Pope’s new book : Europe’s nihilism, abortion as a new Holocaust

Rome (AsiaNews) – The Pope’s new book “Memory and Identity: Conversations Between Millenniums,” in print next week in Italy, is being awaited with great anticipation. According to reports, in his fifth book, the Pope warns Eastern Europe to guard against the nihilism that dominates in the West. He also compares the abortion laws that exist in many states to Nazism, the bane of abortion to a new Holocaust. For John Paul II, both phenomena arise from governments in conflict with “the law of God.”

In Poland, Znak publishing house will release the book on March 11 and provided a Polish version to Associated Press, which published various excerpts.

Memory and Identity – 140 pages in its Italian version – is not an autobiography, nor an essay, but the edited version of a lengthy set of exchanges between John Paul II and Polish philosophers Krysztof Michalski and Jozef Tischner. In the book, the Pope reflects with his friends on his experiences during the past century, including the assassination attempt against him in 1981, the century struggles across the 20th century against Nazism and Communism and in favour of human life.

The Pope looks at the countries freed from Soviet domination and Communism at the end of the Cold War – including his native Poland, with its large Catholic majority – and says that they must now resist the secularized cultural influences of Western Europe. “The basic threat facing Central Europe now is having its identity subdued…What is the risk? It is uncritically falling under the influence of negative cultural patterns spread in the West.” He writes that during the struggle against Communism, “this part of Europe has completed a task of spiritual maturing thanks to which certain values important for human life were devalued less than in the West. There the conviction that God is the highest guarantor of human dignity and man’s right is still alive.”

John Paul II also continues his defence of life and compares legislation permitting abortion with the Holocaust, Nazi Germany’s murder of 6 million Jews during World War II.

"It was a legally elected parliament,” the Pope writes according to excerpts quoted by AP, “which allowed for the election of Hitler in Germany in the 1930s and then the same Reichstag that gave Hitler powers which paved a way for the political invasion of Europe, for the creation of concentration camps and for introducing the so-called 'final solution' of the Jewish question, which meant the extermination of millions of sons and daughters of Israel." The pope continued, "We have to question the legal regulations that have been decided in the parliaments of present day democracies. The most direct association which comes to mind is the abortion laws. ... Parliaments which create and promulgate such laws must be aware that they are transgressing their powers and remain in open conflict with the law of God and the law of nature."

Memory and Identity is the fourth volume of reminiscences and reflections published by John Paul II during his pontificate. Crossing the Threshold of Hope, based on an extensive interview with Italian journalist Vittorio Messori, appeared in 1994 and has been translated into 32 languages with more than 20 million copies sold. His other works are Gift and Mystery, a meditation on 50 years of priesthood (1996); Rise, Let Us Be on Our Way, about his experiences as a bishop (2004). Pope John Paul has also produced poetic work, most recently Roman Tryptic, which appeared in 2003.All income from sales of the Pope's books goes to charitable efforts. A large portion of the royalties from his latest book went to rebuild both Catholic and Orthodox churches that had been destroyed during combat in the Balkans.

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Pope Faces Down Evil with New Book

Breaking from NewsMax.com

Pope John Paul II may be ailing, but he is not afraid to speak out.

Already the Pope's newest book - just released in Europe - is creating headlines around the world.

In his most candid writings yet, John Paul II's "Memory and Identity, Conversations Between Millenniums" tackles hot button issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage, and fearlessly makes the case for his Church's positions.

Written in a question-and-answer format, the book is said to be a must-read not only for Catholics, but also for Christians concerned about the direction Western society is heading.

Though just published, it is already soaring to the top of the world's best-seller lists. The global anticipation is reminiscent of the excitement generated by his first book, "Crossing the Threshold of Hope," which came out a decade ago and sold 20 million copies.

The new book is scheduled to be released in the U.S. next month.

[NewsMax will have among the first copies. Find out about our FREEEE offer. Go Here Now].

"Memory and Identity" has already set off a heated controversy in Germany and among Jewish groups after it was revealed that the Pope compares abortion to the Nazi Holocaust. In Germany, for example, a leader of the country's Central Council of Jews called the comparison "unacceptable."

According to press reports, the Pope:

Recalls his near-death memories after the attempt on his life, and compares abortion to the Holocaust.

Denounces gay marriages as part of "a new ideology of evil." He argues that same-sex marriages threaten society by undermining the traditional family.

Takes another swing at gay marriages when he refers to "pressures" on the European Parliament to allow them. "It is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if this is not perhaps part of a new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden, which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man," he writes.

Calls abortion "legal extermination" comparable to attempts to wipe out Jews and other groups in the 20th century. The Pope openly talks about the Nazi attempt to exterminate Jews and the wholesale slaughter of political opponents by Communist regimes after World War II.

Writes about Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca, who shot and nearly killed him in St. Peter's Square on May 13, 1981. The Pope believes the gunman did not act alone, suggesting that the former Soviet Communist Bloc was probably behind the plot. The Pope says that the assassination attempt was not the gunman's initiative: "Someone else masterminded it and someone else commissioned it."

Posits a connection between the assassination attempt and "the last convulsion" of the ideologies of the 20th century - a clear reference to the Communist bloc.

Warns that new evils as bad as the Nazis and Communism are rising, and claims that legally elected parliaments in formerly totalitarian countries are today allowing what he calls "new forms of evil" and new exterminations.

"There is still, however, a legal extermination of human beings who have been conceived but not yet born," he writes. "And this time we are talking about an extermination which has been allowed by nothing less than democratically elected parliaments where one normally hears appeals for the civil progress of society and all humanity," he writes.

At a news conference introducing the Pope's new book, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican's top doctrinal official, explained the Pope's comparison of abortion and the Holocaust by noting that the Pope was warning that evil lurked everywhere, "even in liberal political systems."

"Memory and Identity" is based on the Pope's conversations with philosopher friends in 1993 and later with some of his aides. Marketing materials from Orion Books, the publisher of the English edition, say the book reflects on the most challenging issues and events of the Pope's turbulent times.

"Pope John Paul II reveals his personal thoughts in a truly historic document," Orion writes. "The world's greatest communicator offers a moving insight into his intellectual and spiritual journey and pastoral experience."

With the Pope in his twilight years, the publisher notes this book contains his last words for posterity, "an intellectual and spiritual testament in an attempt to seek the answer to defining problems that vex our lives."

An Associated Press (AP) story takes it a step further: The book, it says, looks at Western Civilization with the goal of identifying nothing less than the "roots of evil."

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