Thirty-five years ago, in 1978, John Paul II became the first non-Italian Pope since the 1500s. He was Polish. His emergence as Pope was a source of pride for Poland. In 1979, he returned to his native land, to massive crowds, with a message to the Poles to be unafraid, and to stand together with their trust in God.
He did not come to challenge the Communist regime, directly. And yet, a year later, in 1980, when Lech Walensa and the Solidarity movement emerged, the Pope's role in inspiring a successful resistance to the regime was well-understood and acknowledged.
Over the course of the 1980s, this crack in the facade of Eastern European Communism widened, and by 1989 we saw the fall of the Berlin Wall, the one-time symbol of the entire Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West.
The fall of Soviet Communism was not entirely the doing of the Pope, of course. Many other forces, political and economic, were at play. There was a rising global economy against which the Soviet approach could not compete. Information technology--cassette tapes, at the time, along with traditional samizdat--permitted dissemination of views that did not have the sanction of the state.
But the Soviet Union was a global power, and Pope John Paul II was not naive about the challenge he was making. Perhaps he was canny, or perhaps he was lucky, or both, but his challenge succeeded.
Ten years is a long time when you are living it, but historically, it is an incredibly brief period.
Pope Francis is making a challenge to the structure of capitalism itself. As I understand, his challenge is not to capitalism per se, but to the form that leaves poverty and inequality in its wake. In short, the unregulated Atlas Shrugged version the Kochs are spending millions of dollars to advance, and which the US in very significant ways has adopted over the past 30 years. Like Communism in the mid-80s, US style capitalism is straining under the weight of its contradictions.
Regulation is critical to prevent the excesses of capitalism while harnessing its benefits. It forces businesses to bear the true costs of their operations, rather than shifting them on to society at large in the form of pollution, financial risk or artificially low wages.
Francis is not the first Pope in our lifetime to take on a massive institution. I will hope--and pray--for his success.