Karol Wojtyla had planned to study the Polish language and literature upon graduating from high school. The German National Socialists had other ideas. What led him to the discern a vocation to the priesthood is not completely clear to me. Of course Cardinal Sapieha had already recognized his brilliant mind; as soon as the way was opened, he studied in Rome and completed his PhD dissertation under Father Garrigou-Lagrange. Only four years later he was studying the thought of Max Scheler, with his focus on ethics. Thus, over the course of thirteen years the focus of his life changed many times and, then, stabilized on love and ethics.
What was it that focused his life on this subject? Certainly his move to the parish of Saint Florian’s church just north of the Planty was a major factor. It was here that he “fell in love with love” as he became a “campus minister” (as it is now called). In the preface to Love and Responsibility’s his focus is on how to love according to the two great commandments of Jesus and how to love in a sexually-based relationship. Thus, the connection between love and ethics, the latter as a way to know how an action is good or evil, whether it is loving or not. This was all done in the context of a Russian-occupied Poland, where ethics was actively subverted in the Marxist ideology that was a prerequisite to the material success as a member of the Communist party.
Father Wojtyla’s focus on ethics in a Catholic context was the alternative that he offered to those he formed rather than their joining with the ideology of the Party. Was he successful? How can one decide that question? Can the focus on ethics help Americans to love, to love better?
