Pope John Paul II
By The Christian Portal,
https://www.truechristianity.info/index_english.html
John
Paul II (Latin: Ioannes Paulus PP. II, Italian: Giovanni
Paolo II), sometimes called Blessed John Paul,
born Karol Józef Wojtyła (Polish: [ˈkarɔl ˈjuzɛf
vɔjˈtɨwa]; 18 May 1920 – 2 April 2005), reigned as Pope of the Roman
Catholic Church from 1978 until his death in 2005. He was the second-longest
serving Pope in history and the first non-Italian since 1523.
A very charismatic figure, John Paul II was acclaimed as one of
the most influential leaders of the 20th century. He is credited
with helping to end Communist rule in his native Poland and eventually
all of Europe. John Paul II significantly improved the Catholic
Church's relations with Judaism, Islam, the Eastern Orthodox Church,
and the Anglican Communion. Though criticised by progressives for
upholding the Church's teachings against artificial contraception
and the ordination of women, and by traditionalists for his support
of the Church's Second Vatican Council and its reform, he was also
widely praised for his firm, orthodox Catholic stances.
He was one of the most-travelled world leaders in history, visiting
129 countries during his pontificate. As part of his special emphasis
on the universal call to holiness, he beatified 1,340 people and
canonised 483 saints, more than the combined tally of his predecessors
during the preceding five centuries. He named most of the present
College of Cardinals, consecrated or co-consecrated a large number
of the world's past and current bishops, and ordained many priests.
A key goal of his papacy was to transform and reposition the Catholic
Church. His wish was "to place his Church at the heart of a
new religious alliance that would bring together Jews, Muslims and
Christians in a great [religious] armada". On 19 December 2009,
John Paul II was proclaimed venerable by his successor Pope Benedict
XVI and was beatified on 1 May 2011 after the Congregation for the
Causes of Saints attributed one miracle to him, the healing of a
French nun from Parkinson's disease.
Early life
Karol Józef Wojtyła was born in the Polish town of Wadowice and
was the youngest of three children of Karol Wojtyła (1879-1941),
an ethnic Pole, and Emilia Kaczorowska (1884-1929), who is described
as being of Lithuanian ancestry. His maternal grandmother's maiden
surname was Scholz, therefore Wojtyła could have had distant German
ancestry. Emilia died in childbirth in 1929, when Wojtyła was eight
years old. His elder sister Olga had died before his birth, but
he was close to his brother Edmund, nicknamed Mundek, who was 13
years his senior. Edmund's work as a physician eventually led to
his death from scarlet fever, which affected Wojtyła.
Emilia and Karol Wojtyła Sr. wedding
portrait
As a boy, Wojtyła was athletic, often playing football as goalkeeper.
During his childhood, Wojtyła had contact with Wadowice's large
Jewish community. School football games were often organised between
teams of Jews and Catholics, and Wojtyła often played on the Jewish
side. "I remember that at least a third of my classmates at
elementary school in Wadowice were Jews. At elementary school there
were fewer. With some I was on very friendly terms. And what struck
me about some of them was their Polish patriotism." Wojtyła's
first, and possibly only, love affair was with a Jewish girl, Ginka
Beer, who was described as "slender", "a superb actress"
and "having stupendous dark eyes and jet black hair".
In mid-1938, Wojtyła and his father left Wadowice and moved to
Kraków, where he enrolled at Jagiellonian University. While studying
such topics as philology and various languages, he worked as a volunteer
librarian and was required to participate in compulsory military
training in the Academic Legion, but he refused to fire a weapon.
He performed with various theatrical groups and worked as a playwright.
During this time, his talent for language blossomed, and he learned
as many as 12 foreign languages, nine of which he used extensively
as Pope.
Courtyard within the family home of
the Wojtyłas
In 1939, Nazi German occupation forces closed the university after
invading Poland. Able-bodied males were required to work, so from
1940 to 1944 Wojtyła variously worked as a messenger for a restaurant,
a manual labourer in a limestone quarry and for the Solvay chemical
factory, to avoid deportation to Germany. His father, a non-commissioned
officer in the Polish Army, died of a heart attack in 1941, leaving
Wojtyła as the immediate family's only surviving member. "I
was not at my mother's death, I was not at my brother's death, I
was not at my father's death," he said, reflecting on these
times of his life, nearly forty years later, "At twenty, I
had already lost all the people I loved."
After his father's death, he started thinking seriously about the
priesthood. In October 1942, while the war continued, he knocked
on the door of the Bishop's Palace in Kraków and asked to study
for the priesthood. Soon after, he began courses in the clandestine
underground seminary run by the Archbishop of Kraków, Adam Stefan
Cardinal Sapieha. On 29 February 1944, Wojtyła was hit by a German
truck. German Wehrmacht officers tended to him and sent him to a
hospital. He spent two weeks there recovering from a severe concussion
and a shoulder injury. It seemed to him that this accident and his
survival was a confirmation of his vocation. On 6 August 1944 known
as ‘Black Sunday’, the Gestapo rounded up young men in Kraków to
curtail the uprising, similar to the recent uprising in Warsaw.
Wojtyła escaped by hiding in the basement of his uncle's house at
10 Tyniecka Street, while the German troops searched above. More
than eight thousand men and boys were taken that day, while Wojtyła
escaped to the Archbishop's Palace, where he remained until after
the Germans had left.
On the night of 17 January 1945, the Germans fled the city, and
the students reclaimed the ruined seminary. Wojtyła and another
seminarian volunteered for the task of clearing away piles of frozen
excrement from the toilets. Wojtyła also helped a 14-year-old Jewish
refugee girl named Edith Zierer, who had run away from a Nazi labour
camp in Częstochowa. Edith had collapsed on a railway platform,
so Wojtyła carried her to a train and stayed with her throughout
the journey to Kraków. Edith credits Wojtyła with saving her life
that day. B'nai B'rith and other authorities have said that Wojtyła
helped protect many other Polish Jews from the Nazis. In Wojtyła's
last book Memory and Identity he described the 12 years of the Nazi
régime as 'bestiality', quoting from Polish theologian and philosopher
Konstanty Michalski.
Priesthood
On finishing his studies at the seminary in Kraków, Wojtyła was
ordained as a priest on All Saints' Day, 1 November 1946, by the
Archbishop of Kraków, Cardinal Sapieha. He then studied theology
in Rome, at the Pontifical International Athenaeum Angelicum, the
future Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas 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
The Doctrine of Faith According to Saint John of the Cross. Among
other courses at the Angelicum, Wojtyła studied Hebrew with the
Dutch Dominican Peter G. Duncker, author of the Compendium grammaticae
linguae hebraicae biblicae.
He returned to Poland in the summer of 1945 with his first pastoral
assignment in the village of Niegowić, fifteen miles from Kraków.
He arrived at Niegowić at harvest time, where his first action was
to kneel and kiss the ground. This gesture, which he adapted from
French saint Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, would become a ‘trademark’
action during his Papacy.
Pontifical International Athenaeum Angelicum
in Rome
In March 1949, Wojtyła was transferred to the parish of Saint Florian
in Kraków. He taught ethics at Jagiellonian University and subsequently
at the Catholic University of Lublin. While teaching, he gathered
a group of about 20 young people, who began to call themselves Rodzinka,
the "little family". They met for prayer, philosophical
discussion, and to help the blind and sick. The group eventually
grew to approximately 200 participants, and their activities expanded
to include annual skiing and kayaking trips.
In 1954, he earned a second doctorate, in philosophy, evaluating
the feasibility of a Catholic ethic based on the ethical system
of phenomenologist Max Scheler, a German philosopher who founded
a broad philosophical movement which emphasised the study of conscious
experience. However, the Communist authorities intervened to prevent
him from receiving the degree until 1957. Wojtyła developed a theological
approach which combined traditional Catholic Thomism with the ideas
of personalism, a philosophical approach deriving from phenomenology,
which was popular among Catholic intellectuals in Kraków during
Wojtyła's intellectual development. He translated Scheler's Formalism
and the Ethics of Substantive Values.
During this period, Wojtyła wrote a series of articles in Kraków's
Catholic newspaper Tygodnik Powszechny ("Universal Weekly")
dealing with contemporary church issues. He focused on creating
original literary work during his first dozen years as a priest.
War, life under Communism, and his pastoral responsibilities all
fed his poetry and plays. Wojtyła published his work under two pseudonyms
– Andrzej Jawień and Stanisław Andrzej Gruda – to distinguish his
literary from his religious writings (under his own name), and also
so that his literary works would be considered on their merits.
In 1960, Wojtyła published the influential theological book Love
and Responsibility, a defence of traditional Church teachings on
marriage from a new philosophical standpoint.
"Wujek"
While a priest in Kraków, groups of students regularly joined Wojtyła
for hiking, skiing, bicycling, camping and kayaking, accompanied
by prayer, outdoor Masses and theological discussions. In Stalinist-era
Poland, it was not permitted for priests to travel with groups of
students. Father Wojtyła asked his younger companions to call him
“Wujek” (Polish for “Uncle”) to circumvent outsiders from deducing
he was a priest. The nickname gained popularity among his followers.
Later in 1958, when Wojtyła was on a kayaking trip, he was named
an auxiliary bishop of Krakow. His acquaintances expressed concern
that this would cause him to change. Wojtyła responded to his friends,
"Wujek will remain Wujek," and he continued to live a
simple life, shunning the trappings that came with his position
as Bishop. This beloved nickname stayed with Wojtyła for his entire
life and continues to be affectionately used, particularly by the
Polish people.
Bishop and Cardinal
On 4 July 1958, while Wojtyła was on a kayaking holiday in the
lakes region of northern Poland, Pope Pius XII appointed him as
the Auxiliary Bishop of Kraków. He was then summoned to Warsaw to
meet the Primate of Poland, Stefan Cardinal Wyszyński, who informed
him of his appointment. He agreed to serve as Auxiliary Bishop to
Kraków's Archbishop Eugeniusz Baziak, and he was ordained to the
Episcopate (as Titular Bishop of Ombi) on 28 September 1958. Baziak
was the principal consecrator. Principal co-consecrators were then-Auxiliary
Bishop Boleslaw Kominek (Titular Bishop of Sophene and Vaga; of
the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Wrocław and future Cardinal Archbishop
of Wrocław) and then-Auxiliary Bishop Franciszek Jop of the Roman
Catholic Diocese of Sandomierz (Titular Bishop of Daulia; later
Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Wrocław and then Bishop of
the Roman Catholic Diocese of Opole) . At the age of 38, Wojtyła
became the youngest bishop in Poland. Baziak died in June 1962 and
on 16 July Wojtyła was selected as Vicar Capitular (temporary administrator)
of the Archdiocese until an Archbishop could be appointed.
John Paul I with cardinal Karol Wojtyla
In October 1962, Wojtyła took part in the Second Vatican Council
(1962–1965), where he made contributions to two of its most historic
and influential products, the Decree on Religious Freedom (in Latin,
Dignitatis Humanae) and the Pastoral Constitution on the Church
in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes). Wojtyła and the Polish bishops
contributed a draft text to the Council for Gaudium et Spes. According
to the historian John W. O'Malley, the draft text Gaudium et Spes
which Wojtyła and the Polish delegation sent "had some influence
on the version that was sent to the council fathers that summer
but was not accepted as the base text". According to John F.
Crosby, as Pope, John Paul II used the words of Gaudium et Spes
later to introduce his own views on the nature of the human person
in relation to God: man is "the only creature on earth that
God has wanted for its own sake", but man "can fully discover
his true self only in a sincere giving of himself".
He also participated in the assemblies of the Synod of Bishops.
On 13 January 1964, Pope Paul VI appointed him Archbishop of Kraków.
On 26 June 1967, Paul VI announced Archbishop Karol Wojtyła's promotion
to the Sacred College of Cardinals. Wojtyła was named Cardinal-Priest
of the titulus of San Cesareo in Palatio.
In 1967, he was instrumental in formulating the encyclical Humanae
Vitae, which dealt with the same issues that forbid abortion and
artificial birth control.
In 1970, according to a contemporary witness, Cardinal Wojtyła
was against the distribution of a letter around Kraków, stating
that the Polish Episcopate was preparing for the 50th anniversary
of the Polish-Soviet War.
Election to the papacy
In August 1978, following the death of Pope Paul VI, Cardinal Wojtyła
voted in the Papal conclave which elected Pope John Paul I. John
Paul I died after only 33 days as Pope, triggering another conclave.
The newly elected Pope John Paul II
stands on the balcony
The second conclave of 1978 started on 14 October, ten days after
the funeral. It was split between two strong candidates for the
papacy: Giuseppe Cardinal Siri, the conservative Archbishop of Genoa,
and the liberal Archbishop of Florence, Giovanni Cardinal Benelli,
a close friend of John Paul I.
Supporters of Benelli were confident that he would be elected,
and in early ballots, Benelli came within nine votes of success.
However, both men faced sufficient opposition for neither to be
likely to prevail. Franz Cardinal König, Archbishop of Vienna suggested
to his fellow electors a compromise candidate: the Polish Cardinal,
Karol Józef Wojtyła. Wojtyła won on the eighth ballot on the second
day with, according to the Italian press, 99 votes from the 111
participating electors. He subsequently chose the name John Paul
II in honour of his immediate predecessor, and the traditional white
smoke informed the crowd gathered in St. Peter's Square that a pope
had been chosen. He accepted his election with these words: ‘With
obedience in faith to Christ, my Lord, and with trust in the Mother
of Christ and the Church, in spite of great difficulties, I accept.’
When the new pontiff appeared on the balcony, he broke tradition
by addressing the gathered crowd:
Dear brothers and sisters, we are saddened at the death of our
beloved Pope John Paul I, and so the cardinals have called for
a new bishop of Rome. They called him from a faraway land – far
and yet always close because of our communion in faith and Christian
traditions. I was afraid to accept that responsibility, yet I
do so in a spirit of obedience to the Lord and total faithfulness
to Mary, our most Holy Mother. I am speaking to you in your –
no, our Italian language. If I make a mistake, please ‘kirrect’
[sic] me...
Coat of Arms of Pope John Paul II with
the Marian Cross.
The Letter M is for Mary, the mother of Jesus, to whom he held strong
devotion
Wojtyła became the 264th Pope according to the chronological list
of popes, the first non-Italian in 455 years. At only 58 years of
age, he was the youngest pope since Pope Pius IX in 1846, who was
54. Like his 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 were to kneel before him to
take their vows and kiss his ring, he stood up as the Polish prelate
Stefan Cardinal Wyszyński knelt down, stopped him from kissing the
ring, and simply hugged him.
Pastoral trips
During his pontificate, Pope John Paul II made trips to 129 countries,
travelling more than 1,100,000 kilometres (680,000 mi) whilst doing
so. He is famously known for kneeling and kissing the ground after
airplane trips. He consistently attracted large crowds, some among
the largest ever assembled in human history, such as the Manila
World Youth Day, which gathered up to four million people, the largest
Papal gathering ever, according to the Vatican. John Paul II's earliest
official visits were to the Dominican Republic and Mexico in January
1979. While some of his trips (such as to the United States and
the Holy Land) were to places previously visited by Pope Paul VI,
John Paul II became the first pope to visit the White House in October
1979, where he was greeted warmly by then-President Jimmy Carter.
He was the first Pope ever to visit several countries, starting
in 1979 with Mexico and Ireland. He was the first reigning pope
to travel to the United Kingdom, in 1982, where he met Queen Elizabeth
II, the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. He travelled
to Haiti in 1983, where he spoke in Creole to thousands of impoverished
Catholics gathered to greet him at the airport. His message, "things
must change in Haiti", referring to the disparity between the
wealthy and the poor, was met with thunderous applause. In 2000,
he was the first modern pope to visit Egypt, where he met with the
Coptic pope, Pope Shenouda III and the Greek Orthodox Patriarch
of Alexandria. He was the first Catholic pope to visit and pray
in an Islamic mosque, in Damascus, Syria, in 2001. He visited the
Umayyad Mosque, a former Christian church where John the Baptist
is believed to be interred, where he made a speech calling for Muslims,
Christians and Jews to live together.
A statue of John Paul II made entirely
with keys donated by the Mexican people
to symbolise that they had given him the keys to their hearts.
On 15 January 1995, during the X World Youth Day, he offered mass
to an estimated crowd of between five and seven million in Luneta
Park, Manila, Philippines, which was considered to be the largest
single gathering in Christian history. In March 2000, while visiting
Jerusalem, John Paul became the first pope in history to visit and
pray at the Western Wall. In September 2001, amid post-11 September
concerns, he travelled to Kazakhstan, with an audience largely consisting
of Muslims, and to Armenia, to participate in the celebration of
1,700 years of Armenian Christianity.
Trip to Poland
In June 1979, Pope John Paul II travelled to Poland where ecstatic
crowds constantly surrounded him. This first trip to Poland uplifted
the nation's spirit and sparked the formation of the Solidarity
movement in 1980, which later brought freedom and human rights to
his troubled homeland. Poland's Communist leaders intended to use
the Pope's visit to show the people that even though the Pope was
Polish it did not alter their capacity to govern, oppress, and distribute
the goods of society. They also hoped that if the Pope abided by
the rules they set, that the Polish people would see his example
and follow them as well. If the Pope's visit inspired a riot, the
Communist leaders of Poland were prepared to crush the uprising
and blame the suffering on the Pope.
"The Pope won that struggle by transcending politics. His
was what Joseph Nye calls ‘soft power’– the power of attraction
and repulsion. He began with an enormous advantage, and exploited
it to the utmost: He headed the one institution that stood for
the polar opposite of the Communist way of life that the Polish
people hated. He was a Pole, but beyond the regime's reach. By
identifying with him, Poles would have the chance to cleanse themselves
of the compromises they had to make to live under the regime.
And so they came to him by the millions. They listened. He told
them to be good, not to compromise themselves, to stick by one
another, to be fearless, and that God is the only source of goodness,
the only standard of conduct. ‘Be not afraid,’ he said. Millions
shouted in response, ‘We want God! We want God! We want God!’
The regime cowered. Had the Pope chosen to turn his soft power
into the hard variety, the regime might have been drowned in blood.
Instead, the Pope simply led the Polish people to desert their
rulers by affirming solidarity with one another. The Communists
managed to hold on as despots a decade longer. But as political
leaders, they were finished. Visiting his native Poland in 1979,
Pope John Paul II struck what turned out to be a mortal blow to
its Communist regime, to the Soviet Empire, [and] ultimately to
Communism."
On later trips to Poland, he gave tacit support to the Solidarity
organisation. These visits reinforced this message and contributed
to the collapse of East European Communism that took place between
1989/1990 with the reintroduction of democracy in Poland, and which
then spread through Eastern Europe (1990–1991) and South-Eastern
Europe (1990–1992).
Teachings
As pope, John Paul II wrote 14 papal encyclicals and taught about
"The Theology of the Body". Some key elements of his strategy
to "reposition the Catholic Church" were encyclicals such
as Ecclesia de Eucharistia, Reconciliatio et Paenitentia and Redemptoris
Mater. In his At the beginning of the new millennium (Novo Millennio
Ineunte), he emphasised the importance of "starting afresh
from Christ": "No, we shall not be saved by a formula
but by a Person." In The Splendour of the Truth (Veritatis
Splendor), he emphasised the dependence of man on God and His Law
("Without the Creator, the creature disappears") and the
"dependence of freedom on the truth". He warned that man
"giving himself over to relativism and scepticism, goes off
in search of an illusory freedom apart from truth itself".
In Fides et Ratio (On the Relationship between Faith and Reason)
John Paul promoted a renewed interest in philosophy and an autonomous
pursuit of truth in theological matters. Drawing on many different
sources (such as Thomism), he described the mutually supporting
relationship between faith and reason, and emphasised that theologians
should focus on that relationship. John Paul II wrote extensively
about workers and the social doctrine of the Church, which he discussed
in three encyclicals: Laborem Exercens, Solicitudo Rei Socialis,
and Centesimus Annus. Through his encyclicals and many Apostolic
Letters and Exhortations, John Paul II talked about the dignity
of women and the importance of the family for the future of humanity.
Other encyclicals include The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae)
and Ut Unum Sint (That They May Be One). Though critics accused
him of inflexibility in explicitly re-asserting Catholic moral teachings
against euthanasia and abortion that have been in place for well
over a thousand years, he urged a more nuanced view of capital punishment.
Social and political stances
John Paul II was considered a conservative on doctrine, and issues
relating to sexual reproduction and the ordination of women.
While the Pope was visiting the United States of America he said,
"All human life, from the moments of conception and through
all subsequent stages, is sacred."
A series of 129 lectures given by John Paul II during his Wednesday
audiences in Rome between September 1979 and November 1984 were
later compiled and published as a single work entitled ‘Theology
of the Body’, an extended meditation on human sexuality. He extended
it to the condemnation of abortion, euthanasia and virtually all
capital punishment, calling them all a part of the "culture
of death" that is pervasive in the modern world. He campaigned
for world debt forgiveness and social justice. He coined the term
"social mortgage", which related that all private property
had a social dimension, namely, that "the goods of this are
originally meant for all." In 2000, he publicly endorsed the
Jubilee 2000 campaign on African debt relief fronted by Irish rock
stars Bob Geldof and Bono, once famously interrupting a U2 recording
session by telephoning the studio and asking to speak to Bono.
Pope John Paul II, who was present and very influential at the
Vatican II (1962–65), affirmed the teachings of that Council and
did much to implement them. Nevertheless, his critics often wished
that he would embrace the so-called "progressive" agenda
that some hoped would evolve as a result of the Council. In fact,
the Council did not advocate "progressive" changes in
these areas; for example, they still condemned abortion as an unspeakable
crime. Pope John Paul II continued to declare that contraception,
abortion, and homosexual acts were gravely sinful, and, with Joseph
Ratzinger (future Pope Benedict XVI), opposed Liberation theology.
Following the Church's exaltation of the marital act of sexual
intercourse between a baptised man and woman within sacramental
marriage as proper and exclusive to the sacrament of marriage, John
Paul II believed that it was, in every instance, profaned by contraception,
abortion, divorce followed by a 'second' marriage, and by homosexual
acts. His beliefs were often assumed to be a rejection of women.
In 1994 John Paul II asserted the Church's lack of authority to
ordain women to the priesthood, claiming that without such authority
ordination is not legitimately compatible with fidelity to Christ.
This was also deemed a repudiation of calls to break with the constant
tradition of the Church by ordaining women to the priesthood. In
addition, John Paul II chose not to end the discipline of mandatory
priestly celibacy, although in a small number of unusual circumstances,
he did allow certain married clergymen of other Christian traditions
who later became Catholic to be ordained as Catholic priests.
Evolution
On 22 October 1996, in a speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences
plenary session at the Vatican, Pope John Paul II said of evolution
that "this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers,
following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge.
The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of
work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant
argument in favour of this theory." The Pope qualified this
by noting that, "rather than the theory of evolution, we should
speak of several theories of evolution." Some of these theories,
he noted, have a purely materialistic philosophical underpinning
which is not compatible with the Catholic faith: "Consequently,
theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies
inspiring them, consider the mind as emerging from the forces of
living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible
with the truth about man".
Although generally accepting the theory of evolution, John Paul
II made one major exception – the human soul. "If the human
body has its origin in living material which pre-exists it, the
spiritual soul is immediately created by God".
Iraq War
In 2003 John Paul II also became a prominent critic of the 2003
US-led invasion of Iraq. In his 2003 State of the World address,
the Pope declared his opposition to the invasion by stating, "No
to war! War is not always inevitable. It is always a defeat for
humanity." He sent former Apostolic Pro-Nuncio to the United
States Pío Cardinal Laghi to talk with American President George
W. Bush to express opposition to the war. John Paul II said that
it was 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.
“Wars generally do not resolve the problems for which
they are fought and therefore... prove ultimately futile.”
— Pope John Paul II
In 2003, the year of the American invasion of Iraq, Pope John Paul
II, who opposed the Iraq War perhaps more vigorously than any other
world leader, was widely viewed as a favourite to win the Nobel
Peace Prize.
Apartheid in South Africa
Pope John Paul II was an outspoken opponent of apartheid in South
Africa. In 1985, while visiting the Netherlands, he gave an impassioned
speech condemning apartheid at the International Court of Justice,
proclaiming that "no system of apartheid or separate development
will ever be acceptable as a model for the relations between peoples
or races." In September 1988, Pope John Paul II made a pilgrimage
to ten countries bordering South Africa, while demonstratively avoiding
South Africa. During his visit to Zimbabwe, John Paul II called
for economic sanctions against South Africa's government. After
John Paul II's death, both Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond
Tutu praised the Pope for defending human rights and condemning
economic injustice.
Liberation theology
In 1984 and 1986, through leader of the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), John
Paul II officially condemned aspects of Liberation theology, which
had many followers in South America. Visiting Europe, Óscar Romero
unsuccessfully attempted to obtain a Vatican condemnation of El
Salvador's regime, for violations of human rights and its support
of death squads. In his travel to Managua, Nicaragua, in 1983, John
Paul II harshly condemned what he dubbed the "popular Church"
(i.e. "ecclesial base communities" supported by the CELAM),
and the Nicaraguan clergy's tendencies to support the leftist Sandinistas,
reminding the clergy of their duties of obedience to the Holy See.
During that visit Ernesto Cardenal, a priest and minister in the
Sandinista government, knelt to kiss his hand. John Paul withdrew
it, wagged his finger in Cardenal's face, and told him, "You
must straighten out your position with the church."
Views on sexuality
While taking a traditional position on sexuality, defending the
Church's moral opposition to marriage for same-sex couples, Pope
John Paul II asserted that people with homosexual inclinations possess
the same inherent dignity and rights as everybody else. In his book,
Memory and Identity, he referred to the "strong pressures"
by the European Parliament to recognise homosexual unions as an
alternative type of family, with the right to adopt children. In
the book, as quoted by Reuters, he wrote: "It is legitimate
and necessary to ask oneself if this is not perhaps part of a new
ideology of evil, more subtle and hidden, perhaps, intent upon exploiting
human rights themselves against man and against the family."
A 1997 study determined that 3% of the pope's statements were about
the issue of sexual morality.
Role in the collapse of dictatorships
Chile
Some observers[who?] of Chilean history believe that the six-day
April 1987 visit of Pope John Paul II to Chile, during which he
visited Santiago, Viña del Mar, Valparaíso, Temuco, Punta Arenas,
Puerto Montt and Antofagasta was one of the reasons why the country's
military dictator Augusto Pinochet called for elections in 1988.
Before John Paul II's pilgrimage to Latin America, during a meeting
with reporters, he criticised Pinochet's regime as "dictatorial."
In the words of the New York Times, he was "using unusually
strong language" to criticise Pinochet and asserted the journalists
that the Church in Chile must not only pray, but actively fight
for the restoration of democracy in Chile.
During his 1987 Chilean visit, the Polish pope asked Chile's 31
Catholic bishops to campaign for free elections in the country.
According to George Weigel, he held a meeting with Pinochet during
which they addressed the theme of the return to democracy. John
Paul II allegedly pushed Pinochet to accept a democratic opening
of the regime, and would even have called for his resignation. In
2007, Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, Pope John Paul II's secretary,
confirmed that, during his visit with Pinochet, the Pope asked him
to step down and transfer power over to civilian authorities. According
to Monsignor Sławomir Oder, the postulator of John Paul II's beatification
cause, John Paul's words to Pinochet had a profound impact on the
Chilean dictator. The Polish Pope confided to a friend: "I
received a letter from Pinochet in which he told me that, as a Catholic,
he had listened to my words, he had accepted them, and he had decided
to begin the process to change the leadership of his country."
During his visit to Chile, John Paul II supported the Vicariate
of Solidarity, the Church-led pro-democracy, anti-Pinochet organisation.
John Paul II visited the Vicariate of Solidarity's offices, spoke
with its workers, and "called upon them to continue their work,
emphasizing that the Gospel consistently urges respect for human
rights." While in Chile, Pope John Paul II made gestures of
public support of Chile's anti-Pinochet democratic opposition. For
instance, he hugged and kissed Carmen Gloria Quintana, a young student
burned alive by Chilean police and told her that "We must pray
for peace and justice in Chile." Later, he met with several
opposition groups, including those that had been declared illegal
by Pinochet's government. The opposition praised John Paul II for
denouncing Pinochet as a "dictator," for many members
of Chile's opposition were persecuted for much milder statements.
Bishop Carlos Camus, one of the harshest critics of Pinochet's dictatorship
within the Chilean Church, praised John Paul II's stance during
the papal visit: "I am quite moved, because our pastor supports
us totally. Never again will anyone be able to say that we are interfering
in politics when we defend human dignity." He added: "No
country the Pope has visited has remained the same after his departure.
The Pope's visit is a mission, an extraordinary social catechism,
and his stay here will be a watershed in Chilean history."
Some have erroneously accused John Paul II of affirming Pinochet's
regime by appearing with the Chilean ruler in his balcony. However,
Cardinal Roberto Tucci, the organiser of John Paul II's pilgrimages
revealed that Pinochet tricked the pontiff by telling him he would
take him to his living room, while in reality he took him to his
balcony. Tucci claims that the pontiff was "furious."
Haiti
Pope John Paul II visited Haiti on 9 March 1983. At the time the
Caribbean country was ruled by the corrupt dictator Jean-Claude
"Baby Doc" Duvalier. During his pilgrimage to Haiti, Pope
John Paul II bluntly criticized the poverty of the country, directly
addressing Baby Doc and his wife, Michèle Bennett in front of a
large crowd of Haitians:
Yours is a beautiful country, rich in human resources, but Christians
cannot be unaware of the injustice, the excessive inequality,
the degradation of the quality of life, the misery, the hunger,
the fear suffered by the majority of the people.
John Paul II's visit inspired massive protests of Haitians against
the Duvalier dictatorship. In response to the pope's visit, 860
Catholic priests and Church workers signed a statement committing
the Church to work on behalf of the poor. In 1986, Duvalier was
thrown out of power in an uprising.
Paraguay
The collapse of the dictatorship of General Alfredo Stroessner
of Paraguay was linked, among other things, to Pope John Paul II's
visit to the South American country in 1989. Since Stroessner's
taking power through a coup d'état in 1954, Paraguay's bishops increasingly
criticized the regime for human rights abuses, rigged elections,
and the country's feudal economy. During his private meeting with
Stroessner, John Paul II told the dictator:
"Politics has a fundamental ethical dimension because it
is first and foremeost a service to man. The Church can and must
remind men – and in particular those who govern – of their ethical
duties for the good of the whole of society. The Church cannot
be isolated inside its temples just as men's consciences cannot
be isolated from God."
Later, during a Mass, Pope John Paul II criticized the regime for
impoverishing the peasants and the unemployed, claiming that the
government must give people greater access to the land. Although
Stroessner tried to prevent him from doing so, Pope John Paul II
met opposition leaders in the one-party state.
Role in the fall of Communism
John Paul II has been credited with being instrumental in bringing
down communism in Central and Eastern Europe, by being the spiritual
inspiration behind its downfall and catalyst for "a peaceful
revolution" in Poland. Lech Wałęsa, the founder of ‘Solidarity’,
credited John Paul II with giving Poles the courage to demand change.
According to Wałęsa, "Before his pontificate, the world was
divided into blocs. Nobody knew how to get rid of communism. In
Warsaw, in 1979, he simply said: 'Do not be afraid', and later prayed:
'Let your Spirit descend and change the image of the land... this
land'." It has also been widely alleged that the Vatican Bank
covertly funded Solidarity.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting
Pope John Paul II
President Ronald Reagan's correspondence with the pope reveals
"a continuous scurrying to shore up Vatican support for U.S.
policies. Perhaps most surprisingly, the papers show that, as late
as 1984, the pope did not believe the Communist Polish government
could be changed."
In December 1989, John Paul II met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
at the Vatican and each expressed his respect and admiration for
the other. Gorbachev once said "The collapse of the Iron Curtain
would have been impossible without John Paul II". On John Paul's
death, Mikhail Gorbachev said: "Pope John Paul II's devotion
to his followers is a remarkable example to all of us."
In February 2004, Pope John Paul II was nominated for a Nobel Peace
Prize honouring his life's work in opposing Communist oppression
and helping to reshape the world.
President George W. Bush presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom,
America's highest civilian honour, to Pope John Paul II during a
ceremony at the Apostolic Palace 4 June 2004. The president read
the citation that accompanied the medal, which recognised "this
son of Poland" whose "principled stand for peace and freedom
has inspired millions and helped to topple communism and tyranny."
After receiving the award, John Paul II said, "May the desire
for freedom, peace, a more humane world symbolised by this medal
inspire men and women of goodwill in every time and place."
US President George W. Bush presents
the Medal of Freedom to Pope John Paul II, in June 2004
Warsaw, Moscow, Budapest, Berlin, Prague, Sofia and Bucharest
have become stages in a long pilgrimage toward liberty. It is
admirable that in these events, entire peoples spoke out – women,
young people, men, overcoming fears, their irrepressible thirst
for liberty speeded up developments, made walls tumble down and
opened gates.
Relations with other faiths
Pope John Paul II travelled extensively and met with believers
from many divergent faiths. At the World Day of Prayer for Peace,
held in Assisi on 27 October 1986, more than 120 representatives
of different religions and Christian denominations spent a day together
with fasting and praying.
Anglicanism
Pope John Paul II had good relations with the Church of England,
referred to by his predecessor Pope Paul VI, as "our beloved
Sister Church". He was the first reigning pope to travel to
the United Kingdom, in 1982, where he met Queen Elizabeth II, the
Supreme Governor of the Church of England. He preached in Canterbury
Cathedral and received the Archbishop of Canterbury with friendship
and courtesy. However, John Paul II was disappointed by the Church
of England's decision to offer the Sacrament of Holy Orders to women
and saw it as a step in the opposite direction from unity between
the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church.
In 1980 John Paul II issued a Pastoral Provision allowing married
former Episcopal priests to become Catholic priests, and for the
acceptance of former Episcopal Church parishes into the Catholic
Church. He allowed the creation of the Anglican Use form of the
Latin Rite, which incorporates the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.
John Paul II helped establish 'Our Lady of the Atonement Catholic
Church', together with Archbishop Patrick Flores of San Antonio,
Texas, as a place where Anglicans and Catholics could worship together.
Buddhism
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, visited Pope John Paul II eight
times, more than any other single dignitary. The Pope and the Dalai
Lama held many similar views and understood similar plights, both
coming from nations damaged by communism and both serving as heads
of major religious bodies. As archbishop of Krakow, long before
the 14th Dalai Lama was a world-famous figure, Archbishop Karol
Wojtyła held special Masses to pray for the Tibetan people's non-violent
struggle for freedom from Maoist China. During his 1995 visit to
Sri Lanka, a country where a majority of the population adheres
to Theravada Buddhism, Pope John Paul II expressed his admiration
for the Buddhist religion:
In particular I express my highest regard for the followers
of Buddhism, the majority religion in Sri Lanka, with its ...four
great values of ...loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy
and equanimity; with its ten transcendental virtues and the joys
of the Sangha expressed so beautifully in the Theragathas. I ardently
hope that my visit will serve to strengthen the goodwill between
us, and that it will reassure everyone of the Catholic Church's
desire for interreligious dialogue and cooperation in building
a more just and fraternal world. To everyone I extend the hand
of friendship, recalling the splendid words of the Dhammapada:
"Better than a thousand useless words is one single word
that gives peace..."
Eastern Orthodox Church
In May 1999, John Paul II visited Romania on the invitation from
Patriarch Teoctist Arăpaşu of the Romanian Orthodox Church. This
was the first time a Pope had visited a predominantly Eastern Orthodox
country since the Great Schism in 1054. On his arrival, the Patriarch
and the President of Romania, Emil Constantinescu, greeted the Pope.
The Patriarch stated, "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 23–27 June 2001 John Paul II visited Ukraine, another heavily
Orthodox nation, at the invitation of the President of Ukraine and
bishops of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The Pope spoke to
leaders of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organisations,
pleading for "open, tolerant and honest dialogue". About
200 thousand people attended the liturgies celebrated by the Pope
in Kiev, and the liturgy in Lviv gathered nearly one and a half
million faithful. John Paul II stated that an end to the Great Schism
was one of his fondest wishes. Healing divisions between the Catholic
and Eastern Orthodox churches regarding Latin and Byzantine traditions
was clearly of great personal interest. For many years, John Paul
II sought to facilitate dialogue and unity stating as early as 1988
in Euntes in mundum that "Europe has two lungs, it will never
breathe easily until it uses both of them".
During his 2001 travels, John Paul II became the first Pope to
visit Greece in 1291 years. In Athens, the Pope met with Archbishop
Christodoulos, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church. After a private
30-minute meeting, the two spoke publicly. Christodoulos read a
list of "13 offences" of the Roman Catholic Church against
the Eastern Orthodox Church since the Great Schism, including the
pillaging of Constantinople by crusaders in 1204, and bemoaned the
lack of 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 II said that the sacking of Constantinople
was a source of "profound regret" for Catholics. Later
John Paul II 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.
The Pope had said throughout his pontificate that one of his greatest
dreams was to visit Russia, but this never occurred. He attempted
to solve the problems that had arisen over centuries between the
Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches, and in 2004 gave them a
1730 copy of the lost icon of Our Lady of Kazan.
Islam
Pope John Paul II made considerable efforts to improve relations
between Catholicism and Islam.
On 6 May 2001, Pope John Paul II became the first Catholic pope
to enter and pray in a mosque. Respectfully removing his shoes,
he entered the Umayyad Mosque, a former Byzantine era Christian
church dedicated to John the Baptist (who was believed to be interred
there) in Damascus, Syria, and gave a speech including the statement:
"For all the times that Muslims and Christians have offended
one another, we need to seek forgiveness from the Almighty and to
offer each other forgiveness." He kissed the Qur’an in Syria,
an act which made him popular among Muslims but which disturbed
many Catholics.
In 2004, Pope John Paul II hosted the "Papal Concert of Reconciliation",
which brought together leaders of Islam with leaders of the Jewish
community and of the Catholic Church at the Vatican for a concert
by the Kraków Philharmonic Choir from Poland, the London Philharmonic
Choir from the United Kingdom, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
from the United States, and the Ankara State Polyphonic Choir of
Turkey. The event was conceived and conducted by Sir Gilbert Levine,
KCSG and was broadcast throughout the world.
John Paul II oversaw the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic
Church which makes a special provision for Muslims; therein, it
is written, "The plan of salvation also includes those who
acknowledge the Creator, in 'the first place amongst whom are the
Muslims'; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together
with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the
last day."
Judaism
Relations between Catholicism and Judaism improved dramatically
during the pontificate of John Paul II. He spoke frequently about
the Church's relationship with the Jewish faith.
In 1979, John Paul II became the first pope to visit the Auschwitz
concentration camp in Poland, where many of his compatriots (mostly
Polish Jews) had perished during the Nazi occupation in World War
II. In 1998 he issued "We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah"
which outlined his thinking on the Holocaust. He became the first
pope known to have made an official papal visit to a synagogue,
when he visited the Great Synagogue of Rome on 13 April 1986.
On December 30, 1993, John Paul II established formal diplomatic
relations between the Holy See and the State of Israel, acknowledging
its centrality in Jewish life and faith.
On April 7, 1994, Pope John Paul II hosted ‘The Papal Concert to
Commemorate the Holocaust’. It was the first-ever Vatican event
dedicated to the memory of the 6 million Jews murdered in World
War II. This concert, which was conceived and conducted by American
Maestro Gilbert Levine, was attended by the Chief Rabbi of Rome
Elio Toaff, the President of Italy Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, and survivors
of the Holocaust from around the world. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,
actor Richard Dreyfuss and cellist Lynn Harrell performed on this
occasion under Levine’s direction. On the morning of the concert,
the Pope received the attending members of survivor community in
a special audience in the Apostolic Palace.
In March 2000, John Paul II visited Yad Vashem, the national Holocaust
memorial in Israel, and later made history by touching one of the
holiest sites in Judaism, the Western Wall in Jerusalem, placing
a letter inside it (in which he prayed for forgiveness for the actions
against Jews). In part of his address he said: "I assure the
Jewish people the Catholic Church... is deeply saddened by the hatred,
acts of persecution and displays of anti-Semitism directed against
the Jews by Christians at any time and in any place", he added
that there were "no words strong enough to deplore the terrible
tragedy of the Holocaust". Israeli cabinet minister Rabbi Michael
Melchior, who hosted the Pope's visit, said he was "very moved"
by the Pope's gesture.
It was beyond history, beyond memory.
We are deeply saddened by the behaviour of those who in the
course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer,
and asking your forgiveness we wish to commit ourselves to genuine
brotherhood with the people of the Covenant.
In October 2003, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued a statement
congratulating John Paul II on entering the 25th year of his papacy.
In January 2005, John Paul II became the first Pope in history known
to receive a priestly blessing from a rabbi, when Rabbis Benjamin
Blech, Barry Dov Schwartz, and Jack Bemporad visited the Pontiff
at Clementine Hall in the Apostolic Palace.
Immediately after John Paul II's death, the ADL issued a statement
that Pope John Paul II had revolutionised Catholic-Jewish relations,
saying that "more change for the better took place in his 27-year
Papacy than in the nearly 2,000 years before." In another statement
issued by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, Director
Dr Colin Rubenstein said, "The Pope will be remembered for
his inspiring spiritual leadership in the cause of freedom and humanity.
He achieved far more in terms of transforming relations with both
the Jewish people and the State of Israel than any other figure
in the history of the Catholic Church".
With Judaism, therefore, we have a relationship which we do
not have with any other religion. You are our dearly beloved brothers,
and in a certain way, it could be said that you are our elder
brothers.
In an interview with the Polish Press Agency, Michael Schudrich,
chief rabbi of Poland, said that never in history did anyone do
as much for Christian-Jewish dialogue as Pope John Paul II, adding
that many Jews had a greater respect for the late pope than for
some rabbis. Schudrich praised John Paul II for condemning anti-Semitism
as a sin, which no previous pope had done.
Pope John Paul II's beatification was greeted with great enthusiasm
among many Jews. On the occasion, the Chief Rabbi of Rome Riccardo
Di Segni said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore
Romano that "John Paul II was revolutionary because he tore
down a thousand-year wall of Catholic distrust of the Jewish world."
Meanwhile, Elio Toaff, the former Chief Rabbi of Rome, said that:
"Remembrance of the Pope Karol Wojtyła will remain strong
in the collective Jewish memory because of his appeals to fraternity
and the spirit of tolerance, which excludes all violence. In the
stormy history of relations between Roman popes and Jews in the
ghetto in which they were closed for over three centuries in humiliating
circumstances, John Paul II is a bright figure in his uniqueness.
In relations between our two great religions in the new century
that was stained with bloody wars and the plague of racism, the
heritage of John Paul II remains one of the few spiritual islands
guaranteeing survival and human progress."
Lutheranism
On 15–19 November 1980 John Paul II visited the Federal Republic
of Germany on his first trip to a country with a large Lutheran
population. In Mainz he met with leaders of the Lutheran and other
Protestant Churches, and with representatives of other Christian
denominations.
On 11 December 1983 John Paul II participated in an ecumenical
service in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Rome, the first papal
visit ever to a Lutheran church. The visit took place 500 years
after the birth of Martin Luther, the German Augustinian monk who
initiated the Lutheran reformation.
In his apostolic pilgrimage to Norway, Iceland, Finland, Denmark
and Sweden of June 1989, John Paul II became the first pope to visit
countries with Lutheran majorities. In addition to celebrating Mass
with Catholic believers, he participated in ecumenical services
at places that had been Catholic shrines before the 16th century
Lutheran reformation: Nidaros Cathedral in Norway; near St. Olav's
Church at Thingvellir in Iceland; Turku Cathedral in Finland; Roskilde
Cathedral in Denmark; and Uppsala Cathedral in Sweden.
On 31 October 1999 (the 482nd anniversary of Reformation Day, Martin
Luther's posting of the 95 Theses), representatives of the Vatican
and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) signed a Joint Declaration
on the Doctrine of Justification, as a gesture of unity. The signing
was a fruit of a theological dialogue that had been going on between
the LWF and the Vatican since 1965.
Assassination attempts and plots
As he entered St. Peter's Square to address an audience on 13 May
1981, Pope John Paul II was shot and critically wounded by Mehmet
Ali Ağca, an expert Turkish gunman who was a member of the militant
fascist group Grey Wolves. The assassin used a Browning 9 mm semi-automatic
pistol, shooting the pope in the abdomen and perforating his colon
and small intestine multiple times. John Paul II was rushed into
the Vatican complex and then to the Gemelli Hospital. On the way
to the hospital, he lost consciousness. Even though the two bullets
missed his mesenteric artery and abdominal aorta, he lost nearly
three-quarters of his blood. He underwent five hours of surgery
to treat his wounds. Surgeons performed a colostomy, temporarily
rerouting the upper part of the large intestine to let the damaged
lower part heal. When he briefly gained consciousness before being
operated on, he instructed the doctors not to remove his Brown Scapular
during the operation. The pope stated that Our Lady of Fátima helped
keep him alive throughout his ordeal.
Could I forget that the event 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.
Ağca was caught and restrained by a nun and other bystanders until
police arrived. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. Two days
after Christmas in 1983, John Paul II visited Ağca in prison. John
Paul II and Ağca spoke privately for about twenty 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 site of the shooting is marked by
a small marble tablet bearing John Paul's
personal papal arms and the date in Roman numerals.
On 2 March 2006 the Italian parliament's Mitrokhin Commission,
set up by Silvio Berlusconi and headed by Forza Italia senator Paolo
Guzzanti, concluded that the Soviet Union was behind the attempt
on John Paul II's life, in retaliation for the pope's support of
Solidarity, the Catholic, pro-democratic Polish workers' movement,
a theory which had already been supported by Michael Ledeen and
the United States Central Intelligence Agency at the time. The Italian
report stated that Communist Bulgarian security departments were
utilised to prevent the Soviet Union's role from being uncovered.
The report stated that Soviet military intelligence (Glavnoje Razvedyvatel'noje
Upravlenije), not the KGB, were responsible. Russian Foreign Intelligence
Service spokesman Boris Labusov called the accusation ‘absurd’.
The Pope declared during a May 2002 visit to Bulgaria that the country's
Soviet-bloc-era leadership had nothing to do with the assassination
attempt. However, his secretary, Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, alleged
in his book A Life with Karol, that the pope was convinced privately
that the former Soviet Union was behind the attack. It was later
discovered that many of John Paul II's aides had foreign-government
attachments; Bulgaria and Russia disputed the Italian commission's
conclusions, pointing out that the Pope had publicly denied the
Bulgarian connection.
A second assassination attempt took place on 12 May 1982, just
a day before the anniversary of the first attempt on his life, in
Fátima, Portugal when a man tried to stab John Paul II with a bayonet.
He was stopped by security guards, although Stanisław Dziwisz later
claimed that John Paul II had been injured during the attempt but
managed to hide a non-life threatening wound. The assailant, a traditionalist
Spanish priest named Juan María Fernández y Krohn, was ordained
as a priest by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre of the Society of Saint
Pius X and was opposed to the changes caused by the Second Vatican
Council, claiming that the pope was an agent of Communist Moscow
and of the Marxist Eastern Bloc. Fernández y Krohn subsequently
left the priesthood and served three years of a six-year sentence.
The ex-priest was treated for mental illness and then expelled from
Portugal to become a solicitor in Belgium.
Pope John Paul II was also a target of the Al-Qaeda-funded Bojinka
plot during a visit to the Philippines in 1995. The first plan was
to kill him in the Philippines during World Youth Day 1995 celebrations.
On 15 January 1995, a suicide bomber was planning to dress as a
priest, while John Paul II passed in his motorcade on his way to
the San Carlos Seminary in Makati City. The would-be-assassin intended
to get close and detonate the bomb. The assassination was supposed
to divert attention from the next phase of the operation. However,
a chemical fire inadvertently started by the cell alerted police
to their whereabouts, and all were arrested a week before the Pope's
visit, confessing to the plot.
In 2009 journalist and former army intelligence officer John Koehler
published Spies in the Vatican: The Soviet Union's Cold War Against
the Catholic Church. Mining mostly East German and Polish secret
police archives, Koehler says the assassination attempts were "KGB-backed"
and gives details. During John Paul II's reign there were many clerics
within the Vatican who on nomination, declined to be ordained, and
then mysteriously left the church. There is wide speculation that
they were, in reality, KGB agents.
Apologies
John Paul II apologised to almost every group who had suffered
at the hands of the Catholic Church through the years. Even before
he became Pope, he was a prominent editor and supporter of initiatives
like the Letter of Reconciliation of the Polish Bishops to the German
Bishops from 1965. As Pope, he officially made public apologies
for over 100 wrongdoings, including:
- The legal process on the Italian scientist and philosopher
Galileo Galilei, himself a devout Catholic, around 1633 (31 October
1992).
- Catholics' involvement with the African slave trade (9 August
1993).
- The Church Hierarchy's role in burnings at the stake and the
religious wars that followed the Protestant Reformation (May 1995,
in the Czech Republic).
- The injustices committed against women, the violation of women's
rights and the historical denigration of women (10 July 1995,
in a letter to "every woman").
- The inactivity and silence of many Catholics during the Holocaust
(see the article Religion in Nazi Germany) (16 March 1998).
On 20 November 2001, from a laptop in the Vatican, Pope John Paul
II sent his first e-mail apologising for the Catholic sex abuse
cases, the Church-backed "Stolen Generations" of Aboriginal
children in Australia, and to China for the behaviour of Catholic
missionaries in colonial times.
Health
When he became pope in 1978, John Paul II was still an avid sportsman.
At the time, the 58-year old was extremely healthy and active, jogging
in the Vatican gardens, weight training, swimming, and hiking in
the mountains. He was fond of football. The media contrasted the
new Pope's athleticism 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 fitness
regimen had been Pope Pius XI (1922–1939) who was an avid mountaineer.
An Irish Independent article in the 1980s labelled John Paul II
the keep-fit pope.
The ailing Pope John Paul II riding
in the Popemobile on 22 September 2004
However, after over twenty-five years as Pope, two assassination
attempts (one of which resulted in severe physical injury to the
Pope), and a number of cancer scares, John Paul's physical health
declined. In 2001 he was diagnosed as suffering from Parkinson's
disease. International observers had suspected this for some time
but it was only publicly acknowledged by the Vatican in 2003. Despite
difficulty speaking more than a few sentences at a time, trouble
hearing and severe osteoarthrosis, he continued to tour the world,
although rarely walking in public.
Death and funeral
Pope John Paul II was hospitalised with breathing problems caused
by a bout of influenza on 1 February 2005. He left hospital on 10
February, but was subsequently hospitalised again with breathing
problems two weeks later and underwent a tracheotomy. On 31 March
2005 following a urinary tract infection, he developed septic shock,
a form of infection with a high fever and low blood pressure, but
was not hospitalised. Instead, he was monitored 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.
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 assembled and held vigil in St. Peter's Square and the
surrounding streets 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."
(l-r): U.S. President George W. Bush,
First Lady Laura Bush, former Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill
Clinton,
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and White House Chief of Staff
Andrew Card
pay their respects to John Paul II lying in state at St. Peter's
Basilica, 6 April 2005.
On Saturday 2 April 2005, at about 15:30 CEST, John Paul II spoke
his final words, "Pozwólcie mi odejść do domu Ojca", ("Allow
me to depart to the house of the Father"), to his aides, and
fell into a coma about four hours later. The mass of the vigil of
the Second Sunday of Easter commemorating the canonisation of Saint
Maria Faustina on 30 April 2000, had just been celebrated at his
bedside, presided over by Stanisław Dziwisz and two Polish associates.
Present at the bedside was a cardinal from Ukraine who served as
a priest with John Paul in Poland, along with Polish nuns of the
Congregation of the Sisters Servants of the Most Sacred Heart of
Jesus, who ran the papal household. He died in his private apartment,
at 21:37 CEST (19:37 UTC) of heart failure from profound hypotension
and complete circulatory collapse from septic shock, 46 days short
of his 85th birthday. John Paul had no close family by the time
he died, and his feelings are reflected in his words, as written
in 2000, at the end of his Last Will and Testament.
Crowd assembling for John Paul II's
funeral mass on 8 April 2005.
The death of the pontiff set in motion rituals and traditions dating
back to medieval times. The Rite of Visitation took place from 4
to 7 April at St. Peter's Basilica. The Testament of Pope John Paul
II published on 7 April revealed that the pontiff contemplated being
buried in his native Poland but left the final decision to The College
of Cardinals, which in passing, preferred burial beneath St. Peter's
Basilica, honouring the pontiff's request to be placed "in
bare earth". The Mass of Requiem on 8 April was said to have
set world records both for attendance and number of heads of state
present at a funeral. (See: List of Dignitaries). It was the single
largest gathering of heads of state in history, surpassing the funerals
of Winston Churchill (1965) and Josip Broz Tito (1980). Four kings,
five queens, at least 70 presidents and prime ministers, and more
than 14 leaders of other religions attended alongside the faithful.
It is likely to have been the largest single pilgrimage of Christianity
ever, with numbers estimated in excess of four million mourners
gathering in Rome. Between 250,000 and 300,000 watched the event
from within the Vatican's walls. The Dean of the College of Cardinals,
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, conducted the ceremony. John Paul II
was interred in the grottoes under the basilica, the Tomb of the
Popes. He was lowered into a tomb created in the same alcove previously
occupied by the remains of Pope John XXIII. The alcove had been
empty since Pope John's remains had been moved into the main body
of the basilica after his beatification.
Posthumous recognition
Title "the Great"
Upon the death of John Paul II, a number of clergy at the Vatican
and laymen throughout the world began referring to the late pontiff
as "John Paul the Great"—only the fourth pope to be so
acclaimed, and the first since the first millennium. Scholars of
Canon Law say that there is no official process for declaring a
pope "Great"; the title simply establishes itself through
popular and continued usage, as was the case with celebrated secular
leaders (for example, Alexander III of Macedon became popularly
known as Alexander the Great). The three popes who today commonly
are known as "Great" are Leo I, who reigned from 440–461
and persuaded Attila the Hun to withdraw from Rome; Gregory I, 590–604,
after whom the Gregorian Chant is named; and Pope Nicholas I, 858–867.
Statue of Pope John Paul II (1984) carved
by local First Nations at Martyrs' Shrine, Midland, Ontario
His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, referred to him as "the
great Pope John Paul II" in his first address from the loggia
of St. Peter's Basilica, and Angelo Cardinal Sodano referred to
Pope John Paul II as "the Great" in his published written
homily for the Mass of Repose.
Tomb of John Paul II in The Chapel of
St. Sebastian
Since giving his homily at the funeral of Pope John Paul, Pope
Benedict XVI has continued to refer to John Paul II as "the
Great." At the 20th World Youth Day in Germany 2005, Pope Benedict
XVI, speaking in Polish, John Paul's native language, said, "As
the Great Pope John Paul II would say: keep the flame of faith alive
in your lives and your people." In May 2006, Pope Benedict
XVI visited John Paul's native Poland. During that visit, he repeatedly
made references to "the great John Paul" and "my
great predecessor".
In addition to the Vatican calling him "the great", numerous
newspapers have done so. For example, the Italian newspaper Corriere
della Sera called him "the Greatest" and the South African
Catholic newspaper, The Southern Cross, has called him "John
Paul II The Great". and many Catholic schools worldwide have
been named after him using this title, for example recently renamed
John Paul the Great Catholic University and John Paul the Great
Catholic High School.
Beatification
Inspired by calls of "Santo Subito!" ("[Make him
a] Saint Immediately!") from the crowds gathered during the
funeral mass which he performed, Benedict XVI began the beatification
process for his predecessor, bypassing the normal restriction that
five years must pass after a person's death before beginning the
beatification process. In an audience with Pope Benedict XVI, Camillo
Ruini, Vicar General of the Diocese of Rome who was responsible
for promoting the cause for canonisation of any person who died
within that diocese, cited "exceptional circumstances"
which suggested that the waiting period could be waived. This decision
was announced on 13 May 2005, the Feast of Our Lady of Fátima and
the 24th anniversary of the assassination attempt on John Paul II
at St. Peter's Square.
Beatification of John Paul II, on Divine
Mercy Sunday 1 May 2011 for which over a million pilgrims went to
Rome
In early 2006, it was reported that the Vatican was investigating
a possible miracle associated with John Paul II. Sister Marie Simon-Pierre,
a French nun and a member of the Congregation of Little Sisters
of Catholic Maternity Wards, confined to her bed by Parkinson's
disease, was reported to have experienced a "complete and lasting
cure after members of her community prayed for the intercession
of Pope John Paul II". As of May 2008, Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre,
then 46, was working again at a maternity hospital run by her religious
institute.
"I was sick and now I am cured", she told reporter Gerry
Shaw. "I am cured, but it is up to the church to say whether
it was a miracle or not."
On 28 May 2006, Pope Benedict XVI said Mass before an estimated
900,000 people in John Paul II's native Poland. During his homily,
he encouraged prayers for the early canonisation of John Paul II
and stated that he hoped canonisation would happen "in the
near future."
Monument to Pope John Paul II in Poznań
In January 2007, Stanisław Cardinal Dziwisz of Kraków, his former
secretary, announced that the interview phase of the beatification
process, in Italy and Poland, was nearing completion. In February
2007, relics of Pope John Paul II—pieces of white papal cassocks
he used to wear—were freely distributed with prayer cards for the
cause, a typical pious practice after a saintly Catholic's death.
On 8 March 2007, the Vicariate of Rome announced that the diocesan
phase of John Paul's cause for beatification was at an end. Following
a ceremony on 2 April 2007 – the second anniversary of the Pontiff's
death – the cause proceeded to the scrutiny of the committee of
lay, clerical, and episcopal members of the Vatican's Congregation
for the Causes of Saints, to conduct a separate investigation. On
the fourth anniversary of Pope John Paul's death, 2 April 2009,
Cardinal Dziwisz, told reporters of a presumed miracle that had
recently occurred at the former pope's tomb in St. Peter's Basilica.
A nine-year-old Polish boy from Gdańsk, who was suffering from kidney
cancer and was completely unable to walk, had been visiting the
tomb with his parents. On leaving St. Peter's Basilica, the boy
told them, "I want to walk", and began walking normally.
On 16 November 2009, a panel of reviewers at the Congregation for
the Causes of Saints voted unanimously that Pope John Paul II had
lived a life of virtue. On 19 December 2009, Pope Benedict XVI signed
the first of two decrees needed for beatification and proclaimed
John Paul II "Venerable", asserting that he had lived
a heroic, virtuous life. The second vote and the second signed decree
certify the authenticity of his first miracle, the curing of Sister
Marie Simon-Pierre, a French nun, from Parkinson's disease. Once
the second decree is signed, the positio (the report on the cause,
with documentation about his life and writings and with information
on the cause) is complete. He can then be beatified. Some speculated
that he would be beatified sometime during (or soon after) the month
of the 32nd anniversary of his 1978 election, in October 2010. As
Monsignor Oder noted, this course would have been possible if the
second decree were signed in time by Benedict XVI, stating that
a posthumous miracle directly attributable to his intercession had
occurred, completing the positio.
The Vatican announced on 14 January 2011 that Pope Benedict XVI
had confirmed the miracle involving Sister Marie Simon-Pierre and
that John Paul II was to be beatified on 1 May, the Feast of Divine
Mercy. 1 May is commemorated in former communist countries, such
as Poland, and some Western European countries as May Day, and Pope
John Paul II was well-known for his contributions to communism's
relatively peaceful demise. In March 2011 the Polish mint issued
a gold 1,000 Polish złoty coin (equivalent to US$350), with the
Pope's image to commemorate his beatification.
On 29 April 2011, Pope John Paul II's coffin was exhumed from the
grotto beneath St. Peter's Basilica ahead of his beatification,
as tens of thousands of people arrived in Rome for one of the biggest
events since his funeral. John Paul II's remains (in a closed coffin)
were placed in front of the Basilica's main altar, where believers
could pay their respect before and after the beatification mass
in St. Peter's Square on 1 May. On 3 May 2011 Blessed Pope John
Paul II was given a new resting place in the marble altar in Pier
Paolo Cristofari's Chapel of St. Sebastian, which is where Pope
Innocent XI was buried. This more prominent location, next to the
Chapel of the Pietà, the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament and statues
of Popes Pius XI and Pius XII, was intended to allow more pilgrims
to view his memorial.
Marco Fidel Rojas, the mayor of Huila, Colombia, has testified
that he has been "miraculously cured" of Parkinson's disease
through the intercession of John Paul II. Mr. Rojas' doctor has
certified his cure, and the documentation has been sent to the sainthood
cause's Vatican office in a case that may move John Paul's canonisation
forward.
Criticism and controversy
John Paul II was widely criticised, among other things, for his
views against the ordination of women and contraception, his support
for the Second Vatican Council and its reform of the Liturgy, and
his stance on the sanctity of marriage.
In 1998 the Croatian war-time Archbishop
Aloysius Stepinac (far right, pictured in 1944) was declared a martyr
and beatified by John Paul II. Critics say that Stepinac was pro-Ustaše,
tolerating the mass killings of Orthodox Serbs in Jasenovac and
their forced conversion to Catholicism. The picture shows Croatian
Parliament president Marko Došen giving Nazi salute (far left) accompanied
by Stepinac and other Catholic Church leaders.
Opposition to his beatification
Some Catholic theologians disagree with the call for beatification
of Pope John Paul II. Eleven dissident theologians, including Jesuit
professor Jose Maria Castillo and Italian theologian Giovanni Franzoni
raised seven points, including his stance against contraception
and the ordination of women as well as the Church scandals that
presented "facts which according to their consciences and convictions
should be an obstacle to beatification".
Child sex abuse scandals
John Paul II was also criticised for failing to respond quickly
enough to the sex abuse crisis. In his response, he stated that
"there is no place in the priesthood and religious life for
those who would harm the young". The Church instituted reforms
to prevent future abuse by requiring background checks for Church
employees and, because a significant majority of victims were teenage
boys, disallowing ordination of men with "deep–seated homosexual
tendencies". They now require dioceses faced with an allegation
to alert the authorities, conduct an investigation and remove the
accused from duty. In 2008, the Church asserted that the scandal
was a very serious problem and estimated that it was "probably
caused by 'no more than 1 per cent' " (or 5,000) of the over
500,000 Catholic priests worldwide.
In April 2002, John Paul II, despite being frail from Parkinson's
disease, summoned all the American cardinals to the Vatican to discuss
possible solutions to the issue of sexual abuse in the American
Church. He asked them to "diligently investigate accusations."
John Paul II suggested that American bishops be more open and transparent
in dealing with such scandals and emphasized the role of seminary
training to prevent sexual deviance among future priests. In what
The New York Times called "unusually direct language,"
John Paul condemned the arrogance of priests which led to the scandals:
Priests and candidates for the priesthood often live at a level
both materially and educationally superior to that of their families
and the members of their own age group. It is therefore very easy
for them to succumb to the temptation of thinking of themselves
as better than others. When this happens, the ideal of priestly
service and self-giving dedication can fade, leaving the priest
dissatisfied and disheartened.
The pope read a statement intended for the American cardinals,
calling the sex abuse "an appalling sin" and said the
priesthood had no room for such men.
In 2002, Archbishop Juliusz Paetz, the Catholic Archbishop of Poznań,
was accused of molesting seminarians. Pope John Paul II accepted
his resignation, and placed sanctions on him, prohibiting Paetz
from exercising his ministry as bishop. These restrictions were
lifted in 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI.
In 2003 John Paul II reiterated that "there is no place in
the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young".
and in April 2003, the Pontifical Academy for Life organised a three-day
conference, entitled "Abuse of Children and Young People by
Catholic Priests and Religious", where eight non-Catholic psychiatric
experts were invited to speak to near all Vatican dicasteries' representatives.
The panel of experts overwhelmingly opposed implementation of policies
of "zero-tolerance" such as was proposed by the US Conference
of Catholic Bishops. One expert called such policies a "case
of overkill" since they do not permit flexibility to allow
for differences among individual cases.
In 2004 Pope John Paul II recalled Bernard Francis Law to be Archpriest
of the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome. Law had previously
resigned as archbishop of Boston in 2002 in response to the Roman
Catholic Church sex abuse scandal after Church documents were revealed
which suggested he had covered up sexual abuse committed by priests
in his archdiocese. Law resigned from this position in November
2011.
Opus Dei controversies
John Paul II was criticised for his support of the Opus Dei prelature
and the 2002 canonisation of its founder, Josemaría Escrivá, whom
he called 'the saint of ordinary life.' Other movements and religious
organisations of the Church went decidedly under his wing (Legion
of Christ, the Neocatechumenal Way, Schoenstatt, the charismatic
movement, etc.) and he was accused repeatedly of taking a soft hand
with them, especially in the case of Rev. Marcial Maciel, founder
of the Legion of Christ. In 1984 Pope John Paul II appointed Joaquín
Navarro-Valls, a member of Opus Dei, as Director of the Vatican
Press Office. An Opus Dei spokesman says "the influence of
Opus Dei in the [Vatican] has been exaggerated." Of the nearly
200 cardinals in the Roman Catholic Church, only two are known to
be members of Opus Dei.
Banco Ambrosiano scandal
Pope John Paul was alleged to have links with Banco Ambrosiano,
an Italian bank which collapsed in 1982. At the centre of the bank's
failure was its chairman, Roberto Calvi and his membership in the
illegal Masonic Lodge Propaganda Due (aka P2). The Vatican Bank
was Banco Ambrosiano's main shareholder, and the death of Pope John
Paul I in 1978 is rumoured to be linked to the Ambrosiano scandal.
Calvi, often referred to as "God's Banker", was also
involved the Vatican Bank, Istituto per le Opere di Religione, in
his dealings, and was close to Bishop Paul Marcinkus, the bank's
chairman. Ambrosiano also provided funds for political parties in
Italy, and for both the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua and its
Sandinista opposition. There are also rumours that it provided money
for Solidarity in Poland. It has been widely alleged that the Vatican
Bank funded Solidarity.
Calvi used his complex network of overseas banks and companies
to move money out of Italy, to inflate share prices, and to secure
massive unsecured loans. In 1978, the Bank of Italy produced a report
on Ambrosiano that predicted future disaster. On 5 June 1982, two
weeks before the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, Calvi had written
a letter of warning to Pope John Paul II, stating that such a forthcoming
event would "provoke a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions
in which the Church will suffer the gravest damage." On 18
June 1982 Calvi's body was found hanging from scaffolding beneath
Blackfriars Bridge in the financial district of London. Calvi's
clothing was stuffed with bricks, and contained cash valued at US$14,000,
in three different currencies.
Birth control and gender roles
John Paul II's defence of traditional moral teachings of the Catholic
Church regarding gender roles, sexuality, euthanasia, artificial
contraception and abortion came under attack. Some feminists criticised
his traditional positions on the roles of women, which included
rejecting women priests.
Gay rights activists
Many gay rights activists and others criticised him for maintaining
the Church's unbroken opposition to homosexual behaviour and same-sex
marriage. During John Paul II's reign, the Vatican described homosexuality
as an "objective disorder" and in his own book Memory
and Identity John Paul II describes the concept of gay families
as an "ideology of evil", phrases which incensed many
parts of the LGBT community.
Problems with traditionalists
In addition to all the criticism from those demanding modernisation,
traditionalist Catholics sometimes denounced him as well. These
issues included demanding a return to the Tridentine Mass and repudiation
of the reforms instituted after the Second Vatican Council, such
as the use of the vernacular language in the formerly Latin Roman
Rite Mass, ecumenism, and the principle of religious liberty. He
was also accused by these critics for allowing and appointing liberal
bishops in their sees and thus silently promoting Modernism, which
was firmly condemned as the "synthesis of all heresies"
by his predecessor Pope St. Pius X. In 1988, the controversial traditionalist
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the Society of St. Pius X
(1970), was excommunicated under John Paul II because of the unapproved
ordination of four bishops, which was called by the Holy See a "schismatic
act".
The World Day of Prayer for Peace, with a meeting in Assisi, Italy,
in 1986, in which the Pope prayed only with the Christians, was
heavily criticised as giving the impression that syncretism and
indifferentism were openly embraced by the Papal Magisterium. When
a second ‘Day of Prayer for Peace in the World’ was held, in 2002,
it was condemned as confusing the laity and compromising to "false
religions". Likewise criticised was his kissing of the Qur'an
in Damascus, Syria, on one of his travels on 6 May 2001. His call
for religious freedom was not always supported; bishops like Antônio
de Castro Mayer promoted religious tolerance, but at the same time
rejected the Vatican II principle of religious liberty as being
liberalist and already condemned by Pope Pius IX in his ‘Syllabus
errorum’ (1864) and at the First Vatican Council.
Some Catholics oppose his beatification and potential canonisation
for the above reasons.
Religion and AIDS
John Paul's position against artificial birth control, including
the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV, was harshly criticised
by doctors and AIDS activists, who said that it led to countless
deaths and millions of AIDS orphans. Critics have also claimed that
large families are caused by lack of contraception and exacerbate
Third World poverty and problems such as street children in South
America. The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development published
a paper stating, "Any strategy that enables a person to move
from a higher-risk towards the lower end of the continuum, [we]
believe, is a valid risk reduction strategy."
Centralisation
He was criticised for recentralising power back to the Vatican
following what some viewed as a decentralisation by Pope John XXIII.
As such he was regarded by some as a strict authoritarian. Conversely,
he was also criticised for spending far too much time preparing
for and undertaking foreign travel. The frequency of his trips,
it was said, not only undermined the "specialness" of
papal visits, but took him away from important business at the Vatican
and allowed the Church, administratively speaking, to drift. Especially
in South America, he was criticised for conservative bias in his
appointments of bishops; with an unusually long reign of over 25
years, the majority of bishops in place at his death had been appointed
by him.
Social programs
There was strong criticism of the pope for the controversy surrounding
the alleged use of charitable social programs as a means of converting
people in the Third World to Catholicism. The Pope created an uproar
in the Indian subcontinent when he suggested that a great harvest
of faith would be witnessed on the subcontinent in the third Christian
millennium.
Protestant fundamentalists
In 1988, when Pope John Paul II was delivering a speech to the
European Parliament, then-leader of the Democratic Unionist Party
(DUP) and Moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, Ian
Paisley, shouted "I denounce you as the antichrist!" and
held up a red banner reading "Pope John Paul II ANTICHRIST".
Archduke Otto of Austria, the last Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary
snatched Paisley's banner and, along with other MEPs, helped eject
him from the chamber. The Pope continued with his address after
Paisley had been ejected.
Medjugorje apparitions
A number of quotes about the apparitions of Medjugorje have been
attributed to John Paul II. In 1998, when a certain German gathered
various statements which were supposedly made by the Pope and Cardinal
Ratzinger, and then forwarded them to the Vatican in the form of
a memorandum, Ratzinger responded in writing on 22 July 1998: "The
only thing I can say regarding statements on Medjugorje ascribed
to the Holy Father and myself is that they are complete invention."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II
Re-published from TrueChristianity.info
in March 2013
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