Fr. Kevin Drew: The Papal Election that Trumped Communism

In 1949 the Englishman George Orwell wrote a book titled 1984.  It was about life in a totalitarian state—one that held total control over peoples’ lives.  Orwell invented terms used in the book that resonate today: Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak.  Today the term Orwellian is used to describe official deception, secret surveillance, and manipulation of the past.  One famous quote from 1984 is: “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”

In 1968 students in the city of Krakow, Poland, organized an unofficial lecture titled “Orwell’s 1984 and Poland today.”  It was broken up by the police at the behest of Poland’s communist government. A few days later, there was a meeting in a Catholic church titled “Orwell’s 1984 and Poland today.”  It was not broken up.  The Archbishop of Krakow had ordered Orwell’s 1984 to be read in all churches.  That Archbishop’s name was Karol Wojtyla, now known as Pope Saint John Paul II. …