Crossing the Threshold of Hope. Pope John Paul II.

Crossing the Threshold of Hope.
Pope John Paul II. Ed. by Vittorio Messori.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1994.

Pope John Paul II confronts the most persistent questions about religion:

Why does God permit suffering? Answer: When we suffer, we complete the suffering of Christ.

He affirms the role of the Pope--a servant to the servants of the Lord, a symbol of hope.

He defines "prayer," a conversation that emphasizes the essence of God and "mercy," the love that goes out to those who suffer.

He urges that the many religions are more alike than different, then points out the differences between Catholicism and Buddhism and the God of the Koran. Buddhism sees the world as the source of evil and the goal of humanity is to achieve indifference to the world or isolation, while Catholicism urges indifference to the world in order to join with God. The God of the Koran is "outside the world," a "God who is only majesty" vs. the God of Catholicism Who seeks to unite humanity with Him.

He says that Communism was a cure that was worse than the disease and that its system failed because of its weaknesses. He affirms that Christ's relationship to humanity comes through His accepting death which is the inevitable fate of humanity. He concludes by quoting Andre Malraux: The twenty-first century will be the century of religion or it will not be at all.

Two statements with which I have some difficulty: "All the Church's children must remember that their privileged condition is not the result of their own merits, but the result of the special grace of Christ" and "God's demands never exceed man's abilities."