HispanicVista Columnists

HispanicVista Columnists

Pope John Paul II: One Man’s Journey and Its Impact on History

1. Karol Józef Wojtyla, John Paul II - May 18, 1920-April 2, 2005
2. Washington Post Editorial - Pope John Paul II
3. New York Times Editorial - Pope John Paul II, Keeper of the Flock for a Quarter of a Century
4. Powerful Spiritual Leader Dies After Long Struggle - Papal Procedures Outlined by Deceased Pope Put in Motion

1. Karol Józef Wojtyla, John Paul II
May 18, 1920-April 2, 2005

VATICAN CITY, APRIL 2, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Born Karol Józef Wojtyla, John Paul II left his mark occupying the third longest pontificate in the history of the Church.

Young Karol was born in Wadowice, a small city 35 miles southwest of Krakow, May 18, 1920.

The second of two sons born to Karol Wojtyla and Emilia Kaczorowska, his small family would not witness his rise to the papacy. His mother died in 1929, his brother Edmund, a doctor, died in 1932 and his father, a non-commissioned army officer, died in 1941.

He made his First Holy Communion at age 9, and was confirmed at 18. Upon graduation from high school in Wadowice in 1938, he and his father moved to Krakow where Karol entered the Jagiellonian University to study literature and philosophy.

The Nazi occupation forces closed the university in 1939, and young Karol had to work in a quarry, and then in the Solvay chemical factory to earn his living and to avoid being deported to Germany.

In 1942, aware of his call to the priesthood, he began courses in the clandestine seminary of Krakow, run by Cardinal Adam Stefan Sapieha, archbishop of Krakow. At the same time, Karol Wojtyla was one of the pioneers of the "Rhapsodic Theatre," also clandestine.

After the Second World War, he continued his studies in the major seminary of Krakow, once it had re-opened, and in the faculty of theology of the Jagiellonian University, until his priestly ordination in Krakow on Nov. 1, 1946.

Soon after, Cardinal Sapieha sent him to Rome where he worked under the guidance of the French Dominican, Garrigou-Lagrange. He finished his doctorate in theology in 1948 with a thesis on the topic of faith in the works of St. John of the Cross. At that time, during his vacations, he exercised his pastoral ministry among the Polish immigrants of France, Belgium and Holland.

In 1948, he returned to Poland and was vicar of various parishes in Krakow as well as chaplain for the university students until 1951, when he took up again his studies on philosophy and theology. In 1953, he defended a thesis on the ethical system of Max Scheler at Lublin's Catholic University.

He later he became professor of moral theology and social ethics in the major seminary of Krakow and in the Faculty of Theology of Lublin.

On July 4, 1958, he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Krakow by Pope Pius XII, and was consecrated bishop Sept. 28, 1958.

On Jan. 13, 1964, he was nominated Archbishop of Krakow by Pope Paul VI, who made him a cardinal June 26, 1967.

Besides taking part in the Second Vatican Council with an important contribution to the elaboration of the constitution "Gaudium et spes," Cardinal Wojtyla participated in all the assemblies of the Synod of Bishops.

Since the start of his pontificate Oct. 16, 1978, Pope John Paul II has completed 104 pastoral visits outside of Italy, and 146 within Italy. As Bishop of Rome he has visited 317 of the 333 parishes.

His principal documents include 14 encyclicals, 15 apostolic exhortations, 11 apostolic constitutions and 45 apostolic letters.

The Pope has also published five books: "Crossing the Threshold of Hope" (October, 1994); "Gift and Mystery: On the 50th Anniversary of My Priestly Ordination" (November, 1996); "Roman Triptych – Meditations," a book of poems (March, 2003); "Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way" (May, 2004) and "Memory and Identity" (February, 2005).

John Paul II has presided at 147 beatification ceremonies, proclaiming 1,338 blesseds, and 51 canonization ceremonies, canonizing 482 saints. He has held 9 consistories in which he created 231 (+ 1 in pectore) cardinals. He has also convened six plenary meetings of the College of Cardinals.

The Holy Father has presided at 15 synods of bishops: six ordinary (1980, 1983, 1987, 1990, 1994, 2001), one extraordinary (1985) and eight special (1980, 1991, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998(2) and 1999).

His contact with people has exceeded that of any other Pope. More than 17,600,000 pilgrims have participated in the more than 1,160 General Audiences held on Wednesdays, and more than 8 million pilgrims participate in the events of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 alone.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed by HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com) without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

2. Washington Post Editorial
Pope John Paul II
April 3, 2005

"IREMEMBER raising my head,'' recalls a priest who was at the Vatican II council 40 years ago, "and thinking, 'Who is that prophet?' " The speaker who had caught his attention was a Polish prelate named Karol Wojtyla, and his subject was a proposed declaration renouncing the ancient accusation of enduring Jewish guilt for the death of Jesus. "Wojtyla spoke of the church's obligation to change its teaching on the Jews with a passion that could only have come from personal experience," the priest said. "For an unknown bishop from Poland it was amazing. Wojtyla made the difference."

This incident, related in James Carroll's book "Constantine's Sword" -- a study of the church's tortured dealings over the centuries with the Jewish people -- was a precursor to what Mr. Carroll regards as "the most momentous act" of the papacy of John Paul II: the day when the pontiff formerly known as Wojtyla stood before the Western Wall in Jerusalem "to offer a prayer that did not invoke the name of Jesus . . . to leave a sorrowful kvitel, a written prayer, in a crevice of the wall." The speech at Vatican II was also a sign that this was a man with considerable ability to lead and inspire -- charisma, as it's been called since long before politicians discovered the term.

He came on the world scene in 1978 as a refreshing new personality: Possessed of a sunny smile, athletic bearing and a friendly manner, he was a media dream. His willingness -- eagerness, really -- to be out among the people extended his appeal well beyond the church, as did his courageous survival of and recovery from an assassination attempt. But John Paul II made it clear early on that he was no public-relations pope, seeking to accommodate the church to modernity. A man of considerable depth and learning -- more so perhaps than the public understood at the time of his election -- he acted and spoke boldly and confidently over his quarter-century as pope, often in ways that were neither popular nor politic.

He could be -- and was -- called conservative in matters of Catholic doctrine, in his determination to maintain such institutions as the male celibate clergy and in his strict adherence to the church's positions on birth control and abortion. He provoked debate and dissent within the church with his stands in these areas, as well as opposition from outside, including from these pages, for policies that affect the temporal realm, especially in matters of population control. The sexual abuse scandal in the American church that troubled his last years as pope was attributed by many, at least in part, to his adherence to the hierarchical chain of command and to a lack of democracy in the church.

But this pope might equally well have been called liberal -- even radical -- in such areas as workers' rights, capital punishment, disarmament and human freedom, and in the message of hope that he carried literally across the globe. He was indisputably a visionary in seeking to lead the church out into the greater world -- traveling, evangelizing and preaching the unity of humankind in places that no pope before him could have hoped to reach.

And certainly no pope ever made a trip like John Paul's journey back to Poland in 1979 -- the most joyous conquest in the long and tragic history of his country. How many divisions has the pope? For John Paul they were many and powerful, all seemingly armed with guitars and flowers as they converged by the hundreds of thousands in Poland to celebrate his presence, sending an unmistakable message of national solidarity to the rulers of Central Europe and helping set in motion the peaceful revolution that was to bring down a Communist empire within a decade.

As the priest who observed him at Vatican II sensed, there was much of the personal in John Paul's fervor on certain matters. The pope who sought a new relationship with Judaism had been a friend of his Jewish neighbors from childhood, in a time and place darkened by anti-Semitism. Brought up in a close, tolerant and deeply religious family, the future pope was made aware of the fragility of life by the loss of his mother when he was 9, of his father when he was 18, and of his older brother, a physician who contracted a fatal disease from one of his patients. In his lifetime, he lived under two cruel, seemingly all-powerful social ideologies with millennial pretensions, worked against them and saw both fall, while the church to which he had committed himself endured. It may be that this personal experience has something to do with a conservatism grounded in preservation of what he thought good in his church and in human life -- but not in fear of change.

"The pope is a thoroughly modern man who nevertheless challenged a lot of the conventional wisdom of self-consciously modern people," his biographer George Weigel said in a magazine interview some years ago. "In a world dominated by the pleasure principle and by personal willfulness, he insists that suffering can be redemptive and that self-giving is far more important to human fulfillment than self-assertion. In an intellectual climate where the human capacity to know anything with certainty is under attack, he has taught that there are universal moral truths . . . and that, in knowing them, we encounter real obligations. To a world that often measures human beings by their utility, he has insisted that every human being has an inviolable dignity and worth."

One who exercises as much power as the pope will never be free of controversy, no matter how exemplary his life; the secular world is not in the habit of conferring sainthood on people. But John Paul II, after his death yesterday at 84, will be seen by most, we think, as a remarkable witness, to use a favorite term of his -- witness to a vision characterized by humaneness, honesty and integrity throughout his reign and his life.

Washington Post Editorial at (registration required): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21971-2005Apr2.html?referrer=email

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed by HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com) without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

3. New York Times Editorial
Pope John Paul II, Keeper of the Flock for a Quarter of a Century
April 3, 2005

The death of Pope John Paul II came at a time when Americans have been engaged in an unusual moment of national reflection about mortality. The long, bitter fight over the unknowing Terri Schiavo was a stark contrast to the passing of this pontiff, whose own mind was keenly aware of the gradual failure of his body. The pope would certainly never have wanted his own end to be a lesson in the transcendent importance of allowing humans to choose their own manner of death. But to some of us, that was the exact message of his dignified departure.

Pope John Paul II was a man who used the tools of modernity to struggle against the modern world. He traveled more than a half-million miles through 129 countries, waving to crowds from his popemobile. He wrote best sellers and took advantage of every means of communication to spread his message: a cry against what he saw as the contemporary world's decadence, moral degradation and abandonment of human values.

As a Polish cleric in a church that had not had a non-Italian pope since 1523, it's unlikely that John Paul, born Karol Wojtyla, spent much of his early career imagining himself as the eventual pontiff. But it was fitting that a man who had devoted much of his life to opposing the Communist government in his homeland would be leading the church at the moment when the cold war ended and Communism collapsed. It was his experiences in Poland - including time spent working in a quarry and a chemical factory during the Nazi occupation - that most influenced John Paul's papacy during its early and most active years, when he made human rights his central issue.

The pope's concern for human dignity led him to criticize capitalism as strongly as Communism, and he used his pulpit to condemn Western materialism as a "culture of death." He improved the church's relations with Jews and Muslims. At the dawn of the third millennium, he delivered a solemn apology for errors of the church, including religious intolerance and injustice toward women and the poor. Under his direction, the church denounced anti-Semitism, although it did not criticize Pope Pius XII for his equivocal response to the Holocaust.

For non-Catholics around the globe, those are the visions of John Paul that may endure longest - the globe-trotting man of God who traversed the world over and over, speaking about the dignity of life in so many languages. For Catholics, he was a more complicated figure, one who resisted all attempts to liberalize the church's teachings on birth control, abortion, homosexuality, priestly marriage, divorce and the ordination of women. This champion of freedom brooked no dissent, and his travels sought not only to minister to the faithful but also to make the church more disciplined, hierarchical and orthodox. Later, as his health deteriorated, he turned much of the responsibility for church affairs over to subordinates who lacked his authority and moral stature. That problem became painfully obvious during the crisis over sexual-predator priests toward the end of the pope's tenure.

For all his worldwide evangelism, John Paul left behind a church with a dwindling number of priests and nuns and a shrinking percentage of the world's population; Islam has overtaken Catholicism as the globe's most popular religion. The pope always believed that human values, not numbers, were what mattered. His embrace of each person's innate dignity was his touchstone, allowing him to shape our times even as he railed against them.

___________________________________________________
New York Times editorial at (registration required): http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/opinion/03popeeditorial.html?th&emc=th

4. Powerful Spiritual Leader Dies After Long Struggle - Papal Procedures Outlined By Deceased Pope Put in Motion

By Victor L. Simpson

VATICAN CITY (April 2) - Pope John Paul II, who helped topple communism in Europe and left a deeply conservative stamp on the church that he led for 26 years, died Saturday night in his Vatican apartment, ending a long public struggle against debilitating illness. He was 84.

"We all feel like orphans this evening," Undersecretary of State Archbishop Leonardo Sandri told the crowd of 70,000 that gathered in St. Peter's Square below the pope's still-lighted apartment windows.

A Mass was scheduled for St. Peter's Square for 10:30 a.m. (4:30 a.m. EDT) Sunday. The pope's body was expected to be taken to St. Peter's Basilica no earlier than Monday afternoon, the Vatican said.

It said the College of Cardinals - the red-robed "princes" of the Roman Catholic Church - would meet at 10 a.m. (4 a.m. EDT) Monday. They were expected to set a funeral date, which the Vatican said probably would be between Wednesday and Friday.

The statement did not give a precise cause of death.

Bells pealed in mourning after the Vatican said the pope died at 9:37 p.m. (2:37 p.m. EST). The assembled flock fell into a stunned silence before some people broke out in applause - an Italian tradition in which mourners often clap for important figures. Others wept.

John Paul's passing set in motion centuries of tradition that mark the death of the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, whom he led into the faith's third millennium.

The Vatican chamberlain formally verified the death and destroyed the symbols of the pope's authority: his fisherman's ring and dies used to make lead seals for apostolic letters.

The Vatican did not say if the chamberlain followed the ancient practice of verification by calling the pope's name three times and tapping his forehead three times with a silver hammer.

John Paul's funeral will be held within four to six days. The Vatican has declined to say whether he left instructions for his funeral or burial. Most popes in recent centuries have asked to be buried in the crypts below St. Peter's Basilica, but some have suggested the first Polish-born pope might have chosen to be laid to rest in his native country.

As John Paul's death neared, members of the College of Cardinals were already headed toward the Vatican to prepare for the secret duty of locking themselves in the Sistine Chapel to elect the next pope. Tradition calls for the process to begin within 20 days of death.

Among possible successors are German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - one of the pope's closest aides and the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog. Others mentioned include Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes, Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras, Cardinal Francis Arinze, a Vatican-based Nigerian, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Austria and Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi of Italy.

Karol Joseph Wojtyla was a robust 58 when the last papal conclave stunned the world and elected the cardinal from Krakow, the first non-Italian pope in 455 years.

In his later years, John Paul - the most-traveled pope in history - was the picture of frailty. In addition to Parkinson's, he survived a 1981 assassination attempt, when a Turkish gunman shot him in the abdomen, and had hip and knee ailments. His anguished struggle with failing health became a symbol of aging and, in the end, death with dignity.

Outside the Vatican, the crowd of faithful recited the rosary. A seminarian slowly waved a large red and white Polish flag draped with a black band of mourning for the Polish-born pontiff.

Prelates asked those in the square to keep silent so they might "accompany the pope in his first steps into heaven."

As the bells tolled in mourning, a group of young people sang, "Alleluia, he will rise again," while one of them strummed a guitar. Later, pilgrims joined in singing the "Ave Maria."

"The angels welcome you," Vatican TV said after papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls announced the death of the pope, who had for years suffered from Parkinson's disease and came down with fever and infections in recent weeks.

In contrast to the church's ancient traditions, Navarro-Valls announced the death to journalists in the most modern of communication forms, an e-mail that said: "The Holy Father died this evening at 9:37 p.m. in his private apartment." The spokesman said church officials were following instructions that John Paul had written for them on Feb. 22, 1996.

"He was a marvelous man. Now he's no longer suffering," Concetta Sposato, a pilgrim who heard the pope had died as she was on her way to St. Peter's to pray, said tearfully.

"My father died last year. For me, it feels the same," said Elisabetta Pomacalca, a 25-year-old Peruvian who lives in Rome.

"I'm Polish. For us, he was a father," said pilgrim Beata Sowa.

In Washington, President Bush mourned the loss of "a good and faithful servant of God (who) has been called home" and said the pontiff "launched a democratic revolution that swept Eastern Europe and changed the course of history."

A fierce enemy of communism, John Paul set off the sparks that helped bring down communism in Poland, from where a virtual revolution spread across the Soviet bloc. No less an authority than former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said much of the credit went to John Paul.

But his Polish roots also nourished a doctrinal conservatism - opposition to contraception, abortion and women priests - that rankled liberal Catholics in the United States and western Europe.

A man who had lived under both the Nazis and the Soviets, he loathed totalitarianism, which he called "substitute religion." As pope, he helped foster Poland's Solidarity movement and bring down Communism. Once it was vanquished, he decried capitalist callousness.

During World War II, he appeared on a Nazi blacklist in 1944 for his activities in a Christian democratic underground in Poland. B'nai B'rith and other organizations testified that he helped Jews find refuge from the Nazis.

While the pope championed better relations with Jews - Christianity's "older brothers," as he put it - the Vatican formally recognized Israel in 1993. He also met with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and urged the Holy Land's warring neighbors to reconcile.

John Paul was intent on improving relations with Muslims. On a trip to Damascus, Syria, in May 2001, he became the first pope to step into a mosque.

The 264th pope also battled what he called a "culture of death" in modern society. It made him a hero to those who saw him as their rock in a degenerating world, and a foe to those who felt he was holding back social enlightenment.

"The church cannot be an association of freethinkers," John Paul said.

However, a sex abuse scandal among clergy plunged his church into moral crisis. He summoned U.S. cardinals to the Vatican and told them: "The abuse which has caused this crisis is by every standard wrong and rightly considered a crime by society; it is also an appalling sin in the eyes of God." Critics accused the pope of not acting swiftly enough.

Other critics said that while the pope championed the world's poor, he was not consistent when he rebuked Latin American priests who sought to involve the church politically through the doctrine of "liberation theology."

John Paul's health declined rapidly after he suffered heart and kidney failure following two hospitalizations in as many months. Just two hours before announcing his death, the Vatican had said he was in "very serious" condition, although he was responding to aides.

After his passing, Vatican, Italian and European Union flags were lowered to half-staff. In Washington, flags over the White House also were lowered.

People in John Paul II's hometown in Wadowice, Poland, fell to their knees and wept as the news reached them at the end of a special Mass in the church where he worshipped as a boy.

Church bells rang out after the announcement, but it took several minutes for people inside the packed church to find out as they continued their vigil into a second night.

Then the parish priest, the Rev. Jakub Gil, came to the front as the last hymn faded away. "His life has come to an end. Our great countryman has died," he said. People inside the church and standing outside fell to their knees.

The pope was last seen in public Wednesday when, looking gaunt and unable to speak, he briefly appeared at his window.

His health sharply deteriorated the next day after he suffered a urinary tract infection.

In its final medical statement Saturday, Navarro-Valls said John Paul was not in a coma and opened his eyes when spoken to. But he added: "Since dawn this morning, there have been first signs that consciousness is being affected."

"Sometimes it seems as if he were resting with his eyes closed, but when you speak to him he opens his eyes," Navarro-Valls said.

Navarro-Valls said the pope was still speaking late Friday but did not take part when Mass was celebrated in his presence Saturday morning.

He said aides had told the pope that thousands of young people were in St. Peter's Square on Friday evening. Navarro-Valls said the pope appeared to be referring to them when he seemed to say: "'I have looked for you. Now you have come to me. And I thank you."'

(Associated Press reporters Nicole Winfield, Frances D'Emilio, William J. Kole and Brian Murphy in Rome contributed to this report.)