The Great Pope

The Great Pope
(October 16, 1978 - April 2, 2005)

Karol Wojtyla
(May 18,1920 - April 2, 2005)

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VATICAN CITY (April 10) - Pope John Paul might have performed a miracle in 1998, according to his long-time secretary, boosting a popular drive to put the deceased Pontiff on the fast track to sainthood.

Two Italian newspapers quoted the secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, as saying that a wealthy American Jew recovered from incurable cancer after receiving Holy Communion from the Pope.

"Here is the first miracle," said La Stampa newspaper as Catholic faithful from around the world clamoured for the Vatican to cut the red tape surrounding canonisations and proclaim John Paul a saint straightaway.

The crowds at the Pope's funeral on Friday chanted "Subito Santo" ("make him a saint immediately"), putting pressure on the next pope to bow to the popular will.

One of the prerequisites for sainthood is that the candidate should have performed a miracle, usually a physical healing which doctors are at a loss to explain.

Italian newspapers said on Sunday there was already a thick dossier of miracles attributed to John Paul while he was alive, including the case of the unnamed American Jew.

Dziwisz is quoted by both La Stampa and Il Giornale dailies as saying that a millionaire American dying of a brain tumour insisted on seeing the Pope in the summer of 1998.

He was allowed to attend a private papal Mass and during the service took Communion, which is reserved for Catholics. Dziwisz said he realised he wasn't Catholic because he didn't know the service and afterwards gently admonished him.

"A few weeks later a friend phoned me to say that the tumour disappeared within a few hours," Dziwisz said. In recounting the story, he does not claim that the Pope performed a miracle, saying instead that the incident showed "the power of God".

Other Italian dailies were full of different tales of reported medical miracles.

La Repubblica newspaper quoted Brasilian Cardinal Francesco Marchisano as saying he himself recovered his ability to speak after the Pope touched his throat following an operation that had left his vocal cords paralysed.

Corriere della Sera recounted the tale of a Mexican boy suffering from terminal leukaemia who regained his health after meeting the Pope in May 1990.

"God works in great and wonderful ways," said Mexican Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan.

Reports of purported miracles also started to emerge from the Pope's native Poland.

The PAP news agency reported that a 16-year-old named only as Rafal R. from the Polish town of Lubaczow claimed to have been cured from life-threatening lymph gland cancer after being comforted by the Pope.

"Despite the gloomy medical forecasts, the tumour went into remission. Rafal has no doubts he owes his recovery to John Paul II," said the head of a foundation that helps cancer patients.

Church rules say the first step to sainthood, known as "opening a cause", cannot start until five years after a death.

But John Paul, who broke many procedural rules in his long papacy, set a precedent by breaking that one too. In 1999, he granted a dispensation and let Mother Teresa's sainthood cause start only two years after her death.

JOHN PAUL II:

TESTAMENT

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"Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming" (Eds: Matthew 4, 42) - these words remind me of the last call, which will happen at the moment the Lord wishes. I desire to follow Him, and I desire that everything making up part of my earthly life should prepare me for this moment. I do not know when the moment will come, but like everything else, I place it too in the hands of the Mother of my Master: Totus Tuus. In the same maternal Hands I leave everything and everyone with whom my life and vocation have linked me. In these Hands I leave, above all, the Church, as well as my Nation and all humanity. I thank everyone. Of everyone I ask forgiveness. I also ask for prayer, that the Mercy of God may appear greater than my weakness and unworthiness.

During the spiritual exercises I re-read the testament of the Holy Father Paul VI. That reading prompted me to write this testament.

I leave no property behind me of which it is necessary to dispose. As for the everyday objects that were of use to me, I ask they be distributed as seems appropriate. My personal notes are to be burned. I ask that this be attended to by Fr. Stanislaw, whom I thank for his collaboration and help, so prolonged over the years and so understanding. As for all other thanks, I leave them in my heart before God Himself, because it is difficult to express them.

As for the funeral, I repeat the same dispositions as were given by the Holy Father Paul VI. (Here is a note in the margin: burial in the bare earth, not in a sarcophagus, 13.3.92) (Eds: March 13, 1992).

"apud Dominum misericordia et copiosa apud Eum redemptio" (Eds: Latin for "With the Lord there is mercy, and with him plentiful redemption.")

I express my profound trust that, despite all my weakness, the Lord will grant me all the grace necessary to face according to His will any task, trial or suffering that He will ask of His servant, in the course of his life. I also trust that He will never allow me - through some attitude of mine: words, deeds or omissions - to betray my obligations in this holy Petrine See.

Also during these spiritual exercises, I have reflected on the truth of the Priesthood of Christ in the perspective of that Transit that for each of us is the moment of our own death. For us the Resurrection of Christ is an eloquent (added above: decisive) sign of departing from this world - to be born in the next, in the future world.

I have read, then, the copy of my testament from last year, also written during the spiritual exercises - I compared it with the testament of my great predecessor and Father, Paul VI, with that sublime witness to death of a Christian and a Pope - and I have renewed within me an awareness of the questions to which the copy of 6.III.1979 (Eds: March 6, 1979) refers, prepared by me (in a somewhat provisional way).

Today I wish to add only this: that each of us must bear in mind the prospect of death. And must be ready to present himself before the Lord and Judge - Who is at the same time Redeemer and Father. I too continually take this into consideration, entrusting that decisive moment to the Mother of Christ and of the Church - to the Mother of my hope.

The times in which we live are unutterably difficult and disturbed. The path of the Church has also become difficult and tense, a characteristic trial of these times - both for the Faithful and for Pastors. In some Countries (as, for example, in those about which I read during the spiritual exercises), the Church is undergoing a period of such persecution as to be in no way lesser than that of early centuries, indeed it surpasses them in its degree of cruelty and hatred. "Sanguis martyrum - semen christianorum." And apart from this - many people die innocently even in this Country in which we are living.

Once again, I wish to entrust myself totally to the Lord's grace. He Himself will decide when and how I must end my earthly life and pastoral ministry. In life and in death, Totus Tuus in Mary Immaculate. Accepting that death, even now, I hope that Christ will give me the grace for the final passage, in other words (Vatican notation: `my') Easter. I also hope that He makes (Vatican notation: "that death") useful for this more important cause that I seek to serve: the salvation of men and women, the safeguarding of the human family and, in that, of all nations and all peoples (among them, I particularly address my earthly Homeland), and useful for the people with whom He particularly entrusted me, for the question of the Church, for the glory of God Himself.

I do not wish to add anything to what I wrote a year ago - only to express this readiness and, at the same time, this trust, to which the current spiritual exercises have again disposed me.

In the course of this year's spiritual exercises I have read (a number of times) the text of the testament of 6.III.1979 (Eds: March 6, 1979). Although I still consider it provisional (not definitive), I leave it in the form in which it exists. I change nothing (for now), and neither do I add anything, as concerns the dispositions contained therein.

The attempt upon my life on 13.V.1981 (Eds: May 13, 1981) in some way confirmed the accuracy of the words written during the period of the spiritual exercises of 1980 (24.II - 1.III) (Eds: Feb. 24-March 1).

All the more deeply I now feel that I am totally in the Hands of God - and I remain continually at the disposal of my Lord, entrusting myself to Him in His Immaculate Mother (Totus Tuus)

In connection with the last sentence in my testament of 6.III.1979 (March 6, 1979) ("concerning the site / that is, the site of the funeral / let the College of Cardinals and Compatriots decide") - I will make it clear that I have in mind: the metropolitan of Krakow or the General Council of the Episcopate of Poland - In the meantime I ask the College of Cardinals to satisfy, as far as possible, any demands of the above-mentioned.

Again - as regards the expression "College of Cardinals and Compatriots": the "College of Cardinals" has no obligation to consult "Compatriots" on this subject, however it can do so, if for some reason it feels it is right to do so.

1. When, on Oct. 16, 1978 the conclave of cardinals chose John Paul II, the primate of Poland, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski told me: "The duty of the new Pope will be to introduce the Church into the Third Millennium." I don't know if I am repeating this sentence exactly, but at least this was the sense of what I heard at the time. This was said by the Man who entered history as the primate of the Millennium. A great primate. I was a witness to his mission, to his total entrustment. To his battles. To his victory. "Victory, when it comes, will be a victory through Mary" - The primate of the Millennium used to repeat these words of his predecessor, Cardinal August Hlond.

In this way I was prepared in some manner for the duty that presented itself to me on October 16, 1978. As I write these words, the Jubilee Year 2000 is already a reality. The night of Dec. 24, 1999 the symbolic Door of the Great Jubilee in the Basilica of St. Peter's was opened, then that of St. John Lateran, then St. Mary Major - on New Year's, and on Jan. 19 the Door of the Basilica of St. Paul's Outside-the-Walls. This last event, given its ecumenical character, has remained impressed in my memory in a special way.

2. As the Jubilee Year progressed, day by day the 20th century closes behind us and the 21st century opens. According to the plans of Divine Providence I was allowed to live in the difficult century that is retreating into the past, and now, in the year in which my life reaches 80 years ('octogesima adveniens'), it is time to ask oneself if it is not the time to repeat with the biblical Simeone 'nunc dimittis' (Ed: Latin for Now Master you may let your servant go.")

On May 13, 1981, the day of the attack on the Pope during the general audience in St. Peter's Square, Divine Providence saved me in a miraculous way from death. The One Who is the Only Lord of life and death Himself prolonged my life, in a certain way He gave it to me again. From that moment it belonged to Him even more. I hope He will help me to recognize up to what point I must continue this service to which I was called on October 16, 1978. I ask him to call me back when He Himself wishes. 'In life and in death we belong to the Lord ... we are the Lord's. (cf. Rm 14,8). I also hope that, as long as I am called to fulfil the Petrine service in the Church, the Mercy of God will give me the necessary strength for this service.

3. As I do every year during spiritual exercises I read my testament from 6-III-1979 (Eds: March 6, 1979). I continue to maintain the dispositions contained in this text. What then, and even during successive spiritual exercises, has been added constitutes a reflection of the difficult and tense general situation which marked the '80s. From autumn of the year 1989 this situation changed. The last decade of the century was free of the previous tensions; that does not mean that it did not bring with it new problems and difficulties. In a special way may Divine Providence be praised for this, that the period of the so-called 'cold war' ended without violent nuclear conflict, the danger of which weighed on the world in the preceding period.

4. Being on the threshold of the third millennium "in medio Ecclesiae" (Eds: Latin for "inside the Church") I wish once again to express gratitude to the Holy Spirit for the great gift of Vatican Council II, to which, together with the entire Church - and above all the entire episcopacy - I feel indebted. I am convinced that for a long time to come the new generations will draw upon the riches that this Council of the 20th century gave us. As a bishop who participated in this conciliar event from the first to the last day, I wish to entrust this great patrimony to all those who are and who will be called in the future to realize it. For my part I thank the eternal Pastor Who allowed me to serve this very great cause during the course of all the years of my pontificate.

"In medio Ecclesiae".... from the first years of my service as a bishop - precisely thanks to the Council - I was able to experience the fraternal communion of the Episcopacy. As a priest of the archdiocese of Krakow I experienced the fraternal communion among priests - and the Council opened a new dimension to this experience.

5. How many people should I list! Probably the Lord God has called to Himself the majority of them - as to those who are still on this side, may the words of this testament recall them, everyone and everywhere, wherever they are.

During the more than 20 years that I am fulfilling the Petrine service "in medio Ecclesiae" I have experienced the benevolence and even more the fecund collaboration of so many cardinals, archbishops and bishops, so many priests, so many consecrated persons - brothers and sisters - and, lastly, so very, very many lay persons, within the Curia, in the vicariate of the diocese of Rome, as well as outside these milieux.

How can I not embrace with grateful memory all the bishops of the world whom I have met in "ad limina Apostolorum" (Eds: reference to required, periodic visits)! How can I not recall so many non-Catholic Christian brothers! And the rabbi of Rome and so many representatives of non-Christian religions! And how many representatives of the world of culture, science, politics, and of the means of social communication!

6. As the end of my life approaches I return with my memory to the beginning, to my parents, to my brother, to the sister (I never knew because she died before my birth), to the parish in Wadowice, where I was baptized, to that city I love, to my peers, friends from elementary school, high school and the university, up to the time of the occupation when I was a worker, and then in the parish of Niegowic, then St. Florian's in Krakow, to the pastoral ministry of academics, to the milieu of ... to all milieux ... to Krakow and to Rome ... to the people who were entrusted to me in a special way by the Lord.

"In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum." (Eds: Latin for "in your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit')

John Paul II, born in 1920, elected pope in 1978, the first non-Italian pope since 1523. John Paul’s energetic approach to his office, unprecedented world travel, and firm religious conservatism have enhanced the visibility of the papacy in both the Roman Catholic Church and the non-Catholic world. John Paul’s view of the church has been marked by a distrust of speculations by theologians and moral judgments by lay people and by a stress on clerical leadership and papal authority.

John Paul II was born Karol Wojtyla on May 18, 1920, in Wadowice, Poland. He enrolled at Jagiellonian University in Krak�w, Poland, in 1938. Outgoing and physically active, he hiked and skied in the nearby Tatra Mountains and acted in a student drama group. After the Nazi occupation of Poland in 1939 at the start of World War II, the university closed and Wojtyla worked as a laborer in a stone quarry for two years. In 1942 he began preparing for the priesthood at a seminary in Krak�w.

Wojtyla returned to the Jagiellonian University when it reopened after the end of World War II in 1945. He was ordained in 1946 and began studies at the Pontifical Angelicum University in Rome, Italy, where he earned a Ph.D. degree in theology in 1948 with a thesis on Saint John of the Cross.

During the 1950s Wojtyla served as a parish priest in and around Krak�w, earned a second doctorate in theology at the Catholic University of Lublin, Poland, and became a professor of ethics at that university. In 1958 he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Krak�w.

Wojtyla became archbishop of Krak�w in 1964 and was made a cardinal in 1967 by Pope Paul VI. In these posts Wojtyla learned firsthand about the church’s precarious status under Communist rule. He broadened his horizons by taking part in the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), and he represented Poland in five international bishops’ synods between 1967 and 1977.

During his years in Krak�w Wojtyla also found time to write plays, notably The Jeweler’s Shop (1960) published under a pseudonym, and poetry. His extensive ethical and theological writings include Fruitful and Responsible Love and Sign of Contradiction, both published in 1979.

On October 16, 1978, after the very brief reign of Pope John Paul I, Wojtyla was elected pope, taking the name John Paul II. He was enthroned on October 22, 1978. His election as the first non-Italian pope in 455 years typified a globalization of the Roman Catholic Church’s central administration that had been underway for a generation.

The new pope believed that the Catholic Church needed to avail itself of all the modern media of mass communication to maintain the faith and enthusiasm of its members. A man of unusual physical energy, John Paul embarked on a grueling schedule of public appearances at the Vatican and in almost every part of the world. The crowds loved him, and he responded warmly to their adulation.

On May 13, 1981, John Paul was shot at close range and severely wounded during a general audience at Saint Peter’s Square in the Vatican by Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turkish gunman whose motives remain unclear. John Paul made a good recovery and nine months later resumed his travels.

John Paul II issued a long series of encyclicals (formal statements or letters). Of these, perhaps the most important were Redemptor hominis (Redeemer of Man, 1979), on the condition of the Roman Catholic Church; Slavorum apostoli (Apostles of Slavs, 1985), on the condition of the church in Eastern Europe; Sollicitudo rei socialis (On Social Concern, 1987), on the abuses of Communist and capitalist societies; Veritatis splendor (Splendor of Truth, 1993), on Catholic moral principles; Evangelium vitae (The Gospel of Life, 1995), on the sanctity of human life; Ut unum sint (That They May Be One, 1995), on ecumenism; Fides et ratio (Faith and Reason, 1998), on the relationship between religion and philosophy; and Ecclesia de Eucharistia (The Church from the Eucharist, 2003), on the place of the Eucharist in the life of the church.

John Paul’s writings brought a new style to papal letters. They were totally different from the crisp, strictly theological encyclicals issued by Pius XII a generation before. John Paul II wrote lengthy texts, often full of emotional appeals and quotations from his own previous pronouncements.

John Paul’s message was decidedly conservative and strongly opposed to secularizing (worldly) tendencies in the modern world that left little room for religious authority. Openly and secretly, the pope gave strong support to the Solidarity labor union in Poland. Solidarity was one of the most important groups whose work contributed to the downfall of Communist governments in Poland and across Eastern Europe in 1989.

John Paul tried to promote the growth of the Roman Catholic Church in third world countries. However, he strongly opposed so-called liberation theologians who sought to align the church directly with the sufferings and struggles of the poor and oppressed. To audiences in Western Europe and North America John Paul stressed the evils of an individualistic “consumer” society, and he reaffirmed traditional Catholic moral teachings about private (especially sexual) conduct and about the obligation to share wealth with the poor. With all Catholics John Paul endeavored to strengthen papal authority.

In the 1980s and 1990s John Paul II made numerous journeys, including visits to Africa, Asia, and the Americas. In September 1993 he traveled to the Baltic republics in the first papal visit to countries of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). He influenced the restoration of democracy and religious freedom throughout Eastern Europe, especially in his native Poland. Dealing forcefully with dissent within the church, he reaffirmed Roman Catholic teachings against homosexuality, abortion, and “artificial” methods of human reproduction and birth control, and in favor of priestly celibacy. Although weakened by Parkinson disease and arthritis, John Paul did not allow infirmity to curtail his travels in the early 2000s.

Issues of sexuality and gender played a disproportionate part in the controversies of John Paul’s pontificate. His condemnation of contraception brought him into collision with those who promoted it as a solution for the overpopulation problem of the third world and with Catholics in developed countries who sought greater personal choice. John Paul’s teaching that abortion not only was morally wrong but also should be legally prohibited raised serious concerns about church-state relations.

The refusal of John Paul II to permit the ordination of women and married men intensified a serious shortage of priests in the Catholic Church. Catholics in many places lacked clergy to administer the sacraments, but the pope continued to bar the ordination of the vast majority of potential candidates for the priesthood because of their gender or marital status.

A more damaging issue relating to sexuality arose during the 1990s and came to a head early in the new millennium. A series of widely reported scandals arose from accusations of sexual misconduct on the part of members of the clergy. The scandals rocked the church in the United States and around the world. A relatively small percentage of Catholic priests were accused of sexually abusing adolescents who were under their pastoral care. A much larger percentage of bishops and other supervisory personnel were then found to have responded to such accusations with more concern for the prevention of scandal than for the protection of children. The expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars to settle damage suits brought many dioceses to the brink of bankruptcy. The suits were brought by people who claimed they had been victims of sexual abuse.

John Paul II responded to this crisis with condemnations of clerical misconduct and calls for a return to higher moral standards. However, hampered by old age and illness, he was unable to exercise significant leadership on this issue. More important, the scandals had a grave impact on his vision of the church. The ability of Catholic priests and bishops to exercise moral leadership in society at large was severely compromised. The shortage of priests in the church was not likely to be improved by the disrepute that some priests had brought upon the clergy. Some commentators wondered whether the church’s insistence on clerical celibacy might have contributed to the magnitude of the sexual abuse scandal. Finally, John Paul II’s exclusion of lay people from most leadership roles in the church and his tendency to wrap management decisions in secrecy were increasingly seen as having contributed to the problem.

John Paul II set his personal stamp on several aspects of church life. Vatican II had reformed many Catholic practices, and had raised hopes for further change. John Paul continued to implement the council’s decrees, but always from a conservative perspective. Two of his most conspicuous accomplishments were the establishment of a new Code of Canon Law (1983) and a new Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992). In his appointments of bishops, he showed a marked preference for those who seemed to share his conservative opinions.

John Paul II resisted secularization in the church. In redefining the responsibilities of laity, priests, and religious orders, he rejected ordination of women and opposed direct political participation and office-holding by priests. His ecumenical moves were toward the Orthodox Church and Anglican Communion rather than toward European Protestantism. In 1999 John Paul traveled to Romania and met with the patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church; this was the first papal visit ever to a predominantly Orthodox country.

In 2000, a Holy Year in which the church reflected on its 2,000-year history, John Paul asked forgiveness for sins committed by Roman Catholics. Although he mentioned no specific errors, several cardinals acknowledged past injustice and intolerance toward non-Catholics. These acknowledgements were understood to include the Crusades and the Inquisition and inaction during the Holocaust. The apology preceded a papal pilgrimage to the Holy Land and a visit to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Israel.

John Paul II canonized more than 480 saints, a larger number than any previous pope. These included some large groups—103 martyrs in Korea, 117 martyrs in Vietnam, and 120 martyrs in China—but also many notable individuals. He canonized two French nuns who came to North America: Marguerite Bourgeoys, who worked in 17th-century Qu�bec, and Rose-Philippine Duchesne, who worked in 19th-century Missouri and Kansas. He canonized Katharine Drexel, an American heiress who became a nun and worked among African Americans and Native Americans. He canonized Polish Franciscan priest Maximilian Kolbe and German Carmelite nun Edith Stein, both of whom were killed at the Nazi death camp Auschwitz during World War II. In general, his canonizations substantially increased the number of Catholic saints from non-European countries.

By the same token, John Paul II continued the internationalization of the Vatican bureaucracy and the College of Cardinals. During his long reign, he appointed more than 230 cardinals. They came from all parts of the world, and they included fifteen Americans. Joseph Bernardin, archbishop of Chicago; John O’Connor, archbishop of New York; and Jesuit theologian Avery Dulles were among the best-known Americans he elevated to the rank of cardinal. Francis Arinze, a Nigerian whom John Paul appointed Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in 2002, was looked upon as one of the most influential figures in the Vatican.

In Redemptor hominis, his first encyclical, John Paul II had paid tribute to Paul VI: “He knew how to preserve a providential tranquility and balance even in the most critical moments.” Nobody would have said that about John Paul II. He was distinguished by his strenuous travels and his stance on controversial issues; moreover, his leadership of a conservative minority within the church seemed to reflect an impatience with moderate and progressive Catholics.