the United States. By having a president who many people do not agree with, it makes you address what it is that you do agree with, and to come back to the root cause rather than depending on someone to solve all your problems for you. We will empower the people to make the changes and to shepherd, or to guide the people, on how this is done. We will divide the Church into segments, and by doing so, we will unite the people.

You could say that, if you are falling back on the tradition of the Church, and that tradition does not resolve the conflicts being faced, then it is time to take the Church in a new direction. Those hearty souls who are willing to fall back to the tradition of using the tools necessary, that the Vatican is not using at this time, but it is relying on its power to dictate to others something that is not agreeable to them, then change will come about. You will help the Church evolve into a wider perspective here, that, you could say, makes the Church more of what it is rather than less of what it is. You will reflect the higher concept of the Church, and let go of those things that no longer suit you, which is to not address the changes in cultures.

In my book, which I recommend that you read, and which will be placed on this web page in this area, I ask that you begin to assume responsibility for "taking on the sins of the world." The role of the pope is to take on the sins of the world. By the pope, I mean the position, not the man. In a way, you are assuming this responsibility because it is not being addressed by Joseph Ratzinger. As you do so, you will begin to heal this concept of the rift in the Church related to terrorism.

To address the idea of terrorism, and to look at a bit of the history, when the Church began to proselytize and to assume responsibility for converting the pagans, those who were not Christ, it started to create a loop. A decision was made, and the idea of the Christian teachings...

And I will equate this idea now, with Christianity and the Catholic Church, although there have been many divisions since then.

I would like to clarify, I am going back into the historical parameters rather than addressing issues right now. I am looking at where the loop occurred at first. Where it occurred, the Catholic Church had not yet divided into all the different religions, Protestants and the rest. There was only one Christian Church and that was the Catholic Church. There were different concepts being brought out by the different popes and the secular nature of the role. So, we are going to address these concepts related to that time period. I am going to address the idea of the Christian,meaning Catholic as opposed to the Islam rather than Catholic and Protestant or Methodist and Lutheran, which came far later, and divided Christianity into sects.

During that period, there came a decree that the Crusades were going to take back the Holy Land. Because Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and that region, was the birthplace of Christianity, it was the Holy Land. The Muslims were entrenched there. The decree was that the Crusades would go to take back the Holy Land. By doing so, it created what you could call a genocide against the Muslims. It created a judgment against them as justification for putting them down. The intent was to purify the Holy Land, but it divided the people. It created a genocide, and you could say it broke the Commandment that says, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”

It would have been possible to go in, during that time period, as pilgrims, to go in and to say to the local residents, “By history, this is our holy place, too. It is your place. We all recognize this is a holy place, and we would like to share in this idea. We would like to build a church here, where our supplicants can come and celebrate the holiness of this place.” All would have shared in the idea because the common goal is that it is a holy place for many religions. Both faiths believe that it is holy ground. There would have been no difficulty because it would have brought in people, and many tribes have lived in peace there. But, because it was done militarily, by sending in troops, and because it was putting them down, it created a sense of division. A sense of a war that had to be fought. Why can’t people all agree on it being a holy land for all people?

The Catholic Church cannot address the issues related to the Jews. That has to come from this different root cause. What you can do is to address the idea of looking at the fact that all people have the right to have a holy ground. To hold certain ideas sacred. No one individual or no one culture or nation has the right to put another down. This is breaking the Commandments, the Commandment says that you shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor. By putting another down, you are bearing false witness, and you are creating a division.

To bring this to a logical conclusion, this morning we will address the idea of "taking on the sins of the world," assuming responsibility for this, and working to heal this on a level that allows all to share in the responsibility of this. The reaction by the Muslims has been to protest the unfairness of this, that they have been driven out of their holy lands, also. We are going to allow the terrorist factions to express their culture and their religion any way they choose.

The steps behind this are to open a dialogue and allow all people to have their share of responsibility in resolving this, because the reaction has been violence and that is “Thou shalt not kill thy neighbor.” That is an equal response. The backlash is equally responsible, so to speak. To resolve this is to first allow this common goal to come out, where people understand that this holy land can be shared by all. There is no need to drive someone off their holy land, because you, yourself, are driven off. There is the equal reaction, to what you are doing. Under the Christian faith, it says, “What you do to another will be done to you.” If you are driving someone off their holy land, you will be driven off your holy land. If you allow someone to have their holy land, then it allows you to have that holy land, also.

You are not necessarily going to make a pilgrimage back, but many people would like to, at Christmas time, go to visit Bethlehem. As the terrorism becomes more strident, and the cries become more strident, and it becomes more unstable in the Middle East, it reaches the point where this pilgrimage is not possible anymore, out of fear of kidnapping or realization. To gain back your sense of a holy land again, you must open the dialogue, find the common ground that allows everyone to share in this idea, and to bring the loop back full circle, where everyone who is to blame is working to resolve this conflict. The first ones are the ones to share this idea are the ones who did it in the first place.

The people who are alive now, did not do this. You were not involved with this Crusade. It happened many hundreds of years ago. But by working to assume responsibility for the Church, as the Catholic Church and to see this need to create the resolution of conflict, you can begin to heal it in your own life at the present time. You are taking on the responsibility for doing this. You will be working to resolve the conflict of terrorism in the world and opening the doors to the Islam faith.

The reason that it is possible to do so is because you have not been so personally involved with this conflict. You can stand back and look at this issue and say, “Well, I am not planning to go there in the first place, I don’t know anyone who has been blown up with a suicide bomb,” which makes it difficult because of the personal involvement, and the anger of losing family members or you own health because of it. So as you have a degree of detachment, you can begin to solve this, and then draw others into the idea, too. You are offering a solution to a situation where you are involved. You have the common goal, but yet at the same time, you are not so personally drawn into it that it makes it difficult to resolve. You are one step detached from the idea, but yet you can begin the process because you can see things from the wider perspective.

Now, the last thing to address, that I ask you to do, is to understand that the Catholic Church is falling back on tradition--its traditional way of looking at things--because as a whole, people around the world are not ready to address these ideas. There are many Catholic nations that are not ready to do this because they have been drawn into this schism on a personal level. For example, in the Philippines, you have the Catholics, but you also have the Muslims who have been terrorizing that country, and they have been drawn into it. So, you could say that the Catholic Church within the United States is going to make this step first, and they draw the others out of this conflict. You are going to stand up to say, “We don’t want this anymore,” and offer the solution, and then draw the others out of the conflict.  It may take a generation or two generations for them to evolve far enough out of this concept... Just like the idea of racism in the United States, and how one person, Rosa Parks, stood and to say, “We don’t want this anymore,” and it started this evolutionary process that has taken several decades to go through... So will you be starting this process and saying, “We don’t want this anymore.” Rosa Parks was a woman who had not been involved with the civil rights movement, but yet she was able to start the transition for the people who had not stood up to say anything. They had allowed it to go on. So will you stand up to say, “We don’t want this to occur anymore,” and you will begin to heal the rift, although it will take a period of time.

The idea is to begin to take on this role of the traditional Catholic pope, who takes on the sins of the world, and demonstrates it by the decrees issued by the Church through its agenda for change and how it will work with its flock, but you will begin to unite the Church back into the common goal of healing the rifts that have occurred.

We are going to start a discussion group and enable a sense of a dialogue to be created here. The role of this organization is to start the dialogue, and then we ask that you come to share how you are doing this, and then possibly take it back to start the idea within your own Catholic Church, and demonstrate how this can be done. You will become the “shepherds,” of how to "take on the sins of the world." You will become the “bishops” of this new movement to bring the Catholic Church back into this traditional role by evolving into a higher level, and then allowing the others to catch up with you. The idea has been to unempower the people so that the agenda can be addressed to spread this all over, but this has created a schism, and to draw the Church back into a powerful position again, it has to go back. You are like children, and the parent Church has reached a point where the Children have grown up and are assuming responsibility, and you are becoming the pinnacle of what the Church was attempting to do in the first place. By assuming responsibility for each of your projects, you are demonstrating what the Church was meant to do in the first place, by taking children and teaching them to be responsible adults.

The shepherd guides the flock to the point--and this will separate out the idea of the shepherd. We are going to allow this to evolve. Sheep never grow up. We are going to look at this as parents and children, because in the Church, if one individual maintains this role of shepherd of a flock, the sheep never grow up. If you become the parent, for example...

God would like you to create the life that you want, not to constantly be God’s Children. You grow up and evolve to the point where you create your own life rather than depending on the Church to tell you what to do. You are evolving to empower yourself to create your own life that you want. This is what God intended the Church to be.

Jesus came to fulfill the Law, and that Laws says, “Children must grow up to assume responsibility for their own life, and to have a personal relationship with God rather than to have go-betweens. Your own empowerment means you are assuming responsibility, and then you share in the creative process with God. Jesus showed you the way. Jesus is The Way, but Jesus does not tell you what to do.

We are going to share this on the Internet, and establish this dialogue where you can begin the process to take on the sins of the world, and then share the role with others. You may choose to have a class, or a discussion group, and open this idea. You may go to mosques in your community and share this idea. In the United States, where a mosque can be next door to a Catholic church and on their holy days, can share this idea. Maybe sister churches can come together to find unity in this role. And by this, the United States can assume the role of resolving terrorism.

It is not going to come because governments sit down, because governments are doing what the Crusades did in the first place. They went through a military way to try to put others down, and created a backlash because of it. But the people of the United States are the ones with the power. It is not the military. You have the power to bring together the holy places within the United States to show the world how this can be accomplished.

So be it and so it is.