In new book, pope says society did not learn from 20th Century

That represents a threat to entire groups of people, including the unborn, the pope says in the book, "Memory and Identity: Conversations Between Millenniums."

"If man can decide alone, without God, what is good and what is evil, then he can also decide to exterminate a category of human beings," the pope wrote.

The 228-page book was unveiled by the Italian publisher Rizzoli at a Feb. 22 press conference in Rome. It was due out in English later this year.

Based on conversations between the pope and several Polish academics, the book is essentially a papal reflection on the ideological struggles that played out in Europe over the last 100 years and their significance for the 21st century.

With the advance of the communist revolution, the rise of Nazism, the outbreak of World War II and the installation of the Soviet regime, the pope views the 20th century as a stage upon which the forces of good and evil engaged in sharp combat.

He is convinced that good has triumphed, but worries that not all the lessons have been learned.

For example, the pope noted that Hitler used legal means to open the way to aggression against other European countries, the passage of racial laws, the creation of concentration camps and the introduction of the so-called "final solution" to eradicate the Jewish race.

The pope then connected those historical developments with worrisome signs in modern Europe and elsewhere, and he warned of a dangerous detachment from traditional moral and religious values.

"The most immediate association of ideas that comes to mind are the laws on abortion," he said.

"The parliaments that create and promulgate such laws should be aware that they are abusing their powers and remain in open conflict with the law of God and the law of nature," he said.

If in the past it was nationalist regimes that advanced totalitarian agendas, today the threat is often represented by powerful economic forces that try to impose their ideas around the world, especially in poorer countries, he said.

Under "democratic" forms, this new type of totalitarianism has taken aim at basic human values by promoting moral permissiveness, abortion, euthanasia, genetic manipulation, contraception and divorce, he said.

The pope said one egregious example was the recent legislative push to have homosexual unions recognized as an "alternative form of family."

At the book presentation, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation, said the pope was not putting the Holocaust and abortion on the same historical level, but was noting that modern democracies are not immune to evil, including the destruction of human life, which in some forms can even be supported by the majority.

The book is autobiographical in the sense that as a young man the pope lived in a country that found itself in the midst of Europe’s ideological struggles. He writes movingly of what people knew and did not know after the Nazi invasion of Poland, saying the true extent of Nazi evil was evident only after the war.

"What we could see in those years was terrible enough. Yet many aspects of Nazism were still hidden at that stage," he said.

"The full extent of the evil that was raging through Europe was not seen by everyone, not even by those of us who were living at the epicenter," he said.

In a reference to the Nazi death camps in Poland and elsewhere, the pope said: "For a long time, the West did not want to believe in the extermination of the Jews. ... Not even in Poland did we know all that the Nazis had done."

The book has the tone and freshness of a dialogue, but the substance is meaty. It ranges over such topics as the Christian roots of Europe, the relationship between the faith and the Enlightenment in 18th-century Europe, the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the ideals of freedom and equality in democratic states.

Key to the pope’s vision is the belief that the memory of one’s own history and culture in large part forms human identity, at the personal and collective levels.

The pope has published several books, including the autobiographical "Crossing the Threshold of Hope," which has worldwide sales of more than 20 million since 1993.

En nuevo libro, el papa dice que sociedad no aprendió del siglo 20

CIUDAD DEL VATICANO (CNS) –- En un nuevo libro el papa Juan Pablo II advierte que a pesar de las ideologías fracasadas y las lecciones trágicas del siglo 20 la sociedad moderna todavía actúa como si pudiese determinar el bien y el mal sin referencia a Dios.

Eso representa una amenaza contra grupos completos de personas, incluyendo los no nacidos, dice el papa en el libro "Memoria e Identidad: Conversaciones Entre Milenios".

"Si el hombre puede decidir solo, sin Dios, lo que es el bien y lo que es el mal, entonces él también puede decidir exterminar una categoría de seres humanos", escribió el papa.

El libro de 228 páginas fue develado por el publicador italiano Rizzoli en conferencia de prensa el 22 de febrero en Roma.

Basado en conversaciones entre el papa y varios académicos polacos, el libro es esencialmente una reflexión papal sobre las luchas ideológicas que se dieron en Europa durante los últimos 100 años y su importancia para el siglo 21.

Con el avance de la revolución comunista, el surgimiento del nazismo, el brote de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y la instalación del régimen soviético, el papa ve el siglo 20 como un escenario en el cual las fuerzas del bien y el mal entran en arduo combate.

Él está convencido de que el bien ha triunfado, pero se preocupa porque no todas las lecciones han sido aprendidas.

Si en el pasado fueron los regímenes nacionalistas los que avanzaron las agendas totalitarias, hoy día la amenaza es a menudo representada por fuerzas económicas poderosas que tratan de imponer ideas en todo el mundo, especialmente en los países más pobres, dijo él.

Bajo formas "democráticas" este nuevo tipo de totalitarismo ha apuntado contra los valores humanos básicos promoviendo la permisividad moral, el aborto, la eutanasia, la manipulación genética, la anticoncepción y el divorcio, dijo él.

El papa dijo que un ejemplo craso es el impulso legislativo reciente para que las uniones homosexuales sean reconocidas como una "forma alternativa de la familia".

Durante la presentación del libro, el cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, director de la congregación doctrinal del Vaticano, dijo que el papa no está poniendo el holocausto y el aborto en el mismo nivel histórico, sino que está señalando que las democracias modernas no son inmunes al mal, incluyendo la destrucción de la vida humana, que en algunas formas hasta puede ser apoyada por la mayoría.

El papa ve su propio intento de asesinato en 1981 como "una de las últimas convulsiones" de las luchas ideológicas del siglo 20. Él recuerda sus sentimientos personales cuando él fue herido de bala y llevado al hospital y describe en detalle su reunión en la prisión con su agresor, Mehmet Ali Agca.

Si la violencia ideológica del siglo 20 ha declinado, sin embargo, el surgimiento del terrorismo global representa una nueva amenaza, dijo él.

"En este periodo más reciente, las llamadas redes de terror se han extendido en todo el mundo", y éstas "constituyen una amenaza constante contra millones de personas inocentes", dijo él.

Representantes de Razzoli dijeron que el libro será publicado inicialmente en 14 ediciones en 11 idiomas.