What’s so great about Pope Saint John Paul II? Beside the fact that he is extremely consistent with the teachings of the Popes who came before him—which truly ought to be the
modus operandi of every Pope—and beside many other pertinent facts of his papacy, there is the fact that he has almost single-handedly renewed the face of moral theology. Somehow, moral theology—it seems—had become an adjunct, an accessory, merely one of those “required courses” at Catholic colleges and seminaries. But now, every Catholic student and seminarian who knows the mind and heart and legacy of Pope John Paul II will want to study and implement moral theology, that is, the moral teaching of Christ and the Catholic Church, into his life and the life of each one whom he serves by offering the Gospel of Jesus the Christ. He will not need a requirement to motivate him in the matter. He will be like St Paul, who is morally compelled to preach the Holy Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
The point of the Holy Father’s renewal of moral theology is well-made by Monsignor William B. Smith:
Conventional Catholic moral teaching was for some time seen as almost indistinguishable from canonical discipline. In many seminaries, both subjects were taught by the same teacher. During his pontificate, John Paul has overseen the promulgation of a new Code of Canon Law for the Western Church—Codex Iuris Canonici (1983). … It is thus all the more remarkable that amid the canonical achievement, John Paul II did not leave moral theology as an adjunct of canon law but renewed it by returning to the “sacred sources” of sacred theology, especially Sacred Scripture. [William B. Smith, "John Paul II's Seminal Contributions to Moral Theology" in Geoffrey Gneuhs, editor, The Legacy of Pope John Paul II: His Contribution to Catholic Thought(New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2000) 40-41]
Pope John Paul II says so himself in Veritatis Splendor, his “moral masterpiece on fundamental moral theology”(
Ibid., 40). The saintly Pope writes:
The specific purpose of the present encyclical is this: to set forth, with regard to the problems being discussed, the principles of a moral teaching based on Sacred Scripture and the living Apostolic Tradition, and at the same time to shed light on the presuppositions and consequences of the dissent which that teaching has met (Veritatis Splendor, no. 5).
Indeed, the Holy Spirit is renewing the face of the earth.
