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Another Boston-area intellectual who knows and admires the new Pope is Anna? Teresa Tymieniecka, a fellow Pole who heads the Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research. Wojtyla is an expert in phenomenology, a theory of knowledge that bases scientific objectivity upon the unique nature of subjective human perception. He has written a major work on it, Person and Act (1969), which Tymieniecka is translating into English. Summarizing the Pope's complex thought, she says: "He stresses the irreducible value of the human person. He finds a spiritual dimension in human interaction, and that leads him to a profoundly humanistic conception of society."
Does Wojtyla's philosophy of the individual's inalienable right of self-determination mean that he will welcome the explorations of liberal theologians and take a tolerant view toward individual conscience on knotty matters that perplex Catholics? Not necessarily. As Harvard Divinity School's George Williams sees it, Wojtyla's philosophy of individual self-determination permits man to challenge the totalitarian state as in Nazism, or economic determinism as in Communism. But, says Williams, that does not necessarily mean that man has "self-determination against God."
Indeed, Wojtyla is known as a staunch conservative on specific issues of doctrine, morality and church authority. On the birth-control question, Wojtyla was on record against all artificial methods in his book Love and Responsibility (1960) before Paul VI took the same position in his much attacked Humanae Vitae encyclical of 1968. But the book also emphasized sexual pleasure for married couples —an advanced view for a pre-Vatican II archbishop. Wojtyla has also taken an uncompromising stand against liberalized abortion, yet another issue on which he opposes Poland's Communist regime.
In his inaugural speech to the Cardinals last week, the new Pope touched a number of traditionalist chords, mentioning the First Vatican Council, with its dogmas on papal authority, the "discipline" of the clergy and the "obedience" of the laity. But he also stressed the church's obligation to promote the reforms of the Second Vatican Council "with prudent, but encouraging action."
Significantly, John Paul II emphasized "collegiality" and advocated "appropriate development" of the Synod of Bishops, now a powerless, muted body. Observers of the Polish church scene note that Wojtyla turned the meetings of Poland's bishops from a rubber stamp for Wyszynski into a collegial and more powerful voice of the church. In his own archdiocese, he sought priestly and lay involvement through an innovative "Pastoral Synod," a seven-year series of discussions on church affairs reminiscent of far more radical nationwide gatherings in Holland that were banned by the Vatican.