The date of the letter's publication is significant since Vatican officials had been informed that the results of the German petition drive would be announced the following day, November 19. Thomas Arens, one of the German organizers of the drive is certain that the timing was intentional. This preemptive Vatican strike came just before organizers announced that 1.5 million German Catholics had followed the example of neighboring Austria and signed the petition. And then there is Poland, the Pope's home. On November 19, John Paul's friend Lech Walesa was defeated in the Polish presidential election.
Commentators blame the loss at least in part on the rigidity of the Polish church.
Church officials blame communism and secularization. The dam keeps cracking. They voted to legalize divorce the following day, quite probably in part motivated by a series of recent scandals in the Irish church that undermined the tendency of Irish Catholics to defer to a paternalistic clergy. Future historians may well consider the six months between June and December 1995 among the most portentous ever in the formation of the global Catholic Church. It is a period much like the 16th century when Martin Luther tried to reform the Church from within, and found himself in direct conflict with Roman might.