The Life and Legacy of Pope John Paul II
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About Wyatt North Publishing
The Polish Pope
Formative Years
Early Religious Life
Karol Wojtila and the Jews, the First Chapter
The Darkening Sky
The Vocation
Life as a Priest
Karol Wojtila’s Role in Vatican II
Back in Poland
The Year With Three Popes
Pope John Paul’s Vision for the Church
Latin America
Religious Freedom
Shots Ring Out
Mother Teresa
A Leader for Youth
John Paul II and Gender Issues
A Dark Time
Interreligious Dialogue
Christian Ecumenism
The Anglican Communion
John Paul II and Eastern Orthodoxy
John Paul II and Buddhism
John Paul II and Islam
John Paul II and the Jewish People
Infirmity and Death
Legacy
The Pope and the Rosary
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Foreword
On July 5, Pope Francis approved John Paul for sainthood, saying that Pope John XXIII and John Paul II will be canonized together. The date has not yet been established, although December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception has been suggested. Irrespective of the details, John Paul’s canonization appears imminent.
From Poland, John Paul’s longtime private secretary, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, rejoiced at the news. “I thank God that I will live to see the elevation to sainthood the person who I served with love to the last beating of his heart,” he stated. Abraham Foxman, as director of the Jewish organization the Anti-Defamation League, received four audiences with Pope John Paul. He spoke for John Paul’s numerous supporters when he said, “For many of us Pope John Paul is already a saint, this just formalizes it.”
John Paul’s pontificate lasted nearly twenty-seven years, one of the longest in papal history. During that time he had an unprecedented amount of contact with the public, including Catholics, non-Catholics, and foreign leaders. He made 104 pastoral visits outside Italy, and 146 within. The Vatican estimates that more than 17.6 million pilgrims participated in his regular Wednesday general audiences alone. He made 38 official visits and met with government leaders on 984 different occasions.
The Polish Pope
Nineteen seventy-eight was called the year of three popes. When Cardinal Albino Luciani of Venice was elected to succeed Pope Paul VI, he was applauded for lovingly assuming the name of his two predecessors. That early promise quickly evaporated when the papacy of John Paul I tragically lasted a mere thirty-three days. In that sad context, it was rumored that the College of Cardinals would now seek someone young and vigorous.
When he was elected pope at the age of fifty-eight, Karol Wojtila became the first non-Italian pope in 455 years and the first Slavic pope in history. His election sent a strong message to Communist dictators and affirmed the staunchly Catholic character of Poland.
The papacy of this pope would last an almost unheard-of twenty-seven years. They would be years filled with energy, revitalizing initiatives, and ultimately—controversy.
Formative Years
Karol Jozef Wojtila was born May 18, 1920, to Karol and Emilia Wojtila. He would be known to family and friends by the nickname, “Lolek.” His elder brother Edmund (known as “Mundek”) had been born a distant fourteen years earlier, while an older sister, Olga, had lived only a few brief weeks. His father was a noncommissioned officer in the fledgling Polish army, working in the quartermaster store. Karol, Sr. had previously served in the Austro-Hungarian army, and the Jozef in his son’s name was probably in honor of the Emperor Franz Jozef, or alternatively, the Polish leader Jozef Pilsudsky. Karol Jozef was baptized by a military chaplain at the parish church of St. Mary’s.
The town of Wadowice, where the Wojtila family lived, was nestled in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. It was only thirty miles from the cultured city of Krakow, which could be reached by train. Not far was the town of Oswiecim, which in only a few short years would become infamous under its German name, Auschwitz. During Karol’s formative years, Wadowice held as many as 10,000 residents. Horse-drawn conveyances were the rule, while cars were still the exception. Nevertheless, as the county seat, Wadowice boasted government administrative offices, as well as a teacher’s college and a few theaters, including a movie theater. It was also the site of the army garrison where Karol, Sr. served and which was a large employer in the area.
Years later, Pope John Paul observed that he had already lost all the people he loved by the time he was twenty. The first to be lost was his mother. Emilia had suffered from heart and kidney problems since childhood. She became increasingly ill and died in 1929 at the age of forty-five, when Karol was not yet nine. This may be the reason that in 1927 Karol, Sr. took early retirement from the military with the rank of captain. (He continued to be known to everyone in town as “Captain.”) With the death of Emilia, the rearing of their young son fell entirely to the retired military man. The older Edmund was no longer living at home at the time. Karol’s friend, Jerzy Kluger, later recalled how he and Karol played in the Wojtila apartment a good bit after Emilia’s death, because the sensitive Karol did not want his father to be alone in his grief. Tragedy struck again when a mere three years after the death of Emilia, Edmund succumbed to scarlet fever. By then a doctor and living in Bielsko, Edmund had been caring for hospital patients during an outbreak of the disease when he contracted it himself and died within days. Edmund was only twenty-six years old.
Karol attended the public high school for boys. The curriculum included Latin and Greek. From his father he also learned German. Thus began his development as a polyglot. Karol was active in a number of extra-curricular activities, including the school’s Anti-Aircraft an
d Gas Weapons Defense League, which was an unfortunate product of the politically troubled 1930s. An outstanding athlete, he excelled as a soccer goalkeeper. Known later as the pope who skied, in his youth he also hiked, swam in the river, and played hockey on frozen ponds. Even as a cardinal, he went kayaking. His deepest passion, however, was acting in youth theater as he came to realize the power of both the written and the spoken word. Upon graduation from high school, he was valedictorian of his class. People who knew him in his youth describe Karol as having been sweet and loving, an attribute they attest he retained throughout his life.
Poland at the time was newly resurgent, having only regained its independence from Austria-Hungary in 1918. Polish nationalism was in the air. Karol’s father was strict, but a man of sterling character and integrity, an autodidact who taught his son Polish national pride and an appreciation for Polish literature and the arts. The elder Wojtila would regale Karol and his friend Jerzy with mesmerizing stories about Polish history and its important figures.
When the time came, Karol moved to nearby Krakow with his father to attend Jagiellonian University. They shared a rather dingy basement apartment in a home belonging to the deceased Emilia’s two sisters. Jagiellonian University was one of the earliest universities to be established in Europe, with a venerable history dating to 1364. Nicolaus Copernicus was among the important intellects to emerge from there. Karol could not help but feel the weightiness and prestige of this academic environment. In accordance with his growing enthusiasm for the significance of words, he majored in Polish language and literature and began also to study Russian and French. In addition to a rigorous course of study, he continued his theatrical involvement, wrote poetry, and joined various student organizations.
Early Religious Life
The Wojtila’s, like many Poles, were devoutly religious. A font of holy water stood outside the apartment to guard their comings and goings. The living room held a well-used prie-dieux with an image of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa before it. Karol often saw his father late at night praying intently before it, and the boy, too, punctuated his day with frequent prayer. Karol went to mass daily before school and served as an altar boy at the church of St. Mary’s. During her lifetime, his mother read to him from the New Testament after school. His father took him to a nearby Carmelite monastery, where the monks gave him a scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel that he wore throughout his life. (As pope, John Paul would canonize that monastery’s best-known monk, Rafal Kalinowsky.) The pilgrimage site of Kalwaria Zebrzydowska (today a UNESCO World Heritage Site) was also nearby, with its series of chapels simulating the distinct paths of Jesus and Mary. Father and son were accustomed to attending the annual passion play there.
Others took note of Karol’s exceptional piety. A teacher remarked in his school records on his “special predilection” for the topic of Religion. For two years, he led the Marian Sodality at his school, thus beginning his lifelong devotion to the Holy Mother. On one terrible occasion, the school custodian was fatally hit by a car right in front of the school. Out of an entire school of horrified onlookers, it was Karol, the altar boy, who thought to run for the priest to administer last rights. Nevertheless, while many acquaintances envisioned a vocation for him, Karol at that time saw a future devoted to literature and the theater.
Karol Wojtila and the Jews, the First Chapter
Although the Jewish presence in Poland would be virtually obliterated in W.W.II, Jews in pre-war Poland were a very sizable and important minority. They were thoroughly incorporated into Polish society, having been present in Poland since at least as early as the 10th century. The town of Wadowice, however, was a bit more ethnically uniform. By the start of W.W.II, Jews comprised only an estimated 10–20 percent of the population, substantially lower than in other parts of Poland. Nevertheless, Jews formed the second-largest demographic segment in Wadowice. They were principally artisans and shopkeepers; some were professionals.
Accordingly, young Karol grew up sharing life with his Jewish neighbors. Karol’s elementary school class was at least one-fourth Jewish. The Wojtila family lived in a modest but middle-class three-room apartment, which was rented from a Jewish landlord. The landlord’s glass goods shop was located at street level, and another Jewish family, the Beers, also lived within the building. Karol had Jewish friends and sometimes substituted on the Jewish soccer team when their goalkeeper wasn’t available. Among his very best friends while growing up was Jerzy (“Jorek”) Kluger, whose attorney father was the elected head of Wadowice’s Jewish community and had been an officer with Pilsudsky’s legions. “Jorek” and “Lolek” played “Cowboys and Indians” together and remained close throughout their school years. In one instance, Karol and his father, at the invitation of Jerzy’s father, attended a synagogue cantorial performance by a renowned young Jewish soldier who was stationed in the local garrison. A number of other Christian notables in the community attended that performance as well.
Later, when the teenaged Karol became active in youth theater, one of his frequent leading ladies was his neighbor, the beautiful Regina (“Ginka”) Beers, with whom he shared romantic scenes. In addition, Father Leonard Prowchownik, who decried Poland’s Nazi-inspired economic boycott of Jews, became pastor at St. Mary’s and was highly influential in maintaining an atmosphere of tolerance in the town. Father Prowchownik and Jerzy’s grandmother could often be seen walking together and holding lively discussions. (Since both were deaf, the discussions were also loud.) These and other experiences would drive Karol’s later decisions as pope to build bridges with the Jewish community.
The Darkening Sky
Hitler came to power in Germany at the beginning of 1933, and the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses followed soon after. The Nuremberg Laws depriving Jews of German citizenship and instituting other draconian restrictions were introduced in 1935. Across the border in Poland, instability was growing even before the two Karols left Wadowice for Krakow. The great Polish hero Jozef Pilsudski had held a tolerant position toward Poland’s ethnic minorities. When he died in 1935, the floodgates of anti-Semitism opened, fanned by what was happening in nearby Germany. One of those inciting hatred was Cardinal Augustin Hlond, the primate of Poland, who used a pastoral letter to launch a vituperative attack against Jews in general and Polish Jews in particular.
Within Wadowice, however, Father Prowchownik had a more direct impact, and he was counseling that anti-Semitism was anti-Christian. Even so, there were outbursts of anti-Semitism in Wadowice during Karol’s senior year of high school. After a particularly bad incident, the normally reserved Captain Wojtila took pains to send warm regards to Jerzy’s father, thus making clear his own opposition to the nastiness that had occurred.
The Wojtila’s friend and neighbor, young Ginka Beers was an aspiring physician and two years older than Karol. Feeling the press of anti-Semitism during a brief, unpleasant stint at Jagiellonian University, she decided to try her luck in British Mandate Palestine. Both Karols were profoundly disturbed by her leaving. The elder Karol plaintively reminded her that not all Poles were anti-Semitic. The younger Karol became red-faced and teary-eyed and was too upset to speak. By leaving when she did, Ginka would escape the Holocaust, but her parents and sister would perish.
Jerzy Kluger was experiencing similar problems. He left his engineering studies in Warsaw after only one month because of increasingly violent anti-Semitism. Having repeatedly refused to sit in the back of the classroom, he was viciously beaten several times. When his father visited Warsaw and discovered Jerzy’s badly bruised face, he forced him to return home to Wadowice.
For his part, Karol began his university studies in the fall of 1938. Due to the ominous militarization of Germany, he had to take part in compulsory Polish military training both before and after his first year of university, but he was exempted from regular military service because of his studies. Thus, he was in Krakow preparing for the new school year when on September 1, 1939, the first air raid sirens
sounded the German invasion of Poland and the beginning of World War II. He assisted with Mass at the Wawel Cathedral, as was his custom on the first Friday of the month, and then hurried home to his father. They joined the flood of refugees fleeing eastward. Dodging the strafing German planes that killed many tens of thousands fleeing on foot like themselves, they advanced about one hundred miles, only to hear that the Russians were now invading from the east.
There had long been enmity between Poles and Russians. Many Poles now feared the godlessness of the Soviets even more than the brutality of the Germans. The elder Wojtila was exhausted. Father and son decided to return to Krakow.
The Nazi plan for Poland was to create Lebensraum—“living space”—for ethnic Germans. Their short-term plan for the Polish people was to reduce the population to manageable numbers and employ the survivors as slave laborers. Depopulation of the territory would take place, in part, through long-term starvation. Poles were expected to subsist on a diet so minimal that it weakened resistance to disease, and food became largely unavailable to them. (Two years later, the Nazi governor Hans Frank would estimate that the majority of Poles were consuming only 600 calories per day.) Poles would be kept uneducated, unaware, and hence unable to mount an organized resistance. In order to accomplish that aim, the Polish intelligentsia had to be liquidated, and all residue of Polish national identity had to be obliterated.