Karol Józef Wojtyla, John Paul II: May 18, 1920-April 2, 2005

VATICAN CITY, APRIL 2, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Born Karol Józef Wojtyla, John Paul II left his mark occupying the third longest pontificate in the history of the Church.

Young Karol was born in Wadowice, a small city 35 miles southwest of Krakow, May 18, 1920.

The second of two sons born to Karol Wojtyla and Emilia Kaczorowska, his small family would not witness his rise to the papacy. His mother died in 1929, his brother Edmund, a doctor, died in 1932 and his father, a non-commissioned army officer, died in 1941.

He made his First Holy Communion at age 9, and was confirmed at 18. Upon graduation from high school in Wadowice in 1938, he and his father moved to Krakow where Karol entered the Jagiellonian University to study literature and philosophy.

The Nazi occupation forces closed the university in 1939, and young Karol had to work in a quarry, and then in the Solvay chemical factory to earn his living and to avoid being deported to Germany.

In 1942, aware of his call to the priesthood, he began courses in the clandestine seminary of Krakow, run by Cardinal Adam Stefan Sapieha, archbishop of Krakow. At the same time, Karol Wojtyla was one of the pioneers of the "Rhapsodic Theatre," also clandestine.

After the Second World War, he continued his studies in the major seminary of Krakow, once it had re-opened, and in the faculty of theology of the Jagiellonian University, until his priestly ordination in Krakow on Nov. 1, 1946.

Soon after, Cardinal Sapieha sent him to Rome where he worked under the guidance of the French Dominican, Garrigou-Lagrange. He finished his doctorate in theology in 1948 with a thesis on the topic of faith in the works of St. John of the Cross. At that time, during his vacations, he exercised his pastoral ministry among the Polish immigrants of France, Belgium and Holland.

In 1948, he returned to Poland and was vicar of various parishes in Krakow as well as chaplain for the university students until 1951, when he took up again his studies on philosophy and theology. In 1953, he defended a thesis on the ethical system of Max Scheler at Lublin's Catholic University.

He later he became professor of moral theology and social ethics in the major seminary of Krakow and in the Faculty of Theology of Lublin.

On July 4, 1958, he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Krakow by Pope Pius XII, and was consecrated bishop Sept. 28, 1958.

On Jan. 13, 1964, he was nominated Archbishop of Krakow by Pope Paul VI, who made him a cardinal June 26, 1967.

Besides taking part in the Second Vatican Council with an important contribution to the elaboration of the constitution "Gaudium et spes," Cardinal Wojtyla participated in all the assemblies of the Synod of Bishops.

Since the start of his pontificate Oct. 16, 1978, Pope John Paul II has completed 104 pastoral visits outside of Italy, and 146 within Italy. As Bishop of Rome he has visited 317 of the 333 parishes.

His principal documents include 14 encyclicals, 15 apostolic exhortations, 11 apostolic constitutions and 45 apostolic letters.

The Pope has also published five books: "Crossing the Threshold of Hope" (October, 1994); "Gift and Mystery: On the 50th Anniversary of My Priestly Ordination" (November, 1996); "Roman Triptych – Meditations," a book of poems (March, 2003); "Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way" (May, 2004) and "Memory and Identity" (February, 2005).

John Paul II has presided at 147 beatification ceremonies, proclaiming 1,338 blesseds, and 51 canonization ceremonies, canonizing 482 saints. He has held 9 consistories in which he created 231 (+ 1 in pectore) cardinals. He has also convened six plenary meetings of the College of Cardinals.

The Holy Father has presided at 15 synods of bishops: six ordinary (1980, 1983, 1987, 1990, 1994, 2001), one extraordinary (1985) and eight special (1980, 1991, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998(2) and 1999).

His contact with people has exceeded that of any other Pope. More than 17,600,000 pilgrims have participated in the more than 1,160 General Audiences held on Wednesdays, and more than 8 million pilgrims participate in the events of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 alone.

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Pope John Paul II: Biographical Resources

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The Encyclicals of Pope John Paul II

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On the Pontificate of Pope John Paul II

  • All-Embracing Man of Action for a New Era of Papacy, by Robert McFadden. New York Times April 3, 2005:

    The man who would call himself John Paul II was not the traditional papal figure, compassionate and loving but ascetic and remote behind the high walls and the elaborate ceremony of the Vatican. Here was a different kind of pope: complex, schooled in confrontation, theologically intransigent but deftly politic, full of wit and daring, energy and physically expressive love.

    More than outgoing, he was all-embracing - a bear-hugging, larger-than-life man of action who had climbed mountains, performed in plays, written books and seen war, and he was determined from the start to make the world his parish and go out and minister to its troubles and see to its spiritual needs.

  • A Man for All Seasons: The very modern papacy of John Paul II Wall Street Journal:

    . . . this was a man eminently comfortable with modernity--even while he refused to accept modernity's most shallow assumptions. Just as he offered his first public words as pope in Italian to make himself understood by those below his balcony, he held that ultimate truths about man and his relationship with his Creator are never outdated, however much they require constant expression in new languages and new circumstances.

  • "A magnificent pope who presided over a controversial pontificate", by John Allen Jr. National Catholic Reporter April 2004.

  • The Last Anti-modern Pope, by Sandro Magister; interview with Giovanni Maria Vian: "His was a Church of saints set against the powers of evil: first Soviet communism, then the civilization of money, sex, and the liberty that enslaves."

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Published Works by Pope John Paul II

Memory and Identity: Conversations at the Dawn of a Millennium
March, 2005.

Reviews and Related Articles

Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way
September 2004.

Reviews and Related Articles

The Poetry of Pope John Paul II: Roman Triptych - Meditations
September, 2003

Reviews and Related Articles

Invitation to Prayer
February, 2002.
Gift and Mystery: On the Fiftieth Anniversary of My Priestly Ordination
April, 1999.
The Theology of the Body: Human Love in the Divine Plan
December 1997.

Reviews & Related Articles

"Theology of the Body" General Audiences of John Paul II. Compiled by Eternal Word Television Network.
The Embodied Self, First Things 130 (February 2003): 18-21. On Pope John Paul II's meditations on human sexuality presented during his general audiences.
John Paul II's Theology of the Body, by Christopher West. Lay Witness June 2001.
Crossing the Threshhold of Hope
October, 1994.

Reviews & Related Articles

The Jeweler's Shop
Ignatius Press, 1992.
Love and Responsibility
Ignatius Press; Rev. ed edition (April 1, 1993). [First published 1960].

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Published Works about Pope John Paul II

Biographies
Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II, by George Weigel.

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Academic Studies of the Thought of John Paul II
Karol Wojtyla: The Thought of the Man Who Became Pope John Paul II
by Rocco Buttiglione, Paolo Guietti (Translator), Francesco Murphy (Translator).
September, 1997.

Reviews

    Review, by William A. Frank. University if Dallas. Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Newsletter Vol. 21, No. 3. Summer 1998. pp. 45-46. [.pdf format].
At the Center of the Human Drama: The Philosophical Anthropology of Karol Wojtyla/Pope John Paul II
by Kenneth L. Schmitz
Catholic University of America Press (October 1, 1993).

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The Splendor of Faith : The Theological Vision of Pope John Paul II
by Avery Cardinal Dulles.
Revised and Updated. Herder & Herder (September, 2003).

A philosopher and theologian, as well as priest, and finally Pope, John Paul II has written extensivley on a wide variety of subjects. With his considerable theological expertise and acumen, Avery Dulles has undertaken the demanding task of synthesizing the Pope's theological insights on the complete range of topics from the Trinity and Christology to the economic and social order.

Reviews and Related Articles

    Review by Kevin E. Schmiesing. Project Coordinator, Center for Economic Personalism. Markets & Morality Volume 3, Number 1. Spring 2000.

by Dr. Samuel Gregg
Lexington Books (January 2003).

Samuel Gregg provides an insightful, cogent, and thorough analysis of the issues surrounding developments in Catholic social teaching during the pontificate of John Paul II. He compares the treatment in John Paul's social encyclicals of three topics-industrial relations, capitalism, and the relations between developed and developing countries-with the handling of these matters in the social teachings of the Second Vatican Council and Paul VI. Through the application of a comparative exegetical approach to the relevant texts, it becomes apparent that John Paul's development of the teaching derives from several sources. Within this analysis, Gregg considers a more specific and less widely examined issue: the extent to which the development in Catholic social thought has been influenced by the writings of Karol Wojtyla before he became pope in 1978. In addition to revealing an openness to certain modern philosophical insights and expressing a range of views about the modern world, these writings elaborate a distinctive anthropology of man as the conscious subject of moral acts. -- Publisher

Reviews and Related Articles

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Avery Cardinal Dulles on Pope John Paul II

Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. is currently the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham University. Past President of both the Catholic Theological Society of America and the American Theological Society and Professor Emeritus at The Catholic University of America, Cardinal Dulles has served on the International Theological Commission and as a member of the United States Lutheran/Roman Catholic Coordinating Committee. He was made a Cardinal by Pope John Paul II in February 2001, the first U.S. theologian to be so honored in such a manner. He is author of The Splendor of Faith: The Theological Vision of Pope John Paul II.

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Fr. Richard J. Neuhaus on Pope John Paul II

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus is editor-in-chief of First Things, published by the Institute on Religion and Public Life, and the author of several books on Pope John Paul II, including Appointment in Rome: The Church in America Awakening -- chronicling the Synod for America held in Rome, 1997 -- to which he was a special delegate designated by the Pope -- and Doing Well & Doing Good: The Challenge to the Christian Capitalist, on the Papal encyclical Centesimus Annus.

George Weigel on Pope John Paul II

George Weigel is a Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and author of the 1999 biography Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II, which was published in eleven languages. He has traveled with the Pope and over the course of his life has explicated his thought in articles, interviews and addresses, which are collected here:

Prayer to implore graces through the intercession of the Servant of God, Pope John Paul II

O Blessed Trinity, we thank you for having graced the church with Pope John Paul II and for allowing the tenderness of your fatherly care, the glory of the cross of Christ, and the splendor of the Holy Spirit, to shine through him.

Trusting fully in your infinite mercy and in the maternal intercession of Mary, he has given us a living image of Jesus the Good Shepherd, and has shown us that holiness is the necessary measure of ordinary Christian life and is the way of achieving eternal communion with you.

Grant us, by his intercession, and according to your will, the graces we implore, hoping that he will soon be numbered among your saints. Amen.

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Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's Funeral Homily for Pope John Paul II

He interpreted for us the paschal mystery as a mystery of divine mercy. In his last book, he wrote: The limit imposed upon evil "is ultimately Divine Mercy" ("Memory and Identity," pp. 60- 61). And reflecting on the assassination attempt, he said: "In sacrificing himself for us all, Christ gave a new meaning to suffering, opening up a new dimension, a new order: the order of love. ... It is this suffering which burns and consumes evil with the flame of love and draws forth even from sin a great flowering of good" (pp. 189-190). Impelled by this vision, the Pope suffered and loved in communion with Christ, and that is why the message of his suffering and his silence proved so eloquent and so fruitful.

Divine Mercy: the Holy Father found the purest reflection of God's mercy in the Mother of God. He, who at an early age had lost his own mother, loved his divine mother all the more. He heard the words of the crucified Lord as addressed personally to him: "Behold your Mother." And so he did as the beloved disciple did: "he took her into his own home" (John 19:27) -- "Totus tuus." And from the mother he learned to conform himself to Christ.

None of us can ever forget how in that last Easter Sunday of his life, the Holy Father, marked by suffering, came once more to the window of the Apostolic Palace and one last time gave his blessing "urbi et orbi." We can be sure that our beloved Pope is standing today at the window of the Father's house, that he sees us and blesses us. Yes, bless us, Holy Father. We entrust your dear soul to the Mother of God, your Mother, who guided you each day and who will guide you now to the eternal glory of her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Excerpt, Cardinal Ratzinger's Homily at John Paul II's Funeral Mass Vatican City. April 8, 2005.

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