Prominent Poles
His Holiness Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła
Born: May 18, 1920, Szczecinek, Poland
Died: April 2, 2005, Vatican City
Early life Karol Józef Wojtyła was born on May 18, 1920 in Wadowice in southern Poland, the son of Karol Wojtyla a retired officer in the Austrian Habsburg army and a tailor and of Emilia Kaczorowska Wojtyla, a schoolteacher. His childhood and young adulthood were marred by tragedies: in 1929 his mother died of heart and kidney problems. In 1932 he lost his older brother, Edmund, a physician in Bielsko, who died of scarlet fever. In 1941, he had lost his father. His youth was marked by intensive contacts with the then-thriving Jewish community of Wadowice, a town of 8,000 Catholics and 2,000 Jews 35 miles southwest of Krakow. One of Wojtyla’s playmates was Jerzy Kluger, a Jew who many years later would play a key role as a go-between for John Paul II and Israeli officials when the Vatican extended diplomatic recognition to Israel.
Kluger told The New York Times that he spent many afternoons sitting in the kitchen next to the Wojtylas' coal stove listening to Wojtyla's father tell stories about Greece, Rome and Poland.
Wojtyla, in turn, went to the Klugers' 10-room apartment overlooking the town square and listened to music performed by a string quartet composed of two Jews and two Catholics.
"The people in the Vatican do not know Jews, and previous popes did not know Jews," Kluger told the Times. "But this pope is a friend of the Jewish people because he knows Jewish people." In his youth he was an athlete, actor, playwright, and a polyglot, possibly speaking as many as eleven languages. While in office, he spoke nine languages fluently: Polish, Slovak, Russian, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and English, in addition to having knowledge of Ecclesiastical Latin. After graduating from secondary school in 1938, he and his father moved to Krakow where he enrolled at Jagiellonian University to study literature and philosophy.
He also joined an experimental theater group and participated in poetry readings and literary discussion groups. Friends say he was an intense and gifted actor, and a fine singer.
After the Germans invaded Poland, he escaped deportation and imprisonment in late 1940 by taking a job as a stone cutter in a quarry.
A SPECIAL STORY (see URL at the bottom)
These are excerpts of an article by Roger Cohen that appeared in International Herald Tribune online on April 6, 2005
"Here is a family story of Pope John Paul II, an intimate tale of his humanity
During the summer of 1942, two women in Krakow, Poland, were denounced as Jews, taken to the city's prison, held there for a few months and then sent to the Belzec extermination camp, where, in October, they were killed in primitive Nazi gas chambers by carbon monoxide from diesel engines.
.Their names were Frimeta Gelband and Salomea Zierer; they were sisters… Salomea, … had two daughters, one of whom survived the …The elder of these daughters was Edith Zierer. In January 1945, at 13, she emerged from a Nazi labor camp in Czestochowa, Poland, a waif on the verge of death. … she could scarcely walk. But walk she did, to a train station, where she climbed onto a coal wagon. .. When the cold became too much to bear, she got off the train at a village called Jedrzejow. In a corner of the station, she sat. …Death was approaching, but a young man approached first, "very good looking," as she recalled, and vigorous. He wore a long robe and appeared to the girl to be a priest. "Why are you here?" he asked. "What are you doing?"
Edith said she was trying to get to Krakow to find her parents.
The man disappeared. He came back with a cup of tea. Edith drank. He said he could help her get to Krakow. Again, the mysterious benefactor went away, returning with bread and cheese. .."Try to stand," the man said. Edith tried - and failed. The man carried her to another village, where he put her in the cattle car of a train bound for Krakow. Another family was there. The man got in beside Edith, covered her with his cloak, and set about making a small fire.His name, he told Edith, was Karol Wojtyla.
Although she took him for a priest, he was still a seminarian who would not be ordained until the following year. Another 33 years would pass before he would become Pope John Paul II and embark on a papacy that would help break the religion of communism and so transform the world.…Here were two people alone in a ravaged land, a 24-year-old Catholic and a 13-year-old Jew. The future pope had already lost his family - mother, father and brother. Edith, although she did not know it yet, had already lost her mother at Belzec, her father at Majdanek, and her little sister at Auschwitz. They could not have been more alone.
We are alone. All of us. The great opiates of the 20th century - communist and fascist ideology - promised to subsume the individual into the collective glory of a beckoning utopia, but they delivered only new and more terrible forms of suffering. …The power of that truth answered forever Stalin's contemptuous question - "How many divisions has the pope?" - as John Paul II, starting with his 1979 visit, undid Stalin's iron legacy in Poland and so opened the way for the unification of Europe a decade later.
This was not his achievement alone, by any means, but in an inalienable way it was his. I do not believe the strength that enabled him to do this and the strength that led him to save Edith Zierer differed in any fundamental way. Like his healing ecumenism, these acts required the courage born in a core certitude.
Edith fled from Karol Wojtyla when they arrived at Krakow in 1945. The family on the train - also Jews - had warned her that he might take her off to "the cloisters." She recalls him calling out "Edyta, Edyta," - the Polish form of her name - as she hid behind large containers of milk.
But hiding was not forgetting. She wrote his name in a diary, her savior, and when, in 1978, she read in a copy of Paris Match that he had become pope, she broke into tears. By then, Edith Zierer was in Haifa, Israel, where she now lives.
Successive letters to him went unanswered. But at last, in 1997, she received a letter from the Vatican in which the pope recalled their meeting. A year later, they met again at the Vatican.
Edith thanked the pope for saving her. He put one hand on her head, another hand in hers, and blessed her. As they parted, he said, "Come back, my child."
Church career Karol Wojtyła was ordained a priest on November 1, 1946. He taught ethics at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and subsequently at the Catholic University of Lublin. In 1958 he was named auxiliary Bishop of Kraków and four years later he assumed leadership of the diocese with the title of Vicar Capitular. On December 30, 1963, Pope Paul VI appointed him Archbishop of Kraków. As both bishop and archbishop, Wojtyła participated in the Second Vatican Council, making contributions to the documents that would become the Decree on Religious Freedom (Dignitatis Humanae) and the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes), two of the most historic and influential products of the council.
In 1967 Pope Paul VI elevated him to cardinal. In August 1978, following Paul's death, he participated in the Papal Conclave that elected Albino Luciani, the Cardinal Patriarch of Venice, as Pope John Paul I. At 65, Luciani was a young man by Papal standards. While Wojtyła at 58 could have expected to participate in another Papal conclave before reaching the age of eighty (the upper age limit for cardinal electors), he could hardly have expected that his second conclave would come so soon, for on 28 September 1978, after only 33 days in the papacy, Pope John Paul I died. In October 1978 Wojtyła returned to Vatican City to participate in the second conclave in less than two months.
The second conclave was divided between two particularly strong candidates for the papacy: Giuseppe Cardinal Siri, the Archbishop of Genoa, and Giovanni Cardinal Benelli, the Archbishop of Florence and a close associate of Pope John Paul I. In early ballots, Benelli came within nine votes of victory. However Wojtyła secured election as a compromise candidate, in part through the support of Franz Cardinal König amongst others who had previously supported Giuseppe Cardinal Siri. On October 16, 1978, at age 58, Wojtyła succeeded Pope John Paul I. The first non-Italian Pope since Pope Adrian VI died in 1523, he was referred to by many after his election as simply "the man from a far country." In terms of his age, his nationality, and his rugged health, the former athlete and notable playwright broke all the papal rules. He was to become arguably the dominant twentieth-century leader of the Roman Catholic Church, eclipsing Pope Paul VI in the extent of his travels, and for some he also eclipsed the intellectual vigor of Pope Pius XII and the charisma of Pope John XXIII.
Like his predecessor, John Paul II deliberately simplified his office in order to make it a less regal institution. He chose not to use the Royal Plural, referring to himself as "I" instead of "We". John Paul also opted for a simple inauguration ceremony instead of the formal papal coronation, and he never wore the Papal Tiara during his term in office. This was done to emphasize the servant role embodied in the title Servus Servorum Dei (Servant of the Servants of God).
One of John Paul II's first official visits was to Poland in June 1979. There he conducted mass in Victory Square in Warsaw, an event which had a galvanizing effect on the Polish Solidarity trade union.
Assassination attempts. On May 13, 1981, John Paul II was shot and nearly killed by Mehmet Ali Ağca, a Turkish gunman, as he entered St. Peter's Square to address an audience. Ağca was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment.
Who commissioned the murder attempt remains controversial. In late March 2005 documents originating from the former Soviet states seemed to indicate that the KGB was responsible for setting up the attack although this is disputed. Speculation about the possible motives of the alleged Soviet conspiracy abound; perhaps the Soviets were afraid of the effect of the Polish pope on the stability of its Eastern European Soviet satellites, particularly Poland; other speculation has accused factions in the Vatican, especially the so-called "freemason" faction, opposed to Wojtyła and Opus Dei, of which cardinal Casaroli was a leading figure.
Ali Ağca himself remains reticent to disclose the truth about the origins of his assassination attempt, although he has often hinted that he received some help from inside the Vatican. Finally, whoever the commissioner was, it has been suggested that Ağca, an excellent marksman, would have killed the Pope if he had intended to do so, and that his mission was to scare the Pope rather than to kill him. However, all these possibilities should be regarded merely as speculation, because no definitive evidence has yet come to light.
Two days after the Christmas of 1983, John Paul visited the prison where his would-be assassin was being held. The two spoke privately for some time. John Paul II said of the meeting, "What we talked about will have to remain a secret between him and me. I spoke to him as a brother whom I have pardoned and who has my complete trust."
The assumption of the papacy by John Paul II was correctly predicted decades earlier by Padre Pio. The same monk also predicted that Wojtyła's reign would be brief and end bloodily, a prophecy that the latter's shooting almost vindicated. The assassination attempt was also predicted in the third secret of the Three Secrets of Fatima, according to the Vatican's analysis.
Another assassination attempt took place on May 12, 1982, in Fatima, Portugal when a man tried to stab John Paul II with a bayonet, but was stopped by security guards. The assailant, an ultraconservative Spanish priest named Juan María Fernández y Krohn, reportedly opposed the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and called the pope an "agent of Moscow". He served a six-year sentence that was followed by his expulsion from Portugal.
The Pope's health. As the youngest pope elected since Pope Pius IX in 1846, John Paul II entered the papacy as an exceptionally healthy, relatively young man who, unlike previous popes, hiked, swam and went skiing. However, after over twenty-five years on the papal throne, the 1981 assassination attempt, and a number of cancer scares, John Paul's physical health declined. He had a tumour removed from his colon in 1992, dislocated his shoulder in 1993, broke his femur in 1994, and had his appendix removed in 1996.
An orthopaedic surgeon confirmed in 2001 that Pope John Paul II was suffering from Parkinson's disease, as international observers had suspected for some time; this was acknowledged publicly by the Vatican in 2003. He had difficulty speaking more than a few sentences at a time, as well as trouble hearing. He also developed severe arthritis in his right knee, which he developed following a hip replacement, and therefore rarely walked in public. Nevertheless, he continued to tour the world. Those who met him late in his life said that although he was in poor shape physically, mentally he remained fully alert.
Towards the end of his Papacy, there were those both within and without the church who thought that the Pope should resign or retire. Even term limits for Popes were suggested. However, as John Paul had indicated his acceptance of God's will that he should be Pope, he was determined to stay in office until his death.
In September 2003, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who was often considered the Pope's "right hand", said that "we should pray for the Pope", raising serious concerns over the Pope's health condition.
On February 1, 2005, the pope was taken to the Gemelli Hospital in Rome suffering from acute inflammation of the larynx and laryngo-spasm, brought on by a bout of influenza.
The Vatican reported the following day that his condition had stabilized, but he would remain in the hospital until fully recovered. The pope appeared in public on 6 February to deliver the final lines of the Angelus blessing in a hoarse voice from the window of his hospital room. He missed the Ash Wednesday ceremonies in St Peter's on 9 February for the first time in his 26-year papacy, and returned to the Vatican on 10 February. On 24 February 2005 the Pope began having trouble breathing and also had a fever, and he was rushed back to the Gemelli Hospital, where a tracheotomy was successfully performed. An aide to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said that John Paul was "serene" after waking up following the surgery. He raised his hand and attempted to say something, but his doctors advised him not to try speaking. The Pope gave 'silent blessings' from his hospital window on Sunday 27 February and Sunday 6 March, and is said to have spoken in German and Italian during a working meeting with Cardinal Ratzinger in his 10th floor suite of the Gemelli on Tuesday 1 March. Cardinal Ratzinger told international press: "the Pope spoke to me in German and Italian. He was completely lucid. I brought the Holy Father greetings from the plenary of the Congregation for the divine cult which is meeting at this moment in the Vatican. The Holy Father will be working on material which I gave him today. I am happy to see him fully lucid and mentally capable of saying the essential matters with his own voice. We usually speak in German. The details are unimportant - he spoke of essential matters".
During the Angelus of Sunday 13 March The Pope was able to speak to pilgrims for the first time since he was readmitted to hospital. Later that day he returned to the Vatican for the first time in nearly a month. On Palm Sunday (20th March) the Pope made a brief appearance at his window to greet pilgrims. He was cheered by thousands of the faithful as he silently waved an olive branch. It was the first time in his pontificate that he could not officiate at Palm Sunday Mass. He watched it on his TV in his apartment overlooking St. Peter's Square.
On 22 March, there were renewed concerns for the Pope's health after reports stated that he had taken a turn for the worse and was not responding to medication On 24 March, Colombian Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo performed the rite of the washing of the feet, in the Vatican's St. Peter's Basilica. The cardinal stood in for Pope John Paul II at a Holy Thursday ceremony at the Vatican. He said the ailing Pontiff was 'serenely abandoning' himself to God's will. The Pope, whose health was precarious following the throat surgery in February, watched the service on television from his Vatican apartments.
On 27 March, Easter day, the Pope appeared at his window in the Vatican for a short time. Angelo Cardinal Sodano read the Urbi et orbi message while the Pope blessed the people with his own hand. He tried to speak but he could not.
By the end of the month, speculation was growing, and was finally confirmed by the Vatican officials, that he was nearing death.
Death On March 31, the Pope developed a "very high fever caused by a urinary tract infection" (see BBC News Article, but was not rushed to the hospital, apparently in accordance with his wishes to die in the Vatican. Later that day, Vatican sources announced that John Paul II had been given the Anointing of the Sick (formerly known as Last Rites) of the Roman Catholic Church, the first time that the pontiff had received the sacrament since the 1981 assassination attempt on his life. It is unclear if he received the Apostolic Pardon as well. On April 1, his condition worsened drastically, with his heart and kidneys rapidly failing. The Pope had been fitted with a second feeding tube in his nose to help boost his nutritional intake as a result of his fever. Reports out of the Vatican early that morning reported that the Pope had suffered a heart attack, but remained awake. Vatican spokesperson Joaquin Navarro-Valls denied the reports of the heart attack, but said the Pope had suffered a "cardiocirculatory collapse" and called the Pope's condition "very serious".
At around 00:30 CEST on April 2 , a Vatican spokesman gave a further briefing on the Pope's health and confirmed that the Pope had had the Last Rites. He refused to be taken to the hospital, and met with his closest associates, among them Cardinal Ratzinger, who said that "he knows that he is dying and he gave me his last goodbye". The Pope also requested that he be read the meditations said on the Stations of the Cross a few days before.
Early in the evening, the Vatican announced that his condition "remains very serious. In late morning, the high fever developed." However, "when addressed by members of his household, he responds correctly."
At approximately 19:00 CEST, Italian news sources claimed that Pope John Paul II had lost consciousness. At least one medical center stated that there was no more hope for him.
The Vatican published a press release at 19:00 CEST saying the Pope's kidneys had stopped functioning. The ANSA news agency reported around half an hour later that he lost consciousness. Several Italian media agencies reported the Pope's death at 20:20 CEST , but soon afterwards, the Vatican denied that the Pope was indeed dead, and stories changed. TV Sky Italia reported that his heart and brain were functioning.
In his private apartments, at 21:37 CEST on April 2, Pope John Paul II died at the age of 84.
World reactions. John Paul II was mourned by a crowd of over 70,000 within Vatican City, over one billion Catholics worldwide, and many non-Catholics. The pope always said that his death should be celebrated as the passage to the next stage of his eternal life, and true to that the crowd in the Vatican cheered when the announcement of his death was made.
In Poland, Catholics gathered at the church at Wadowice, the birthplace of the pontiff. State television cancelled all comedy-related shows beginning April 1st, 2005, and began showing mass. The Poles, who have deep sense of devotion towards the pontiff and refer to him as their "father", are particularly devastated by his death. There are rumors that he will be buried with his parents. As of yet, plans of where the Pope shall be buried remain undisclosed by the Vatican.
Many world leaders expressed their condolences:
• Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Pope John Paul should be remembered as a freedom fighter against communism, and a great Christian leader. In Brazil, the world's largest Catholic country, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, expressed the sorrow of the Brazilian people. A 7-day official mourning period was declared by the government. Prime Minister of Canada Paul Martin said that "For a quarter century, Pope John Paul II served as a symbol of love and faith, peace and compassion.... Our grief today is the grief of the world." In Chile, a 3-day official mourning period was declared by the government. President Ricardo Lagos noted that "...John Paul II won't stay away from us. His name became part of our history, his thoughts will be an always present inspiration to build a more fair country and a more peaceful world for all of us". Cuban authorities allowed Cardinal Jaime Ortega to make a rare statement on state television: "This is a man who has carried the moral weight of the world for 26 years... turning himself into the only moral reference for humanity in recent years of wars and difficulties".
• In the United Kingdom, the Queen expressed her "deep sorrow" at the death of Pope John Paul II and remembered his efforts at promoting peace throughout the world. Prime Minister Tony Blair said that the world has lost a religious leader who was "revered across people of all faiths and none". Flags over the White House and other public buildings in the United States were ordered lowered to half-staff until sundown on the day of John Paul II's interment. President George W. Bush expressed his regret at the loss of a "champion of human freedom", an "inspiration to millions of Americans" and a "hero for the ages". Many non-Catholic religious leaders throughout the world have expressed their condolences.
Funeral. At this time, the Vatican is reporting that the Pope's body will lie in state in St. Peter's beginning on Monday, April 4, and a High Mass will occur on Thursday, April 7.
Teachings. As Pope, John Paul II's most important role was to teach people about the Christian faith. John Paul wrote a number of important documents which many observers view as having a long-term impact on the Church and on the world.
A great achievement of John Paul II was the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which became an international best-seller because of its clarity of doctrine, an important solution together with his other writings, to the doctrinal confusion which happened during the Post-Vatican Crisis. This refers to the 1970s and 80s when hundreds of priests, nuns and lay faithful left the Catholic Church. John Paul II was able to turn around the decline in the 1990s.
His first encyclical letters focused on the Triune God; the very first was on Jesus Christ, the Redeemer ("Redemptor Hominis"). He maintained this focus on God throughout his
In his master plan for the the new millennium, the Apostolic Letter At the beginning of the new millennium, a "program for all times", he emphasized the importance of "starting afresh from Christ". "No, we shall not be saved by a formula but by a Person." Thus, the first priority for the Church is holiness: "All Christian faithful...are called to the fullness of the Christian life." And the "training in holiness calls for a Christian life distinguished above all in the art of prayer." His latest Encyclical is on the Holy Eucharist, which he says "contains the Church's entire spiritual wealth: Christ himself." Building on his master plan further, he emphasized the need to "rekindle amazement" on the Eucharist and to "contemplate the face of Christ".
Other important documents are: The Gospel of Life ("Evangelium Vitae"), Faith and Reason ("Fides et Ratio"), The Splendor of the Truth ("Veritatis Splendor").
John Paul II was also considered to have halted the progressive efforts of Vatican II, becoming a flagship for the conservative side of the Catholic Church. He continued his staunch opposition of contraceptive methods, abortion and homosexuality.
A controversial point of the John Paul II papacy was his October 1, 1986 letter to all bishops that described homosexuality as a "tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil" and "an objective disorder". His book Memory and Identity claimed that the push for homosexual marriage may be part of a "new ideology of evil ... which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man."
Travels. During his reign, Pope John Paul II made more foreign trips (over 100) than all previous popes put together. In total he logged more than 1,167,000 km (725,000 miles). He consistently attracted large crowds on his travels, among them some of the largest ever assembled in human history. While some of his trips (such as to the United States and the Holy Land) were to places previously visited by Pope Paul VI ("The Pilgrim Pope"), many others were to places that no pope had ever visited before.
He became the first reigning pope to travel to the United Kingdom, where he met Queen Elizabeth II, the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. This trip was in danger of being cancelled due to the then ongoing Falklands War, which he spoke out against during the visit. In a dramatic symbolic gesture, he knelt in prayer alongside the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie in the See of the Church of England, Canterbury Cathedral, founded by Augustine of Canterbury. Throughout his trips, he stressed his devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary through visits to various shrines to the Virgin Mary, notably Knock in Ireland, Fátima in Portugal, Guadalupe in Mexico, and Lourdes in France. His public visits were centered on large Papal Masses; one million people, one quarter of the population of the island of Ireland, attended his Mass in Dublin's Phoenix Park in 1979.
In 1984, John Paul became the first Pope to visit Puerto Rico. Stands were especially erected for him at Luis Munoz Marin International Airport in San Juan, where he met with governor Carlos Romero Barceló, and at Plaza Las Americas.
There was a plot to assassinate the Pope during his visit to Manila in January 1995, as part of Operation Bojinka, a mass terrorist attack that was developed by Al-Qaida members Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheik Mohammed. A suicide bomber dressed up as a priest, and planned to use the disguise to get closer to the Pope's motorcade so that he could kill the Pope by detonating himself. Before January 15, the day on which the men were to attack the Pope during his Philippine visit, an apartment fire brought investigators led by Aida Fariscal to Yousef's laptop computer, which had terrorist plans on it, as well as clothes and items that suggested an assassination plot. Yousef was arrested in Pakistan about a month later, but Khalid Sheik Mohammed was not arrested until 2003. During this trip to Philippines, on January 15, 1995, he offered mass to an estimated crowd of 4–5 million in Luneta Park, Manila, the largest papal crowd ever. In 1999, John Paul II visited Romania and met with the local heads of the Orthodox church. Thus, he became the first Pope to visit a country with a mostly Orthodox population, ever since the East-West Schism in the eleventh century (1054).
Also in 1999, John Paul II made another of his multiple trips to the United States, this time celebrating mass in St. Louis in the Edward Jones Dome. Over 104,000 people attended the mass, making it the biggest indoor gathering in United States history.
In 2000, he became the first Catholic pope to visit Egypt, where he met with the Coptic pope and the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria.
In May, 2001, the Pontiff took a pilgrimage that would trace the steps of his namesake, Saint Paul, across the Mediterranean. Traveling from Greece to Syria to the island of Malta, during this journey he was the first Roman Catholic Pope to enter Greece for more than a thousand years, and was the first ever to visit a Mosque, in Damascus. He visited Umayyad Mosque, where John the Baptist is believed to be interred.
Relations with other religions. One of John Paul II's most notable achievements were his steps towards tolerance of other religions.
Relations with the Jewish people. John Paul II wrote and delivered a number of speeches on the subject of the Church's relationship with Jews, and often paid homage to the victims of the Holocaust in many nations. He was the first pope to have visited Auschwitz German Nazi concentration camp in Poland, in 1979. One of the few popes to have grown up in a climate of flourishing Jewish culture, one of the key components of pre-war Kraków, his interest in Jewish life dated from early youth. His visit to the Synagogue of Rome was the first by a pope in the history of the Catholic Church.
In March 2000, Pope John Paul II went to the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem in Israel and touched the holiest shrine of the Jewish people, the Western Wall in Jerusalem, promoting Christian-Jewish reconciliation. The Pope has said that Jews are "our older brothers".
In October 2003, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued a statement congratulating Pope John Paul II on entering the 25th year of his papacy. "His deep commitment to reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people has been fundamental to his papacy. Jews throughout the world are deeply grateful to the Pope. He has defended the Jewish people at all times, as a priest in his native Poland and during his pontificate... We pray that he remains healthy for many years to come, that he achieves much success in his holy work and that Catholic-Jewish relations continue to flourish." On April 2, 2005, the ADL stated that Pope John Paul II revolutionized Catholic-Jewish relations, saying that "more change for the better took place in his 27 year Papacy than in the nearly 2000 years before." Given the significant difference between Catholic Christianity and Judaism, it should not be surprising that a number of points of dispute exist between the Catholic Church and the Jewish community.
Relations with the Eastern Orthodox Church In May 1999, John Paul II visited Romania. This was the first time a Pope had visited a predominantly Eastern Orthodox country since the Great Schism, the event that separated Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Roman Catholicism in the year 1054. The visit was prompted by an invitation from his Beatitude Teoctist, the Patriarch of the autocephalous Romanian Orthodox Church. On his arrival, the Pope was greeted by the Patriarch as well as by the Romanian president at the time, Emil Constantinescu. The Patriarch stated that "The second millennium of Christian history began with a painful wounding of the unity of the Church; the end of this millennium has seen a real commitment to restoring Christian unity."
On May 9, the Pope and the Patriarch each attended a worship service conducted by the other (an Orthodox Liturgy and a Catholic Mass, respectively). A crowd of hundreds of thousands of people turned up to attend the worship services, which were held in the open air. The Pope told the crowd, "I am here among you pushed only by the desire of authentic unity. Not long ago it was unthinkable that the bishop of Rome could visit his brothers and sisters in the faith who live in Romania. Today, after a long winter of suffering and persecution, we can finally exchange the kiss of peace and together praise the Lord." A large part of Romania's Orthodox population has shown itself warm to the idea of Christian reunification.
Two years later, in 2001, John Paul II was the first Pope to visit Greece in 1291 years. This visit was controversial, and the Pontiff was met with protests and snubbed by Eastern Orthodox leaders, none of whom met his arrival.
In Athens, the Pope met with Archbishop Christodoulos, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church in Greece. After a private 30 minute meeting, the two spoke publicly. Christodoulos read a list of "13 offenses" of the Roman Catholic Church against the Orthodox Church since the Great Schism, including the pillaging of Constantinople by crusaders in 1204, and bemoaned the lack of any apology from the Roman Catholic church, saying "Until now, there has not been heard a single request for pardon" for the "maniacal crusaders of the 13th century."
The Pope responded by saying "For the occasions past and present, when sons and daughters of the Catholic Church have sinned by action or omission against their Orthodox brothers and sisters, may the Lord grant us forgiveness", to which Christodoulos immediately applauded. John Paul also said that the sacking of Constantinople was a source of "deep regret" for Catholics.
Later, John Paul and Christodoulos met on a spot where Saint Paul had once preached to Athenian Christians. They issued a "common declaration", saying "We shall do everything in our power, so that the Christian roots of Europe and its Christian soul may be preserved. … We condemn all recourse to violence, proselytism and fanaticism, in the name of religion." The two leaders then said the Lord's Prayer together, breaking an Orthodox taboo against praying with Catholics.
However, during the visit the Pope avoided any mention of Cyprus, still a source of tension between the two faiths.
John Paul II visited other heavily Orthodox areas such as Ukraine, despite lack of welcome at times, and he said that an end to the Schism was one of his fondest wishes.
Social and political stances John Paul II was considered a conservative on doctrine and issues relating to reproduction and the ordination of women. His collected writings on human sexuality, called the Theology of the Body, are an extended meditation on the nature of masculinity and femininity and the resulting implications for love and sex. These teachings represent a significant development of the Catholic teaching about sexuality. This development has origins in the Song of Songs, and the church's teaching on Sacraments.
Regarding abortion, the Pope wrote that: "There is still, however a legal extermination of human beings who have been conceived but not yet born. And this time we are talking about an extermination which has been allowed by nothing less than democratically elected parliaments where one normally hears appeals for the civil progress of society and all humanity."
He was critical of Liberation Theology for over-emphasizing political liberation at the expense of spiritual liberation. In the 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) he reasserted the Church's high value on human life and by extension its condemnation of abortion, euthanasia, and virtually all uses of capital punishment, calling them all a part of the "culture of death" that is pervasive in the modern world. His stands on capital punishment, world debt forgiveness, and poverty issues were considered politically liberal, showing that 'conservative' and 'liberal' political labels are not easily assigned to religious leaders.
In 2000, he publicly endorsed the Jubilee 2000 campaign on African debt relief fronted by Irish rock stars Bob Geldof and Bono. It was reported that during this period, U2's recording sessions were repeatedly interrupted by phone calls from the Pope, wanting to discuss the campaign with Bono.
In 2003, John Paul II also became a prominent critic of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. He sent his Peace Minister, Pío Cardinal Laghi, to talk with US President George W. Bush to express opposition to the war. John Paul II says that it is up to the United Nations to solve the international conflict through diplomacy and that a unilateral aggression is a crime against peace and a violation of international law.
In European Union negotiations for a new constitution in 2003 and 2004, the Vatican's representatives failed to secure any mention of Europe's "Christian Heritage", one of the Pope's cherished goals.
The Pope was also a leading critic of same-sex marriage. In his last book, "Memory and Identity", John Paul II described same-sex marriage as the "pressures" on the European Parliament to permit same-sex marriage. Reuters quotes the Pope as writing, "It is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if this is not perhaps part of a new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden, which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man."
The Pope also criticized transsexual and transgender people, as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which he supervised, banned them from serving in church positions and denied church workers the ability to change records and otherwise accommodate them, as well as considering them to have "mental pathologies".
Selected books by John Paul II
• Memory and Identity - Conversations at the Dawn of a Millennium
• The Way to Christ - Spiritual Exercises
• Crossing the Threshold of Hope
• Pope John Paul II - In My Own Words
• Gift and Mystery - On the Fiftieth Anniversary of My Priestly Ordination
• Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way
• Love and Responsibility
Succession process
Main article: Papal conclave, 2005
Following the death of John Paul II, the succession process began. His Ring of the Fisherman and seal have been scratched over and smashed by the Cardinal Camerlengo, Eduardo Martínez Somalo, signifying the end of current papal authority. The Pope's apartment will be sealed and the nine days of ceremonial mourning will follow. The body of John Paul II will lie in state for public visitation until his funeral on April 7.
Other. Archbishop Stanisław Dziwisz was the Pope's Private Secretary. A fellow Pole, he was ordained in 1963 by Bishop Wojtyła, he became the second secretary to Archbishop Wojtyła in 1966, and shortly after, the principal secretary. He was ordained a bishop by Pope John Paul II in 1998.
According to a New York Post article of February 19, 2002, John Paul II personally performed three exorcisms during his tenure as pope. The first exorcism was performed on a woman in 1982 who writhed on the ground. His second was in September 2000 when he performed the rite on a nineteen-year-old woman who had become enraged in St. Peter's Square. A year later, in September 2001, he performed an exorcism on a twenty-year-old woman.
Międzynarodowy Port Lotniczy im Jana Pawła II Kraków - Balice Sp. z o.o.,(John Paul II International Airport) (IATA: KRK) near the city of Kraków, in Balice, Poland, where he served as Archbishop before being elected Pope, was named in honor of him.
In 2004 he received an extraordinary Charlemagne Award of the city of Aachen, Germany.
John Paul II beatified and canonized far more persons than any previous pope. It is reported that as of October 2004, he had beatified 1,340 people. Whether he had canonized more saints than all his predecessors put together, as is sometimes claimed, is difficult to prove, as the records of many early canonizations are incomplete, missing or inaccurate. However, it is known that his abolishment of the office of Promotor Fidei (Promoter of the Faith, a.k.a. Devil's Advocate) streamlined the canonization process.
On March 14, 2004, his pontificate overtook Leo XIII's as the third-longest pontificate in the history of the Papacy (after Pius IX and St Peter). The length of his reign is in marked contrast with that of his predecessor Pope John Paul I, who died suddenly after only 33 days in office (and in whose memory John Paul II named himself).
Cultural impact
Films about Pope John Paul II
• Pope John Paul II: The Movie, starring: Albert Finney, Nigel Hawthorne, Alfred Burke, John McEnery, Patrick Stewart.
• Pope John Paul's Third Pilgrimage to His Homeland — A documentary on John Paul's June '87 visit to Poland.
Further reading
• George Weigel, Witness to Hope (1999, 2001) ISBN 006018793X
See also
• List of Encyclicals of Pope John Paul II
• List of pastoral visits of Pope John Paul II outside Italy
• List of Roman Catholic bishops of Kraków
• Papal election, 2005
• Papabili
• Popemobile
• Sedevacantist antipopes
References
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Pope John Paul II
Wikinews has a news story related to this article:
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Wikimedia Commons has more media related to:
Johannes Paulus II
• The Pope Blog (2005). Final Letter of Pope John Paul II to the Faithful (translated from Italian)
Retrieved April 3, 2005.
• Navarro-Valls, Joaquin (2005). Il Santo Padre č deceduto questa sera alle ore 21.37 nel Suo appartamento privato
Retrieved April 3, 2005 (The Holy Father passed away at 9:37 this evening in his private apartment.)
• PunditGuy (2005). 11:37 AM - AP, Reuters / Flash from the Vatican, Pope John Paul II is dead.
Retrieved April 2, 2005.
• St. Anthony Messenger Press (2005). Pope John Paul II's Final Days
. Retrieved April 2, 2005.
• The Vatican (2005). Vatican: the Holy See
. Retrieved April 2, 2005.
• Wojtyla, Karol (2005). The Holy See - The Holy Father - John Paul II
. Retrieved April 2, 2005.
• Wojtyla, Karol (2005). Pope John Paul II
. Internet Movie Database. Retrieved April 2, 2005.
External links
• Holy Sea - John Paul II
• General Papal Information
Media Reaction
• ABC News - Pope John Paul II 1920-2005
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Tributes
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