September 1 Still Matters
St. John Paul: “Armed force, science, technology” gave us “the illusion of becoming the sole master of nature and history’’
We forget how history’s deadliest war began: We forgot God. If we recall World War II, we talk of days like D-Day, December 7 or nukes. We ignore the true origin story of September 1, 1939 — so its root causes remain.
The saint who was on the ground when the bombs hit warned “it is our duty before God” to remember and honor the dead and wounded “while at the same time forgiving the offenses that were committed.”
He was just 19, a college student when the Nazi blitzkrieg (lightning war) began in his backyard 80 years ago. Ironically, he was a layman helping celebrate Mass in Wawel Castle, surrounded by the relics and bodies of Poland’s greatest saints and heroes as the devil and his minions started the war by invading Poland.
“Whole cities were mercilessly destroyed, and their terrorized populations reduced to anguish and misery,” St. John Paul II recalled 50 years later. “At the side of the Archbishop of Krakow, Adam Stefan Sapieha, I personally witnessed this distressing reality. The inhuman demands of the occupier of the moment brutally oppressed opponents and suspected opponents, while women, children, and the elderly were subjected to constant humiliation…”
John Paul’s warning that still rings true today: “once man is abandoned to human power alone and crippled in his religious aspirations, he is quickly reduced, to a number or an object…”
Just 17 days after the September 1 attacks, Russian communists joined the war, allying themselves with the German Nazis, pouring in from the east, sealing Poland’s fate as the crucified Christ of nations. No nation lost a larger percentage of its people than Poland.
Substitute Religions that still threaten us today: “Nazi paganism and Marxist dogma are both basically totalitarian ideologies, and tend to become substitute religions,” John Paul explained. “Long before 1939, there appeared within certain sectors of European culture a desire to erase God and his image from man’s horizon.”
September 1 legacies reverberate today and into the future
The world went to war over the invasion of Poland. George Weigel points out Poland is the one nation that lost World War II twice:
- In September 1939 when Germany and the Soviet Union invaded and took over.
- A second time in 1944–45 when the Soviets decided to push out the Nazis and keep an iron grip control of Poland for an extra 44 years. The communists were partners with the Nazis in 1939–41 but were later betrayed and invaded by the Nazis. We largely quit talking about the origins of the war when the communists joined the Allies — and bore the brunt of defeating Germany.
St. John Paul II experienced the birth of World War II in Wawel, helped win the Cold War, and later warned: “armed force, science, and technology have given contemporary man the illusion of becoming the sole master of nature and history.”
History’s largest war was only possible, he said, because of “a new paganism” and the growth of a cultural “desire to erase God and his image from man’s horizon… in many areas of existence modern man thinks, lives and acts as if God did not even exist. In this, we find lurking the same danger that was present yesterday: that man will be handed over to the power of man…”
In Poland, he faced German occupation and then Russian communist control. He saw the enemy up close and learned how to defeat them. We learn newly revealed details of this story in the film “The Divine Plan,’’ which debuts November 6 (the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall). We learn more details in the related book, “The Divine Plan: John Paul, Ronald Reagan and the Dramatic End of the Cold War’’ by Paul Kengor and Robert Orlando.
When Reagan saw footage of John Paul’s 1979 trip to Poland, he literally jumped up and said “That’s it!’’ He instantly knew he needed to win the White House, form an alliance with the new Polish pope, and together they would do everything needed to destroy an evil empire.
That alliance was cemented in spring 1981 when both men were shot and miraculously survived just six weeks apart.
Both John Paul, a Catholic Pole leading the world’s largest organized religion, and Reagan, the American Protestant President of the United States and leader of the free world, believed God has a plan for each of us and life is full of joy and great achievements when we follow that plan. Both spent their lives fighting the atheistic, anti-God leaders of global communism. Together, they won big.
The enemy we still face today. John Paul also warned of the power of Satan aka “the ruler of this world (John 14:30), who, can seduce consciences through falsehood, through scorn for man… and through the cult of power and force…’’
The devil’s greatest achievement was convincing the vast majority of the world he doesn’t exist, that he’s some sort of “symbol.’’ John Paul and Reagan knew he was real and that evil must be confronted with truth and love.
Atheists love to blame religion for violence and war yet they rarely admit that atheism (the belief there is no God, that humans are the ultimate authority on earth) is itself a religion. Atheistic communism is responsible for the death of more than 100 million. The atheistic war on believers, however, created millions of martyrs and martyrs are the seeds of the Church. John Paul explained:
“We must give thanks to God, however, for the many witnesses, known and unknown, who in those hours of tribulation had the courage to profess their faith steadfastly, who knew how to rise above the atheist’s arbitrariness and who did not give in to force…
The answer, John Paul concludes: “man is only authentically himself when he accepts that he is a creature of God; that man is only aware of his dignity when he recognizes in himself and in others the imprint of the God in whose image he was created; that man only achieves greatness to the extent that he makes his life a response to God’s love and puts himself at the service of his brothers and sisters.”
Read the full text of St. John Paul’s September 1, 1989 address on the meaning of September 1, 1939.