Born in Wadowice, Poland, on May 18, 1920, Karol Josef Wojtyla (voy TIH wah) was the son of a retired army officer and a school teacher. He studied literature and philosophy and later was a playwright and poet.
Wojtyla secretly studied theology during the Nazi occupation of Poland. By age 34 he had two doctorates and was a professor of ethics. A cardinal at 47, he led the only moral and social force in Poland that could counter communism.
In October 1978, Wojtyla became the first Slavic pope ever and the first non-Italian pope in 455 years. He took the name John Paul II. Within months of his election, the pope went to Poland for a June 1979 visit that some historians say helped end the Cold War.
“His secretary told me that was the great moment,” says Robert Moynihan, editor and publisher of the magazine Inside the Vatican. “There was a crowd of one million people, and he told them ‘You are men. You have dignity. Don’t crawl on your bellies.’ It was the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union.”
A few years later, in May 1981, Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca opened fire. The Pope was struck three times, and was rushed to Gemelli hospital in Rome. He would remain in hospital for nearly a month. Two and a half years later, Pope John Paul II went to the Rebibbia prison on the outskirts of Rome to visit Agca. He was there to forgive his would-be assassin.
“The obvious parallel would be Jesus forgiving people from the cross,” says the Rev. James Martin, associate editor of the Roman Catholic magazine America. “Forgiveness is really at the heart of the Christian message. … He was giving us, in his own way, a parable for our times.”
John Paul actually had pardoned Agca long before their meeting. He writes that he told his personal secretary, “I forgive the assassin,” as he was rushed to the hospital that day in 1981.
Later, he asked the faithful to “pray for my brother, whom I have sincerely forgiven.”
A charismatic man, Pope John Paul communicated his message in eight languages and traveled widely. But age and deteriorating health eventually forced the most traveled pope to cut back on his visits. He suffered from arthritis and Parkinson’s disease.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, paid a warm tribute to the life and ministry of Pope John Paul II, describing his last days as a ‘lived sermon’ for Eastertide about facing death with honesty and courage.
In a statement delivered in the precincts of Canterbury Cathedral, visited by Pope John Paul in 1982, Dr Williams said that the Pope’s life had been a demonstration of faith lived out. He praised the way in which the Pope had approached his own death with courage and acceptance.
“I think in these past few days, we’ve seen an extraordinary ‘lived sermon’ for Eastertide, about facing death with honesty and courage; facing death in the hope of a relationship which is not broken by death but continues beyond it. Pope John Paul showed his character in the way in which he met his death; clearly frustrated, clearly suffering andyet at every point accepting; facing his frailties and remaining courageous and hopeful. I feel there’s a certain appropriateness about the fact that he died within the Easter season – a time of the Church’s year which meant so much to him. It has been a season in which he was able to give a message to the whole of the Christian world, and in fact to the whole human world, that won’t be readily forgotten.”
Among those paying their respects at the Pope’s funeral will be HRH The Prince of Wales, Dr Rowan Williams, and Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Pope John Paul II
1920 – 2005
