Coat of Arms of Pope John Paul II. The Letter M is for
Mary, the mother of
Jesus, to whom he held strong devotion
Pope John Paul II (Latin: Ioannes Paulus PP. II, Italian: Giovanni Paolo II, Polish: Jan Paweł
II) born 
Karol Józef
Wojtyła? [ˈkaɾɔl ˈjuzεf vɔi̯ˈtɨwa];
18 May 1920 – 2 April
2005) reigned as the 264th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and Sovereign of the State of the Vatican
City from 16 October 1978, until his death, almost 27
years later, making his the second-longest pontificate in modern times
after Pius IX's 31-year reign. He is the only Polish pope,
and was the first non-Italian pope since the Dutch Adrian
VI in the 1520s. He is one of only four people to have been named to the Time 100 for
both the 20th century and for a year in the 21st.
His early reign was marked by his opposition to communism, and he is often credited as one
of the forces which contributed to its collapse in Central and Eastern Europe.[1] In the later part of his pontificate, he was notable for speaking against war, fascism, communism,
dictatorship, materialism, abortion, contraception, relativism,
unrestrained capitalism, and what he deemed the "culture
of death".
John Paul II was Pope during a period in which the Catholic Church's influence
declined in developed countries but expanded in the Third World. During his reign, the pope traveled extensively, visiting over 100 countries, more than any of
his predecessors. He remains one of the most-traveled world leaders in history. He was fluent in numerous languages: his native
Polish and also Italian, French, German, English, Spanish, Croatian, Portuguese, Russian and Latin.[2] As part of his special emphasis on the universal call to
holiness, he canonized a great number of people.
In 1992, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. On 2 April 2005 at 9:37 p.m. local time, Pope John Paul II died in the
Papal Apartments while a vast crowd kept vigil in Saint Peter's Square below. Millions of people flocked to Rome to pay their respects to the body
and for his funeral. The last years of his reign had been marked by his fight against the various diseases ailing him, provoking
some concerns as to leadership should he become severely incapacitated/vegetative, and speculation as to whether he should
abdicate. On 9 May 2005, Pope
Benedict XVI, John Paul II's successor, waived the five year waiting period for a cause for beatification to be opened.[3]
Overview
John Paul II emphasized what he called the "universal call to holiness"
and attempted to define the Roman Catholic Church's role in the modern world. He spoke out against ideologies and politics of
communism, Marxism, Socialism, imperialism, hedonism,
relativism, materialism, fascism, Nazism, racism and unrestrained
capitalism. In many ways, he fought against oppression,
secularism and poverty. Although he was on friendly terms
with many Western heads of state and leading citizens, he reserved a special opprobrium
for what he believed to be the corrosive spiritual effects of modern Western consumerism and
the concomitant widespread secular and hedonistic
orientation of Western populations.
John Paul II affirmed traditional Roman Catholic teachings against abortion,
contraception, and pioneered the Church's stance on matters such as embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, euthanasia, evolution, interfaith
matters, in vitro fertilisation (IVF), and unjust wars. He also defended traditional teachings
on marriage and gender roles by opposing divorce, same-sex marriage and the ordination of women and called upon followers to vote according to Catholic teachings. While
conservative views were sometimes criticized as regressive his liberal views were sometimes criticized as unchristian.
John Paul II became known as the "Pilgrim Pope" for traveling greater distances than had all his predecessors combined.
According to John Paul II, the trips symbolized bridge-building efforts (in keeping with his title as Pontifex Maximus, literally Master Bridge-Builder) between nations and religions, attempting to remove
divisions created through history.
He beatified 1,340 people, more people than any previous pope. The Vatican asserts he
canonized more people than the combined tally of his predecessors during the last five centuries, and from a far greater variety
of cultures.[4] Whether he had canonized more saints than
all previous popes put together, as is sometimes also claimed, is difficult to prove, as the records of many early canonizations
are incomplete, missing, or inaccurate. However, it is known that his abolition of the office of Promotor Fidei ("Promoter
of the Faith" and the origin of the term Devil's advocate) streamlined the process.
In February 2004 Pope John Paul II was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize honoring
his life's work in opposing Communist oppression and helping to reshape the world.[5]
Pope John Paul II died on 2 April 2005 (buried 8 April 2005) after a long fight against Parkinson's disease and other illnesses. Immediately after his death, many of his followers demanded
that he be elevated to sainthood as soon as possible, shouting "Santo Subito" (meaning "Saint
immediately" in Italian). Both L'Osservatore
Romano and Pope Benedict XVI, Pope John Paul II's successor, referred to
John Paul II " The Great" (Ioannes Paulus PP. II Magnus)[citation needed].
John Paul II was succeeded by the Dean of the College of Cardinals,
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger of Germany, the former head
of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith who had led
the Funeral Mass for John Paul II.
Biography
-
Early life
Karol Józef Wojtyła was born on 18 May 1920 in Wadowice in southern Poland and was the youngest of three children of Karol
Wojtyła and Emilia Kaczorowska.[6] His mother died in 1929
when he was just nine years old, and his father supported him so that he could study. His brother, who worked as a
doctor, died when Karol was twelve. His youth was marked by extensive contacts with the then
thriving Jewish community of Wadowice. He practiced sports during
his youth, and was particularly interested in football (soccer).[7]
After completing his studies at the Marcin Wadowita high school in Wadowice, in 1938
Karol enrolled at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, and in a school for drama.[8] He
worked as a volunteer librarian and did compulsory military training in the Academic Legion, but refused to hold or fire a
weapon. In his youth he was an athlete, actor and
playwright and he learned as many as ten languages during
his lifetime, including Latin, Ukrainian,
Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, German, English other than his native Polish. He also had some
facility with Russian.
In 1939, Nazi occupation forces closed the Jagiellonian University; its academics were arrested and the university was suppressed
throughout the Second World War. All able-bodied males had to have a job. From 1940 to 1944
Karol variously worked as a messenger for a restaurant and a manual labourer in a limestone quarry, and then as a salesman for
the Solvay chemical factory to earn his living and to avoid being deported to
Germany.[9]
Church career
Karol Wojtyła as a priest in Niegowić, Poland, 1948
In 1942 he entered the underground seminary run by the
Archbishop of Kraków, Cardinal Adam Stefan Sapieha.
Karol Wojtyła was ordained a priest on 1 November 1946, by Cardinal Sapieha. Not long after, he was sent to study
theology at the Pontifical
University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome, Italy, commonly
known as the Angelicum, where he earned a licentiate and later a doctorate in sacred theology. This doctorate, the
first of two, was based on the Latin dissertation Doctrina de fide apud S. Ioannem a Cruce (The Doctrine of Faith
According to Saint John of the Cross). Even though his doctoral work was unanimously approved in June 1948, he was denied the
degree because he could not afford to print the text of his dissertation (an Angelicum rule). In December of that year, a revised
text of his dissertation was approved by the theological faculty of Jagiellonian
University in Kraków, and Wojtyła was finally awarded the degree. He earned a second
doctorate, based on an evaluation of the possibility of founding a Catholic ethic on the ethical system of phenomenologist Max Scheler (An Evaluation of the Possibility of
Constructing a Christian Ethics on the Basis of the System of Max Scheler), in 1954. As was the case with the first degree,
he was not granted the degree upon earning it. This time, the faculty at Jagiellonian University was forbidden by communist
authorities from granting the degree. In conjunction with his habilitation at
Catholic University of Lublin, Poland, he finally obtained the doctorate of philosophy in 1957 from that institution, where he had assumed the Chair of Ethics in 1956.
On 4 July 1958 Pope Pius
XII named him titular bishop of Ombi and auxiliary
to Archbishop Baziak, apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Kraków. He was consecrated to the Episcopate by Arcbishop Baziak on September
28 1958. At 38 Karol Wojtyła was the youngest bishop in
Poland.
In 1962 Bishop Wojtyła took part in the Second Vatican Council, and in
December 1963 Pope Paul VI appointed him Archbishop of
Kraków. On 26 June 1967, Paul VI
announced Archbishop Wojtyła's promotion to the Sacred College of Cardinals with
the title of Cardinal Priest of San
Cesareo in Palatio.
A Pope from Poland
-
In August 1978 following Paul's death, he voted in the Papal Conclave that elected
Pope John Paul I, who at 65 was considered young by papal standards. However, John Paul
I was in poor health and he died after only 33 days as pope, thereby precipitating another conclave.
Voting in the second conclave was divided between two particularly strong candidates: Giuseppe
Siri, the Archbishop of Genoa; and Giovanni
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 and
others who had previously supported Cardinal Siri.
He became the 264th Pope according to the chronological List of popes. At only 58 years
of age, he was the youngest pope elected since Pope Pius IX in 1846. Like his immediate
predecessor, Pope John Paul II dispensed with the traditional Papal coronation and
instead received ecclesiastical investiture with the simplified Papal inauguration on 22 October 1978. During his inauguration, when the cardinals kneel before him, take their vows and kiss his ring, he stood up
as the Polish primate Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski knelt down, stopped him from
kissing the ring and hugged him (SABC2 "The Greatest souls" documentary 2005). As Bishop of
Rome he took possession of his Cathedral Church, the Basilica of St. John Lateran, on 12
November1978.
Assassination attempts
-
On 13 May 1981 John Paul II was shot and critically wounded by
Mehmet Ali Ağca, a Turkish gunman, as he entered
St. Peter's Square to address an audience. He was rushed into the Vatican complex,
then to the Gemelli Hospital, where Dr. Francesco Crucitti, a noted surgeon, had just arrived by police escort after hearing of the incident. The
Pope had lost almost three-quarters of his blood, a near-exsanguination, despite the fact
that the bullets missed his mesenteric artery and abdominal aorta. He underwent five hours of surgery to treat his massive blood
loss and abdominal wounds. En route to the hospital, he lost consciousness. Ağca was caught and restrained by a nun until police
arrived. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. Two days after Christmas 1983, John Paul II visited the prison where his would-be assassin was being held. The two spoke
privately for 20 minutes. John Paul II said, "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 pope also stated that Our Lady of Fatima helped keep him alive throughout his ordeal.
| “ |
Could I forget that the event [Ali Ağca's assassination attempt] in St. Peter’s Square
took place on the day and at the hour when the first appearance of the Mother of Christ to the poor little peasants has been
remembered for over sixty years at Fátima, Portugal? For in everything that happened to me on that very day, I felt that
extraordinary motherly protection and care, which turned out to be stronger than the deadly bullet. |
” |
|
—Pope John Paul II -Memory
& Identity, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005, p.184
|
Pope John Paul II visiting with Turkish President Fahri Koruturk in Ankara, Turkey
On 2 March 2006, an Italian parliamentary commission concluded
that the Soviet Union was behind the attempt, in retaliation for John Paul II's support of
Solidarity, the Catholic, pro-democratic Polish workers' movement, a thesis which had
already been supported by Michael Ledeen and the United States Central Intelligence Agency at the time. The report stated that certain Communist
Bulgarian security departments were utilized to prevent the Soviet Union's role from being
uncovered.[10] Although the Pope declared during a May 2002
visit to Bulgaria that this country had nothing to do with the assassination attempt, his secretary, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz,
alleges in his book A Life with Karol that the pope was convinced privately that the KGB was behind the assassination
attempt.[11] Bulgaria and Russia disputed the Italian
commission's conclusions, pointing out that the Pope denied the Bulgarian connection. This thesis was also central to
Tom Clancy's novel Red Rabbit, published in
2002.
Another assassination attempt took place on 12 May 1982, just a
day before the anniversary of the last attempt on his life, in Fatima, Portugal when a
man tried to stab John Paul II with a bayonet, but was stopped by security guards. The
psychopathic assailant, a right wing Spanish ex-priest named Juan María Fernández y Krohn, a former priest of the Diocese of Madrid, reportedly opposed the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and called the pope an agent of Communist Moscow. Fernández y Krohn subsequently left the Roman Catholic priesthood and served a six-year sentence. He was
treated for mental illness and was expelled from Portugal afterwards, only to become a lawyer
in Belgium, where he would try to assassinate King Juan
Carlos I of Spain.
Pope John Paul II was also one of the targets of the Al-Qaeda-funded Operation Bojinka during a visit to the Philippines in 1995. The first plan was to kill Pope John Paul
II when he visited the Philippines during the World Youth Day 1995 celebrations. On January 15, 1995, a suicide bomber
would dress up as a priest, while John Paul II passed in his motorcade on his way to the San Carlos Seminary in Makati City. The
assassin planned to get close to the Pope, and detonate the bomb. The planned assassination of the Pope was intended to divert
attention from the next part of the phase. About 20 men had been trained by terrorist Ramzi
Yousef to carry out this act prior to January 1995.
Health
-
When he became pope in 1978, John Paul II was an avid sportsman, enjoying hiking and
swimming. In addition, John Paul II traveled extensively after becoming pope; at the time, the
58-year old was extremely healthy and active, jogging in the Vatican gardens (to the horror of Vatican staff, who informed him
that his jogging could be seen by tourists climbing to the summit of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. The pope's response,
according to media reports, was "so what?"), weightlifting, swimming and hiking in
mountains.
John Paul's obvious physical fitness and athletic good-looks earned much comment in the media following his election, which
compared his health and trim figure to the poor health of John Paul I and Paul VI, the portliness of John XXIII and the constant
claims of ailments of Pius XII. The only modern pope with a keep-fit regime had been Pope Pius
XI (1922–1939) who was an avid mountain climber. An Irish Independent article
in the 1980s labeled John Paul the "the keep-fit pope."
In 1981, though, John Paul II's health suffered a major blow after the first failed assassination attempt. After being shot, John Paul II was rushed to the Agostino Gemelli University Polyclinic in Rome, where he received extensive
emergency surgery. The bullet-wound caused severe bleeding, and the Pope's blood pressure dropped. Due to intestinal damage, a colostomy was also
performed. He nevertheless managed to recover, and in his speeches from the hospital window, which would always attract large
crowds, he defined "the Gemelli" as "the third Vatican" (the
first being St. Peter's, and the second the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo).
He went on to a full recovery, and sported an impressive physical condition throughout the 1980s.
Starting about 1992, John Paul II's health slowly declined. He began to suffer from an increasingly slurred speech and
difficulty in hearing. In addition, the Pope rarely walked in public. Though not officially confirmed by the Vatican until 2003, most experts agreed that the frail pontiff suffered from Parkinson's disease. The contrast between the athletic John Paul of the 1970s and the declining John
Paul of later years was striking. From being strikingly fitter than his predecessors, he had declined physically to far more ill
health than was the norm among more elderly popes.
In February 2005 John Paul II was taken to the Gemelli
hospital with inflammation and spasm of the larynx,
the result of influenza. Though later released from the hospital, he was taken back after a
few days because of difficulty breathing. A tracheotomy was performed, which improved the
Pope's breathing but limited his speaking abilities, to his visible frustration. In March 2005, speculation was high that the
Pope was near death; this was confirmed by the Vatican a few days before John Paul II died.
Death
On 31 March 2005 the Pope developed a very high
fever and profoundly low blood pressure, but was neither
rushed to the hospital nor offered life support. Instead, he was offered medical monitoring by a team of consultants at his
private residence. This was taken as an indication that the pope and those close to him believed that he was nearing death; it
would have been in accordance with his wishes to die in the Vatican.[12] Later that day Vatican sources announced that John Paul II had been given the Anointing of the Sick by his friend and secretary Stanisław
Dziwisz. During the final days of the Pope's life, the lights were kept burning through the night where he lay in the
Papal apartment on the top floor of the Apostolic Palace.
Tens of thousands of people rushed to the Vatican, filling St. Peter's Square
and beyond with a vast multitude, and held vigil for two days. Upon hearing of this, the dying pope was said to have stated: "I
have searched for you, and now you have come to me, and I thank you."
On Saturday 2 April, at about 15:30 CEST, John Paul II spoke his final words, "Let me go to
the house of the Father", to his aides in his native Polish and fell into a coma about four hours
later.[13] He died in his private apartment, at 21:37
CEST (19:37 UTC), 46
days short of his 85th birthday. The mass of the vigil of the Second Sunday of Easter, that is, Divine Mercy Sunday which was put into the Church's calendar by him on the occasion of the
canonization of St. Faustina on 30 April
2000,[14] had just been
celebrated at his bedside. Several aides were present, along with several Polish nuns of the Congregation of the Sisters Servants
of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, who ran the papal household.
A crowd of over two million within Vatican City, over one billion Catholics world-wide, and many non-Catholics mourned John
Paul II. The Poles were particularly devastated by his death. The public viewing of his body in
St. Peter's Basilica drew over four million people to Vatican City and was one of
the largest pilgrimages in the history of
Christianity. Many world leaders expressed their condolences and ordered flags in their countries lowered to half-mast.
Numerous countries with a Catholic majority, and even some with only a small Catholic population, declared mourning for John Paul
II.
On his death certificate, (refractory) septic shock was listed as a primary cause of
death along with profound arterial hypotension leading to complete circulatory collapse. In
cases of fatal sepsis, the normal cause of death is complete circulatory collapse.
Funeral
-
The death of Pope John Paul II set into motion rituals and traditions dating back to
medieval times. The Rite of Visitation took place from
4 April through 22:00 CET (20:00 UTC) on
7 April at St. Peter's Basilica. On
8 April the Mass of Requiem was conducted by the Dean of the
College of Cardinals, Joseph Ratzinger, who would become the next pope under the name
of Benedict XVI. It has been estimated to have been the largest atte
