Biography
Polish ecclesiastic, a Roman Catholic priest who rose in the hierarchy
of the church to be elected the 264th Pope on October 16, 1978, ca. 5:15
PM, Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Christ, Successor of St. Peter, Prince of
Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Patriarch of the
West, Primate of Italy and Sovereign of Vatican City. A passionate
anti-Communist, social activist and socialist, Pope John Paul II had
much to do with bringing down the Iron Curtain in 1989 and believed the
northern nations should share their wealth with the southern hemisphere.
No pope in history had more scope of influence than he has through the
modern media, and he once gave 25 speeches in a single day without
repeating himself.
"Lolek" as he was known in childhood, was born in 1920, the second
son of Karol Wojtyla (voy TIH wah) Sr., a retired army officer and
tailor, and Emilia Kaczorowska Wojtyla, a schoolteacher of Lithuanian
descent, strict Catholics. They lived a Spartan lifestyle in a one-room
apartment, and his dad was strict with the boy, making him study in a
cold room to learn concentration. There was no anti-Semitism in the
family and the boy had Jewish playmates. Indeed, Wojtyla became the
first pope to visit a synagogue and the first to visit the memorial at
Auschwitz to victims of the Holocaust. In ending the Catholic-Jewish
estrangement, he called Jews "our elder brothers."
He was an athletic kid who skied, hiked, kayaked and swam in the
flooded Skawa River, later becoming goal-keeper in the school soccer
team. Death was part of the family history, with an infant sister who
died prior to his birth and a month before his 9th birthday, his
mother’s death of heart and kidney problems. When he was 12, his older
brother, Edmund, 26, died of scarlet fever. Lolek himself had two close
brushes with death; once when he was hit by a streetcar and secondly,
when he was nearly struck by a truck in 1944. The Pope, 5’ 10" and 175
lbs in his prime, had a few physical difficulties from his early
accidents and as an adult, had a dislocated shoulder, a broken thigh
that led to femur-replacement surgery, the removal of a precancerous
tumor from his colon in 1992 and an attempt on his life by a gunman
whose two bullets wounded him in the abdomen, right arm and left hand.
The Pope had an appendectomy operation 10/08/1996, Rome.
From the time he was a kid, Wojtyla was aware of the fragility of
life and the presence of suffering, and he learned early the comfort of
prayer and peace of meditation. As a young man, he was very religious
but also drawn passionately to the theater and to writing mystical,
somewhat murky poetry. He was a bohemian youth with long hair, and
totally apolitical. Though he had close women friends, he apparently
never dated or had a romance. Gregarious and charismatic, he was the
male star of his theater groups and usually seen at the social mixers.
After the Germans invaded Poland, he escaped deportation and
imprisonment in late 1940 by taking a job as a stonecutter in a quarry.
A few months later, in February of 1941, Wojtyla's 61-year-old father
died, leaving his dream of seeing his son commit to the priesthood
unfulfilled. The Pope has said that his father once told him, "I will
not live long and would like to be certain before I die that you will
commit yourself to God's service."
At 22, he entered a secret nighttime seminary operated in
Nazi-occupied Poland by the Archbishop of Krakow. An excellent student,
he was ordained four years later and sent to Rome for two more years of
theological studies. He was ordained in 1946 in Krakow, and spent much
of the next few years studying -- he earned two masters degrees and a
doctorate -- before taking up priestly duties as an assistant pastor in
Krakow. He returned to Communist Poland in 1948 where he flourished,
first as a parish priest and even more as a university professor. Along
with his obvious fine intellectual and linguistic abilities, he was an
unusually strong hiker, mountain climber and skier. His outward
bound-type expeditions into the mountains and forests made him almost a
cult figure among the university students. He would take dozens of
students on strenuous expeditions almost every weekend, spending the
evenings talking philosophy, ethics and religion. His appointment as a
bishop came when he was on a camping trip. Arriving home, learned the
news - and then returned to the mountains.
Unusual for a bishop, Wojtyla was willing to talk with his students
about sex, with which he stressed a "personalist" view of fulfillment,
equality of men and women and the importance of the female orgasm. The
main source of his views was Wanda Poltawska, a Polish psychiatrist and
sexologist, a close friend of his for many years. He unflinchingly
upheld the policy of the church on banning birth control. Very much the
Catholic traditionalist, he strongly supported human rights.
In 1954, he was hired by the Catholic University of Lublin, the only
Catholic university in the communist world, as a non-tenured professor.
The arrangement turned Wojtyla into a commuter, shuttling between Lublin
and Krakow on the overnight train to teach and counsel in one city and
study in the other. He also founded and ran a service that dealt with
marital problems, from family planning and illegitimacy to alcoholism
and physical abuse. Time magazine called it "perhaps the most successful
marriage institute in Christianity."
In 1956, Wojtyla was appointed to the Chair of Ethics at Catholic
University and his ascent through the church hierarchy got a boost in
1958 when he was named the auxiliary bishop of Krakow. When the Vatican
Council II began the deliberations in 1962 that would revolutionize the
church, Wojtyla was one of its intellectual leaders and took special
interest in religious freedom. The same year, he was named the acting
archbishop of Krakow when the incumbent died.
In 1967, he was appointed a cardinal by Pope Paul VI. He observed
Catholic beliefs and traditions while accommodating the communist
government, discretely keeping his distaste for communism private.
Wojtyla bided his time, engaging in a strategy that honored Catholic
beliefs and traditions while accommodating the communist government.
However he remained "a resilient enemy of Communism and champion of
human rights, a powerful preacher and sophisticated intellectual able to
defeat Marxists in their own line of dialogue." (Current Biography)
His immediate predecessor, Pope John Paul I, died of a heart attack
on September 28, 1978, Rome. Though Wojtyla was established as a
formidable intellectual presence -- as well as an able administrator and
fund-raiser, he was not generally considered a front-line candidate for
the vacated appointment. However, after seven rounds of balloting, he
was elected by the Sacred College of Cardinals in the afternoon of
October 16, 1978. He reportedly formally accepted his election before
the cardinals with tears in his eyes. He was also the first non-Italian
pope in 455 years (the last was Adrian VI in 1523) and, was, at 58, the
youngest pope in 132 years.
The Pope survived an assassination attempt on May 13, 1981 by Turkish
gunman Mehmet Ali Agca (born January 9, 1958) in the streets of Rome as
he rode in his open car. The time of 5:21:31 PM is precise as his watch
stopped at the exact time of the shot. It was a Chilean citizen who
saved the Pope. He was visiting the Vatican as a tourist, and was just
beside Agca when he saw the gun and he knocked the gun from the hands of
Agca, and that action saved the Pope from receiving more bullets. John
Paul always credited the Virgin of Fatima for saving his life because he
was shot on her feast day, May 13. Italy's president pardoned Mehmet Ali
Agca on June 13, 2000, returning him to Turkey where he went to prison
for another, unrelated crime. He served 19 years for shooting the Pope
in the stomach.
Although he drew enormous crowds, sometimes in the millions, whenever
he gave public appearances, the Pope's health slowly deteriorated. On
January 21, 1999, an elderly and frail Pope made a celebrated visit to
Mexico, traveling to St. Louis, Missouri five days later. Despite the
fact that he suffered visibly from Parkinson's disease, trembling and
unsteady, John Paul remained a potent and remarkable presence until, and
arguably after, his death. During his 31-hour pastoral visit to the
U.S., he celebrated Mass, shared a photo op with President Bill Clinton
and persuaded the Governor to commute the death sentence of a convicted
killer.
On December 24, 1999, John Paul II opened the Holy Door to Saint
Peter's Basilica at 11:26 PM MET, ushering in a holy year that was
supposed to have set the tone for the entire third millennium. Over the
past 20 years, he visited over 115 countries, displaying remarkable
charisma, modesty and sincerity. As Time noted in naming him Man of the
Year in 1994, he generated an electricity "unmatched by anyone else on
earth." The most traveled pope in history, he spoke eight languages,
learning Spanish after he became Pope. With an appreciation of modern
advances, he was quick to use the media and technology to his advantage.
As an historic "first," the Pope spoke to the Italian Parliament on
November 14, 2002, 10:58 AM MET, Rome.
He survived many crises, reforms and turmoil within the church, from
Vatican Councils to Vietnam to the growing loss of young men joining the
priesthood. His critics claimed that he was closed-minded and rigid,
maintaining policies of opposition to contraception, abortion and
euthanasia that are no longer viable in today’s world. His inflexibility
on issues with international ramifications -- birth control in Africa,
for example -- drew strong criticism. His refusal to approve the use of
condoms was incomprehensible at a time when AIDS is life threatening.
The denial of ordination to women and the doctrine of celibacy remained
controversial and the scandals of pedophile priests in the early 21st
century were as deeply disturbing as the cover-up of the church in
paying settlements to keep the victims quiet. Many observers say John
Paul's record has been mixed. Although the church has expanded in Africa
and Latin America -- the latter accounts for about half of the estimated
one billion Catholics -- it has lost followers in the industrialized
world, including Poland.
The Pope often explained himself with dense, closely reasoned and
deeply philosophical encyclicals which, along with his letters and other
writings filled more than 150 volumes. Though the spiritual well-being
of the world was his business, Pope John Paul II did not neglect his own
spiritual life. He was sometimes found kneeling on the ground in the
middle of winter before a statue or deep in prayer with his head resting
on an altar. Even when not interacting with others, he was seen moving
his lips, apparently in prayer. John Paul II has been a towering figure
at the moral center of modern life.
The ailing pontiff, suffering from respiratory distress, was rushed
by ambulance to Gemelli Hospital in Rome on February 1, 2005. He
reportedly had the flu and was released on February 10, 2005. On
February 24, Pope John Paul II was again rushed to Gemelli hospital,
again in respiratory distress. This time he underwent a tracheotomy at
8:20 PM local time. The official statement claimed that he had suffered
a relapse of the flu and was suffering spasms of the larynx. On the same
day The Pope’s book, “Memory and Identity,” was released, a
philosophical treatise on good and evil.
The Pope was discharged from the hospital on Sunday, March 13, 2005.
The breathing tube was left in his throat to assist his respiration. Two
weeks later it was revealed that he was taking nourishment through a
feeding tube placed in his nose. On April 1, 2005, as he fought an
infection with a high fever, his heart and kidneys began to fail.
According to Corriere della Sera online, the Pope died on April 2, 2005
at 9:37 PM local time at the Vatican while the rest of the world
reflected on his legacy and speculated about his successor.
Top
For More Information on the Web:
|
