The Personalism of John Paul II

I wrote this little book twenty years ago as an introduction to the main themes in St. John Paul II’s personalism. I reissue it today in the conviction that his personalism is needed now no less than it was then. Many are the depersonalizing forces that beset us today. We continue to see in our time what St. John Paul called the “pulverization of the person.” And yet, at the same time, we continue to see signs of a growing personalist sensibility. Deep down most of us know that persons merit respect and should not be manipulated and commodified and demonized. Even when we are complicit in some such abuse of persons, we know better. Our better self revives when we are rebuked. And so we need to fan the flames of a certain sense for the person that has not been extinguished in the men and women of our time. We need to hear a prophetic voice that calls us back to the “truth about man” that is still felt in our conscience. John Paul II is just the voice we need to hear.