Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II | |
|---|---|
| File:Jp2mozzeta.jpg | |
| Installed | October 16, 1978 |
| Term ended | April 2, 2005 |
| Predecessor | John Paul I |
| Successor | Benedict XVI |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Karol Józef Wojtyła May 18, 1920 |
| Died | April 2, 2005 |
Pope John Paul II (Latin: Ioannes Paulus PP. II ), born Karol Józef Wojtyła [1] (May 18, 1920 – April 2, 2005) reigned as pope of the Catholic Church for almost 27 years, from 16 October 1978 until his death, making his the second-longest pontificate. On 13 May 2005, Pope Benedict XVI, John Paul II's successor, waived the five year waiting period for a cause for beatification to be opened. The official process for beatification began in the Diocese of Rome on June 28, 2005. [2] He was the first non-Italian pope since the 16th century. His early reign was marked by his opposition to Communism, and he is often credited as one of the forces which brought about the fall of the Soviet Union.
In other domains, his concern for the poor, the weak and those who suffer, and his stances on warfare, violence, capital punishment, evolution, world debt forgiveness, combined with his willingness to visit Socialist nations, and his strong relationships with leaders of non Catholic Churches and non Christian faiths (ecumenism) were considered by some to be proof that he was "liberal."
His affirmation of the long-standing Christian doctrine that abortion, homosexual sex, and contraception are immoral, his continuing the tradition of ordaining only men to the priesthood, teaching that divorced persons could not remarry without a declaration of nullity, that valid sacramental marriage exists between one man and one woman, emphasizing the benefits of retaining the discipline of mandatory priestly celibacy, and his opposition to secularism are cited by some as proof that he was "conservative."
During his reign, the pope travelled extensively, visiting over 100 countries, more than any of his predecessors. He canonized more people than all popes before him put together. He was Pope during a period in which Catholicism's influence declined in developed countries but expanded in the Third World.
Pope John Paul II was extremely popular worldwide, attracting the largest crowds in history (at times attracting crowds of over one million people in a single venue [over four million people at the World Youth Day in Manila]), and being respected by many even outside of the Catholic Church, despite strident criticism from some quarters. John Paul II was fluent in numerous languages: his native Polish, Italian, French, German, English, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese and Latin.
In 1992, he was diagnosed as having Parkinson's disease. On 2 April 2005 at 9:37 pm Vatican Time, Pope John Paul II died while a vast crowd kept vigil on St Peter's Square. Millions of people flocked to Rome to pay their respects to the body and for his funeral. The last years of his reign had been marked by his fight against the various diseases ailing him, provoking some concerns that he should abdicate, but in retrospect his determination was widely seen as an exemplary display of courage.
Overview
The man from Poland will be remembered as the "people's Pope." Respected around the world by both Christians and non-Christians the reach of Pope John Paul II extended across the globe.
His papacy is remembered by his tireless ecumenical approach to accommodate other Christian bodies as well as to forge a better understanding with the Islamic world. At his funeral, many non-Christian faiths were represented, including representatives from Judaism, Islam and Buddhism.
John Paul II emphasized what he called the "universal call to holiness" and attempted to define the Catholic Church's role in the modern world. He spoke out against ideologies and politics of communism, Marxism, feminism, imperialism, relativism, materialism, fascism (including Nazism), racism and unrestrained capitalism. In many ways, he fought against oppression, secularism and poverty. Although he was on friendly terms with many Western heads of state and leading citizens, he reserved a special opprobrium for what he believed to be the corrosive spiritual effects of modern Western consumerism and the concomitant widespread secular and hedonistic orientation of Western populations.
John Paul II affirmed traditional Catholic teachings by opposing abortion, contraception, capital punishment, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, euthanasia, and war. He also defended traditional teachings on marriage and gender roles by opposing divorce, same-sex marriage and the ordination of women. His conservative views were sometimes criticized as regressive. John Paul II called upon followers to vote according to Catholic teachings. John Paul II became known as the "Pilgrim Pope" for travelling greater distances than had all his predecessors combined. According to John Paul II, the trips symbolized bridge-building efforts (in keeping with his title as Pontifex Maximus, literally Master Bridge-Builder) between nations and religions, attempting to remove divisions created through history.
He beatified 1,340 people, more people than any previous pope. The Vatican asserts he canonized more people than the combined tally of his predecessors during the last five centuries, and from a far greater variety of cultures.[3] Whether he had canonized more saints than all previous popes put together, as is sometimes also claimed, is difficult to prove, as the records of many early canonizations are incomplete, missing, or inaccurate. However, it is known that his abolition of the office of Promotor Fidei ("Promoter of the Faith" and the origin of the term Devil's Advocate) streamlined the process. He has been criticized by many for doing this.
Pope John Paul II died on 2 April 2005 after a long fight against Parkinson's disease and other illnesses. Immediately after his death, many of his followers demanded that he be elevated to sainthood as soon as possible, shouting "Santo Subito" (meaning "Saint immediately" in Italian). Both L'Osservatore Romano and Pope Benedict XVI, Pope John Paul II's successor, referred to John Paul II as "Great".
John Paul II was succeeded by the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger of Germany, the former head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith who had led the Funeral Mass for John Paul II.
Biography
Early life
Karol Józef Wojtyła was born on 18 May 1920 in Wadowice in southern Poland. His mother, Emilia Kaczorowska, died in 1929, when he was just aged 9 and his father supported him so that he could study. His youth was marked by intensive contacts with the then thriving Jewish community of Wadowice; there is evidence that young Karol's mother was of Jewish extraction.
Karol enrolled at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. He worked as a volunteer librarian and did compulsory military training in the Academic Legion. In his youth he was an athlete, actor and playwright and he learned as many as eleven languages during his lifetime, including Latin, Ukrainian, Greek, Spanish, French, Italian, German, English, and of course his native Polish. He also had some facility with Russian.
During the Second World War academics of the Jagiellonian University were arrested and the university suppressed. All able-bodied males had to have a job. He variously worked as a messenger for a restaurant and a manual labourer in a limestone quarry.
Church career
In 1942 he entered the underground seminary run by the Archbishop of Kraków, Cardinal Sapieha. Karol Wojtyła was ordained a priest on 1 November 1946. Not long after, he was sent to study theology at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, commonly known as the Angelicum, where he earned a licentiate and later a doctorate in sacred theology. This doctorate, the first of two, was based on the Latin dissertation Doctrina de fide apud S. Ioannem a Cruce (The Doctrine of Faith According to Saint John of the Cross). Even though his doctoral work was unanimously approved in June of 1948, he was denied the degree because he could not afford to print the text of his dissertation (an Angelicum rule). In December of that year, a revised text of his dissertation was approved by the theological faculty of Jagiellonian University in Kraków, and Wojtyła was finally awarded the degree. There he was rewarded the degree.
He earned a second doctorate, based on an evaluation of the possibility of founding a Catholic ethic on the ethical system of phenomenologist Max Scheler (An Evaluation of the Possibility of Constructing a Christian Ethics on the Basis of the System of Max Scheler), in 1954. As was the case with the first degree, he was not granted the degree upon earning it. This time, the faculty at Jagiellonian University was forbidden by communist authorities from granting the degree. In conjunction with his habilitation at Catholic University of Lublin, Poland, he finally obtained the doctorate in philosophy in 1957 from that institution, where he had assumed the Chair of Ethics in 1956.
On 4 July 1958 Pope Pius XII named him titular bishop of Ombi and auxiliary to Archbishop Baziak, apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Kraków. Karol Wojtyła found himself at 38 the youngest bishop in Poland.
In 1962 Bishop Wojtyła took part in the Second Vatican Council, and in December 1963 Pope Paul VI appointed him Archbishop of Kraków. Paul VI elevated him to cardinal in 1967.
A Pope from Poland
In August 1978 following Paul's death, he voted in the Papal Conclave that elected Pope John Paul I, who at 65 was considered young by papal standards. However John Paul I was in poor health and he died after only 33 days as pope, thereby precipitating another conclave.
Voting in the second conclave was divided between two particularly strong candidates: Giuseppe Cardinal Siri, the Archbishop of Genoa; and Giovanni Cardinal Benelli, the Archbishop of Florence and a close associate of Pope John Paul I. In early ballots, Benelli came within nine votes of victory. However Wojtyła secured election as a compromise candidate, in part through the support of Franz Cardinal König and others who had previously supported Cardinal Siri.
He became the 264th Pope according to the Vatican (265th according to sources that count Pope Stephen II). At only 58 years of age, he was the youngest pope elected since Pope Pius IX in 1846. Like his immediate predecessor, Pope John Paul II dispensed with the traditional Papal coronation and instead received ecclesiastical investiture with the simplified Papal inauguration.
Assassination attempts
On 13 May 1981 John Paul II was shot and critically wounded by Mehmet Ali Ağca, a Turkish gunman, as he entered St. Peter's Square to address an audience. Ağca was caught and sentenced to life imprisonment. Two days after Christmas 1983, John Paul II visited the prison where his would-be assassin was being held. The two spoke privately for some time. John Paul II said, "What we talked about will have to remain a secret between him and me. I spoke to him as a brother whom I have pardoned and who has my complete trust." Ağca was released on parole from a Turkish prison in January, 2006.
Another assassination attempt took place on 12 May 1982, just a day before the anniversary of the last attempt on his life, in Fatima, Portugal when a man tried to stab John Paul II with a bayonet, but was stopped by security guards. The assailant, an ultraconservative Spanish priest named Juan María Fernández y Krohn, reportedly opposed the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and called the pope an agent of Moscow. He served a six-year sentence, and was expelled from Portugal afterwards.
Health
When he first entered the papacy in 1978, John Paul II was an avid sportsman, enjoying hiking and swimming. In addition, John Paul II travelled extensively after becoming pope; at the time, the 58-year old was extremely healthy and active.
In 1981, though, John Paul II's health suffered a major blow after the first failed assassination attempt. The bullet-wound caused severe bleeding, and the Pope's blood pressure dropped. In addition, a colostomy was also performed. He nevertheless maintained an impressive physical condition throughout the 1980s.
Starting about 1992, John Paul II's health slowly declined. He began to suffer from an increasingly slurred speech and difficulty in hearing. In addition, the Pope rarely walked in public. Though not officially confirmed by the Vatican until 2003, most experts agreed that the frail pontiff suffered from Parkinson's Disease.
In February 2005 John Paul II was taken to the hospital with an inflammation of the larynx, the result of influenza. Though later released from the hospital, he was taken back later that month after difficulty breathing. A tracheotomy was performed, limiting the pope's speaking abilities.
In March of 2005, speculation was high that the Pope was near-death; this was confirmed by the Vatican days before John Paul II passed away.
Death
On 31 March 2005 the Pope developed a very high fever, but was neither rushed to the hospital, nor offered life support, apparently, in accordance with his wishes to die in the Vatican.[4] Later that day Vatican sources announced that John Paul II had been given the Anointing of the Sick by his friend and secretary Archbishop Stanisław Dziwisz. During the final days of the Pope's life, the lights were kept burning through the night where he lay in the Papal apartment on the top floor of the Apostolic Palace.
Thousands of people rushed to the Vatican, filling St Peter's Square and beyond, and held vigil for two days. At about 15:30 CEST, John Paul II spoke his final words, "Let me go to the house of the Father", to his aides in his native Polish and fell into a coma about four hours later.[5] He died in his private apartments, at 21:37 CEST (19:37 UTC) on 2 April, 46 days short of his 85th birthday. Already, the vigil of the Second Sunday of Easter, that is, Divine Mercy Sunday, was being commemorated.
A crowd of over two million within Vatican City, over one billion Catholics world-wide, and many non-Catholics mourned John Paul II. The Poles were particularly devastated by his death. The public viewing of his body in St. Peter's Basilica drew over four million people to Vatican City and was one of the largest pilgrimages in the history of Christianity. Many world leaders expressed their condolences and ordered flags in their countries lowered to half-mast. Numerous countries with a Catholic majority, and even some with only a small Catholic population, declared mourning for John Paul II.
Funeral
The death of Pope John Paul II set into motion rituals and traditions dating back to medieval times. The Rite of Visitation took place from 4 April through 22:00 CET (20:00 UTC) on 7 April at St. Peter's Basilica. On 8 April the Mass of Requiem was conducted by the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Joseph Ratzinger, who would later become the next pope. It has been estimated to have been the largest attended funeral of all time.
John Paul II was interred in the grottoes under the basilica, the Tomb of the Popes. He was lowered into the tomb that had been occupied by the remains of Blessed Pope John XXIII, but which had been empty since his remains had been moved into the main body of the basilica after his beatification by John Paul II in 2003.
John Paul "The Great"
Since the death of John Paul II, a number of clergy at the Vatican have been referring to the late pontiff as "John Paul the Great"—only the fourth pope to be so acclaimed, and the first since the first millennium. His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, referred to him as "the great Pope John Paul II" in his first address from the loggia of St Peter's Church. Pope Benedict has continued to refer to John Paul II as "the Great." At the 2005 World Youth Day in Germany, Pope Benedict, speaking in Polish, John Paul's native language, said, "As the great Pope John Paul II would say: keep the flame of faith alive in your lives and your people." The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera even called him "the Greatest."
Scholars of canon law say that there is no official process for declaring a pope "Great"; the title establishes itself through popular, and continued, usage. The three popes who today commonly are known as "Great" are Leo I, who reigned from 440–461 and persuaded Attila the Hun to withdraw from Rome; Gregory I, 590–604, after whom the Gregorian Chant is named; and Nicholas I, 858–867, who also withstood a siege of Rome (in this case from Carolingian Christians, over a dispute regarding marriage annulment).
Historically, the title "the Great" has been given only to the first pope (or sovereign) in a line bearing a name. John Paul II would, by this criterion, be unlikely to be dubbed "the Great." However, there are exceptions. For example, Alexander the Great, was also Alexander III. The fact that, until John Paul II, no popes after the first, have received this title is likely more a function of the fact that so few popes have been acclaimed "the Great" at all, and as such this is not a title that is limited to only the first pope of a given name.