The Pope returned to the Gemelli the following day, where his personal physician, Dr. Renato Buzzonetti, decided that a tracheotomy had to be performed to allow the Pope to breathe more easily and to avoid another episode of near suffocation. John Paul asked whether the operation couldn’t be postponed until the summer holidays; the reaction from Buzzonetti and the other physicians, Archbishop Dziwisz recalled, immediately persuaded the Pope that a delay until the summer was not an option. Dr. Buzzonetti assured John Paul that “it will be a simple operation.” True to form, the Pope parried back, “Simple for whom?” The tracheotomy was performed successfully, but it was only afterward, Dziwisz remembered, that John Paul “concretely realized” what the doctors had meant when they had told him that the operation would render him mute for a time. The Pope signaled to Dziwisz that he wanted something on which to write, and then scrawled, “What have they done to me?! But … totus tuus”—chagrin combined with yet another sign of Karol Wojtyła’s determination to bend his will to God’s under the protection of the Virgin Mary.27
During his two and a half weeks at the Gemelli—his second hospitalization in a month—John Paul II continued to rely on Archbishop Sandri as his voice, with Sandri leading the Angelus and delivering the Pope’s Angelus message in St. Peter’s Square on February 27 and March 6, while the Pope offered a blessing from the window of his hospital suite. Sandri led the Angelus from the Gemelli on March 13, with the Pope managing a few remarks to the crowd gathered there and to those who could see him via television on large screens in St. Peter’s Square.28 The Sostituto remembered being “powerfully impressed” by the Pope’s “humility in having me read his words. I blessed the people in his name, and I saw John Paul II humbly making the sign of the cross as he received what amounted to his own blessing through me.”29
John Paul began daily business meetings in his hospital suite less than a week after the tracheotomy, meeting with Sandri, Secretary of State Sodano, Cardinal Ratzinger, and Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.30 The Pope concelebrated Mass with Archbishop Dziwisz and others every day; at noon on March 9, shortly after the Mass was completed, John Paul, wearing the purple chasuble of the Lenten season, gave an impromptu blessing to the hundreds who were waiting outside the Gemelli in an ongoing and spontaneous prayer vigil.31 Two days later, on March 11, John Paul concelebrated Mass with Cardinal Polycarp Pengo and Bishop Severine Niwemugizi of Tanzania, who were in Rome for the ad limina visit; his visitors were in tears, moved by the Pope’s continuing breathing difficulties, his determination, and his composure.32
At the Angelus on March 13, John Paul II thanked the media for their “presence and attention,” because of which “the faithful in every part of the world can feel that I am closer and can accompany me with their affection and prayers.”33 That evening, the Pope was driven back to the Vatican, through another throng of cheering Romans, some in ranks ten deep along the streets. The backs of his hands were deeply discolored from the injections and intravenous lines, Archbishop Sandri remembered, and the Pope was “trembling with the chill.” Yet that physical disfigurement and weakness was, Sandri said, “the Gospel of the silent mystery of his friendship with God for the salvation of the world—his silent Mass with God.”34
Three close observers of the pontificate—the Polish ambassador to the Holy See, Hanna Suchocka, the Canadian writer Raymond de Souza, and the physicist Piotr Malecki, Karol Wojtyła’s first altar boy at St. Florian’s Church in Kraków and a Środowisko veteran—caught something of the extraordinary reaction to John Paul’s courage in suffering in several well-chosen phrases. This was, Ambassador Suchocka said, “his via crucis,” and if some parts of the media could not quite grasp that or understand it, the people who came to the Gemelli and who cheered the frail Pope on his way back to the Vatican had an inkling of it, and wanted to share in it and support him. At the same time, Father de Souza wrote, this was not a deathwatch, but a “lifewatch,” in which the Church was being invited to “live this moment together with her chief shepherd.” The “reflection, contemplation, and prayer” that John Paul’s struggles to continue his mission elicited from the people of the Church were not “something to pass the time until the Church can get back to work—they are the work of the Church.” Dr. Malecki’s comment was succinct and to the point: “I think they’re finally beginning to understand him.”35
THE FINAL STATIONS
John Paul had come back to the Vatican to die, for it was now as clear as such things could be that the end was at hand—and he wanted to die in what had become his home, as close as possible to the bones of Peter. For the first time in twenty-six years, John Paul was unable to lead the Church’s Holy Week liturgies in person. Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the papal vicar for Rome, took the Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re celebrated the Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday, and Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo celebrated the Mass of the Lord’s Supper in St. Peter’s that evening. Cardinal James Francis Stafford presided at the Good Friday commemoration of the Lord’s Passion in St. Peter’s, and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger led the Way of the Cross that evening at the Colosseum and presided at the Great Vigil of Easter in the Vatican basilica on Holy Saturday night. Cardinal Angelo Sodano took the outdoor Easter Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square. At each of the major Holy Week liturgies, a message from the Pope was read by the cardinal presiding.
On Palm Sunday, the Pope had appeared in the window of the papal apartment after the Mass had concluded, and used an olive branch to bless the crowd in the square; once again, Archbishop Sandri was the “voice” of the Pope’s Angelus message. Now, John Paul badly wanted to speak to the Easter throng in the square on March 27 and to give the Urbi et Orbi blessing. But it was not to be. He had practiced speaking for days beforehand, but when the moment came, nothing would come out. Stanisław Dziwisz recalled the drama of the moment:
[T]he Pope stood motionless in the window, as if frozen. He must have been overwhelmed by a combination of emotion and pain. In any case, he couldn’t give the blessing. He whispered, “My voice is gone.” Then, still silent, he made the sign of the cross three times, waved to the crowd, and gestured that he wanted to withdraw.
He was deeply shaken and saddened. He also seemed exhausted by his unsuccessful attempt to speak. The people in the square were full of emotion; they were applauding him and calling out his name, but he felt the whole weight of the powerlessness and suffering he had displayed. He looked into my eyes and said, “Maybe it would be better for me to die if I can’t fulfill the mission that has been entrusted to me.” Before I could answer, he added, “Thy will be done.… Totus tuus.”36
John Paul tried again, when 5,000 youngsters from Milan came to the square on Wednesday, March 30—the day it was announced that the Pope had been given a nasal feeding tube. Dziwisz tried to convince him to simply give his blessing, “but he wanted to say something, even if it was just a word, to thank the kids.” So he indicated that the microphone should be brought closer. But, once again, he couldn’t get a word out. This time, Dziwisz recalled, “he didn’t even show the impatience that he had displayed at Easter. By this point, he knew. He was ready.”37
The twelfth station of the Via Crucis of Pope John Paul II, the station at Calvary, began at 11 A.M. on March 31. While he was preparing to concelebrate Mass in the papal apartment’s chapel, “his body was jolted as if something had exploded inside him,” as Archbishop Dziwisz put it later.38 Septic shock, caused by a urinary tract infection, had set in; the Pope’s temperature was 104 degrees and his cardiovascular system was in collapse. Dziwisz reminded Dr. Buzzonetti of the Pope’s desire to die in the Vatican, so John Paul was taken to his room, where, in his bed, he could look on images of the suffering Christ and of the Black Madonna, Our Lady of Częstochowa, as well as the small photographs of his parents that had long been there. Mass was said at the Pope’s bedside in the evening, and John Paul managed to raise his han
d at the words of consecration over the bread and wine, and to strike his breast at the Agnus Dei. He received holy communion at 7:17 P.M. and was once again given the Sacrament of the Sick by Cardinal Marian Jaworski. The household sisters, his secretaries, the doctors and nurses all came to the bedside to kiss the Pope’s hand, and John Paul managed to whisper each one’s name. The day ended with a holy hour of reflection and prayer, at the Pope’s request; it concluded with the household sisters singing.39
Friday, April 1, was a “day of prayer,” Dziwisz recalled. The Pope concelebrated Mass and prayed both the Stations of the Cross and the hours of the Divine Office from his bed; passages from the Bible were read to him by his old friend Father Tadeusz Styczeń. He could “say only a few syllables, and even that was difficult,” according to Dziwisz.40 Senior churchmen came to say good-bye, and the Pope insisted on thanking Francesco, the man responsible for cleaning his apartment. At an evening Mass for the Diocese of Rome at St. John Lateran, Cardinal Ruini told the crowds that the end was near, and that the Pope could “already see and touch the Lord.”41
On April 2, John Paul managed to bless icon crowns that would be placed on the image of Our Lady of Częstochowa in the Vatican grotto and others that would be sent to the Jasna Góra monastery in Częstochowa itself. After he had tried for some time to say something, those in his immediate papal family finally understood that he had a message for the young people who were keeping vigil in the square outside his window: “I have sought you out. Now you have come to me. I thank you.” Father Styczeń read aloud to him from the Gospel of St. John—something he had done for himself, a chapter each day, during his graduate student days in Rome; Styczeń got through the ninth chapter before the end.42
Sister Tobiana, who had worked with John Paul for decades, heard his last words. The Pope was looking at her, so she came to the bedside and leaned over, placing her ear near his mouth. In the weakest of voices, he made his last request: “Let me go to the Father’s house.”
At about 7 P.M., John Paul II slipped into a coma, and, according to Polish custom, a small candle was lit and placed in the window of the bedroom. Two hours later, Archbishop Dziwisz felt “a kind of imperative command inside me” and began to celebrate Mass for the Vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday, the Octave of Easter, with Cardinal Jaworski, Archbishop Stanisław Ryłko (a Cracovian priest who was president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity), Father Styczeń, and the junior secretary, Msgr. Mieczysław Mokrzycki. The appointed Gospel reading for the day seemed especially appropriate—the appearance of the Risen Christ to the apostles on the first Easter night, and the greeting, “Peace be with you” (John 20.19). Dziwisz was able to give the Pope a few drops of the blood of Christ as Viaticum, the “food for the journey.”
At 9:37 P.M., the monitor display showed that the heart of John Paul II had stopped beating. Dr. Buzzonetti leaned over the Pope and then said to those present, “He’s gone home to the Lord.” Karol Wojtyła’s earthly pilgrimage was complete. The concelebrants and the Polish sisters, “as if we had all agreed beforehand,” spontaneously sang the Church’s ancient hymn of thanksgiving, the Te Deum, while crying “tears of grief and joy at the same time.”43
Archbishop Sandri, having been called by Archbishop Dziwisz, came into the bedroom a few minutes after the Pope died, while the electrocardiogram was still running, to confirm the death. As Sandri later recalled, Sister Tobiana was kneeling beside the bed with her hand nestling the Pope’s head; John Paul’s arms were outstretched in the form of the cross, and his face was “utterly peaceful.” Cardinal Ratzinger, Cardinal Sodano, Cardinal Ruini, Cardinal Eduardo Martínez Somalo (the Camerlengo, or chamberlain, of the Church), and Archbishop James Harvey (the prefect of the papal household) came in next. Sandri, who was to make the worldwide public announcement in St. Peter’s Square, “didn’t know what to say” and was “upset and confused” in finding his way through the Apostolic Palace, whose halls he knew as well as anyone. When he arrived in the square, however, “the words just came out: ‘our beloved Holy Father has gone home to the Father’s house.’ ”44
Cardinal Ruini, as vicar, formally announced to the people of Rome the death of their bishop on the evening of April 2: “Let us thank God for having given us a Pastor after his own heart, a witness to Jesus Christ in his life and with his words.” May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Ruini concluded, “clasp him in her Mother’s arms and protect the people of Rome.”45
The body of John Paul II remained in the chapel of the papal apartment overnight, in the presence of the eucharistic Christ and watched over by the Black Madonna, whose icon the Pope had affixed to the apse wall of the chapel shortly after his election.
OBITS AND ARGUMENTS
On Sunday, April 3, the late Pope’s body was taken to the Sala Clementina of the Apostolic Palace, after the death had been officially certified and the death certificate prepared and signed. In the Clementina, the Pope lay on a bier, vested in the red chasuble worn on the feasts of apostles, with the white wool pallium of his office as a metropolitan archbishop around his neck and a rosary clutched in his hands; nestled in his left arm was the silver crozier-crucifix he had adopted from Paul VI and used throughout the pontificate in an extraordinary diversity of venues. In death, he remained himself, wearing the brownish red loafers he had always preferred to formal papal slippers, causing no end of grief to the self-appointed custodians of papal sartorial propriety. The marks of so many needles were visible on the bruises on the backs of his hands, but the face that had often seemed frozen in recent years was now natural in repose.
Among those with striking reactions to the death of John Paul II were two men whose ideas of world politics were dramatically different from the late Pope’s, but who nonetheless held him in considerable esteem. Henry Kissinger suggested that John Paul had likely had a greater impact on the twentieth century than any other man—a remarkable judgment from a scholar and diplomat who had lived a very different spiritual and political life than Karol Wojtyła. Kissinger’s longtime rival, Zbigniew Brzeziński, who had briefed the Pope in Polish during the Solidarity crisis of December 1980 (and had heard the Pope ask Stanisław Dziwisz in a stage whisper, “Do I have a private telephone number?”), believed that John Paul had connected his Petrine ministry to a spiritual hunger that was global in character.
The British historian Timothy Garton Ash, a self-described “agnostic liberal” and one of the first Anglophone historians of Solidarity, argued that John Paul II had been “the first world leader”—someone whose rhetorical skills, personal witness, and courage had led to things happening in what the world often referred to as “the real world.” But it was the American columnist Charles Krauthammer, whose great-great-grandfather had been chief rabbi of Kraków, who wrote perhaps the finest appreciation of John Paul II’s public accomplishment, and how his life had answered one of the great questions of the late modern world:
It was Stalin who gave us the most famous formulation of that cynical … philosophy known as “realism”—the idea that all that ultimately matters in the relations among nations is power. “The Pope? How many divisions does he have?”
Stalin could only have said that because he never met John Paul II. We have just lost the man whose life was the ultimate refutation of “realism.” Within ten years of his elevation to the papacy, John Paul had given his answer to Stalin and to the ages: More than you have. More than you can imagine …
Under the benign and deeply humane vision of this Pope, the power of faith led to the liberation of half a continent.… We mourn him for restoring strength to the Western idea of the free human spirit at a moment of deepest doubt and despair. And for seeing us through to today’s great moment of possibility for both faith and freedom.46
The editors of the New York Times, whose predecessors in 1979 had declared that the Pope’s Nine Days would have no effect on the politics of east central Europe, continued to miss the mark, arguing in an obituary editorial that John Paul was someone w
ho had “used the tools of modernity to struggle against the modern world,” a leader who had had an impact on his time “even as he railed” against it.47 Britain’s leading left-wing daily, the Guardian, had a similar reading of Wojtyła’s papacy: he had been a “doctrinaire, authoritarian pontiff.”48 Commentators long opposed to John Paul II took their last shots. The Guardians Polly Toynbee, describing the Vatican as “a potent force for cruelty and hypocrisy,” charged that John Paul had “caused the death of millions of Catholics and others in areas dominated by Catholic missionaries, in Africa and right across the world,” and suggested that “genuflecting before this corpse is scarcely different than parading before Lenin.”49 The Boston Globe’s James Carroll told one American network that John Paul had “faithfully tried to preserve [a] medieval, absolutist notion of pope-centered Catholicism with everything going out from the Vatican,” while Marco Politi of La Repubblica wrote in the London Tablet than an “intransigent” Wojtyła had “always had a problem with modernity,” displayed in his “systematic demonization of the twentieth century.”50 The popular American historian Thomas Cahill took this line of analysis the furthest in a New York Times op-ed column, suggesting that John Paul II may, “in time, be credited with destroying his Church.”51 In none of these indictments was an alternative possibility considered: that John Paul II, who had regularly applauded the great accomplishments of twentieth-century science and who had persistently supported the emergence of a global political culture in favor of human rights and democracy, was a modern man who had a very different understanding of modernity’s possibilities, difficulties, anxieties, and dangers.
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