The 20th century noticed the rise and fall of many totalitarian regimes which left of their wake immeasurable horrors of the like mankind had by no means earlier than seen. Tyranny, struggling, and loss of life on an untold scale unfold the world over like a plague on a wave of revolutionary zeal. Fascism and Communism stripped individuals of their property, their rights, and their lives. However amid the despair, some, like Pope Saint John Paul II, selected hope.
Pope Saint John Paul II, who lived beneath the oppression of each the Nazis and the Communists, preached an antidote to the illness of totalitarianism. In his Theology of the Physique, Pope John Paul reminds us that God created every human being in His personal picture. This offers every one in every of us inherent dignity, irrespective of our wealth, class, or race. We all know this as a result of our our bodies train us we’re distinctive individuals created for love. This relational nature mirrors God Himself, who’s a communion of individuals: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. By affirming the infinite dignity of each human particular person, St. John Paul’s Theology of the Physique shines as a beacon of hope towards the totalitarian tendency to cut back individuals to mere cogs in a collective machine.
The distinction between totalitarian ideology and Theology of the Physique results in radically other ways of dwelling. Our beliefs dictate our actions. Communists consider that fixing our materials issues will make us comfortable and thereby justify theft and oppression. St. John Paul reminds us that loving others will make us comfortable, then we are able to discover pleasure within the deepest poverty. Nazis view people merely as instruments for materials progress and subsequently considered those that hindered their progress as expendable. St. John Paul reminds us that people exist for love: they don’t seem to be expendable; they don’t seem to be a way to an finish; they’re an finish in themselves.
