The Dominican Mind of St. John Paul II

 Of course, we know that St. John Paul was a Carmelite tertiary. From Dominicana:

Metaphysical realism elevated by faith enables the Christian to attain a wisdom that pierces through our complicated experience of sin and suffering in order to behold the saving power of God at work in all things. It was this realist Christian wisdom—even more than his great personal charisma and apostolic zeal—that so equipped John Paul both to warmly proclaim from the pulpit, “Do not be afraid! Open wide the doors to Christ,” and then to charitably specify in his magisterium what this opening-wide to Christ entails on the most contested moral questions of our age.

Pope Saint John Paul II was not a Dominican. But his enduring conviction that metaphysical realism is essential to the preaching of the Gospel places him squarely within the intellectual and spiritual tradition of the Dominican Order. Once asked about the most important word in the New Testament, John Paul immediately replied: “Truth.”

Only truth, in the end, is pastoral. Only truth saves. (Read more.)