Ralph Martin on the Final Confrontation

Before he became Pope, Karol Cardinal Wojtyla said, we must be prepared to undergo great trials in the not too distant future, trials that will require us to be ready to give up our lives..."¹ Pope John Paul II, as Karol Cardinal Wojtyla, elaborated this theme during a visit to the United States in 1976:

    "We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of the American society or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel. It is a trial which the Church must take up.

—Cardinal Karol Wojtyla (JOHN PAUL II), reprinted November 9, 1978, issue of The Wall Street Journal from a 1976 speech to the American Bishops