c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Frances Kissling is president of Catholics for a Free Choice, an independent group involved in women’s health and reproductive rights issues.)

UNDATED _ Pope John Paul II is nothing if not complex.

Here is a man who will likely hold a prominent place in history for his role in the fall of repressive communist regimes and for his lively and passionate advocacy of human freedom in the political world.

At the same time, however, his own conduct relating to church matters mirrors the tactics of those same repressive regimes, as he continues to clamp down on freedoms within the church.

Now comes the latest evidence of this autocratic dimension. In an apostolic letter issued June 30, the pope closed what he perceived to be a theological loophole by enshrining into church law the obligation of Catholics to accept a category of church teachings that includes the bans on contraception, sex outside marriage, and the ordination of women to the priesthood.

Furthermore, the pope demands that theologians teaching in official capacities in Roman Catholic universities strictly adhere to Vatican positions on these and other matters. Not only must Catholics obey, we must also submit.

Ever since he was elected pope in 1978, John Paul has conducted an unrelenting campaign to stifle dissent in the church, silencing liberation theologians in the developing world, dismissing First World professors of theology, and declaring bishops, clergy and laity alike are to cease even talking about the possibility women could be ordained.

Catholics are required to offer”a religious submission of intellect and will.”The language is eerily similar to that used by ancient and modern cults, the kind that sends parents frantically searching for experts in de-program their brainwashed children.

This latest crackdown on dissent is in the grand tradition of autocratic regimes from time immemorial. Unable to inspire devotion through persuasive efforts, autocrats demand submission by force of law. Unable to control behavior, they seek to control ideas and speech.

This, of course, is the worst possible use of the law, and no one should know that better than John Paul, the Polish man who during the 1980s watched in horror as the government of his homeland used the law to hunt down and jail members of Solidarity seeking freedom from repression.

He should also know well that the repression of freedom has a devastating impact on the human spirit. The church today is crying out for true dialogue, for a spirit of inquiry around the complex questions that face humankind as we grapple with new moral and ethical dilemmas, including the very issues now closed to debate.

In a world now inhabited by almost 6 billion people, to attempt to prohibit _ as these new church laws do _ even discussion of the morality of contraception is untenable to the great majority of Catholics. In an age when women in almost every corner of the globe are assuming greater equality with men, it is unreasonable to squelch debate over women priests.

This move to silence the search for understanding on the most critical issues of our time will only mean that church leaders will be left out of both the inevitable discourse and the ensuing decisions.

The day after the new laws were issued, John Paul, apparently unaware of the dazzling irony in the two actions, announced he had picked the theme for this year’s World Day of Peace _ human rights, a topic chosen to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. His message will be titled”Respect for Human Rights, the Secret of True Peace.” But John Paul seems perfectly at home with the dichotomy of his actions.

From the front porch comes a grand defense of personal rights and autonomy; from the back porch, a small-minded persecution of individual thought and debate.

If only he could see that his church, now struggling against itself, will only achieve true peace when he and his successors defend freedom of expression inside the church as fervently as they do outside the church, when the front porch exhortations and the back porch conversations are based upon the same principles of human rights and dignity.

DEA END KISSLING