Pope John Paul II Shepherd for the Church and the World 1920-2005 Pope John Paul II Was Voice of Conscience for World, Modern-Day Apostle
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20-PAGE SPECIAL ISSUE CCATHOLICATHOLIC Serving the People of the new york Archdiocese of New York newApril 2005 Volume XXIV, No. 7 york $1.00 Pope John Paul II Shepherd for the Church And the World 1920-2005 Pope John Paul II Was Voice of Conscience for World, Modern-Day Apostle By JOHN THAVIS cheered by millions. Pope John Paul’s personality was powerful and complicated. In his prime, he could work a crowd ope John Paul II, who died April 2 at age 84, was and banter with young and old, but spontaneity was Pa voice of conscience for the world and a not his specialty. As a manager, he set directions but modern-day apostle for his Church. often left policy details to top aides. To both roles he brought a philosopher’s intellect, a His reaction to the mushrooming clerical sex abuse pilgrim’s spiritual intensity and an actor’s flair for the scandal in the United States in 2001-02 underscored dramatic. That combination made him one of the his governing style: He suffered deeply, prayed at most forceful moral leaders of the modern age. length and made brief but forceful statements empha- As head of the Church for more than 26 years, he sizing the gravity of such a sin by priests. He con- held a hard line on doctrinal issues and drew sharp vened a Vatican-U.S. summit to address the problem, limits on dissent—in particular regarding abortion, but let his Vatican advisers and U.S. Church leaders birth control and other contested Church teachings work out the answers. In the end, he approved on human life. changes that made it easier to defrock abusive priests. Especially in later years, his pontificate reflected The pope was essentially a private person, with a personal trial and suffering. An athletic and energetic deep spiritual life—something not easily translated 58-year-old when elected, he gradually lost his ability by the media. Yet in earlier years, this pope seemed to walk, to stand and to express himself clearly —the made for modern media, and his pontificate was cap- result of Parkinson’s disease. By the time he cele- tured in some lasting images. Who can forget the brated his silver jubilee as pope in October 2003, pope wagging his finger sternly at a Sandinista priest aides were routinely wheeling him on a chair and in Nicaragua, hugging a young AIDS victim in Cali- reading his speeches for him. CNS photo by Chris Niedenthal fornia or huddling in a prison-cell conversation with Yet he rejected suggestions of retirement and HAPPY PILGRIM—Pope John Paul II savors the his would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca? pushed himself to the limits of his declining physical experience of his first trip to Poland as pope in June capabilities, convinced that such suffering was a form 1979. He would go on to travel to his homeland EARLY YEARS of spiritual leadership. nine times as pontiff. Pope John Paul’s early life was marked by personal The first non-Italian pope in 455 years, Pope John hardship and by Poland’s suffering during World Paul became a spiritual protagonist in two global tran- of Mother Teresa. Whether at home or on the road, War II. sitions: the fall of European communism, which he aimed to be the Church’s most active evangelizer, Karol Jozef Wojtyla was born May 18, 1920, in Wad- began in his native Poland in 1989, and the passage to trying to open every corner of human society to owice, a small town near Krakow, in southern the third millennium of Christianity. Christian values. Poland. His mother died when he was 9, and three The start of the new millennium brought a surge in Within the Church, the pope was just as vigorous years later he lost his only brother to scarlet fever. global terrorism, which the pope saw as a threat to and no less controversial. He disciplined dissenting When he was 20, his father died, and friends said interfaith harmony. He invited world religions to theologians, excommunicated self-styled “traditional- Wojtyla knelt for 12 hours in prayer and sorrow at his renounce violence and the logic of “religious war- ists” and upheld unpopular Church positions like the bedside. fare.” He condemned the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist pronouncement against birth control. At the same Remembered in high school as a bright, athletic attacks as “inhuman” but urged the United States to time, he pushed Catholic social teaching into rela- youth with a contemplative side, Wojtyla excelled in react with restraint, and he sharply criticized the U.S.- tively new areas such as bioethics, international eco- religion, philosophy and languages. In 1938, he began led war against Iraq in 2003. nomics, racism and ecology. working toward a philosophy degree at the Univer- As pastor of the universal Church, he jetted around He looked frail but determined as he led the Church sity of Krakow, joining speech and drama clubs and the world, taking his message to 129 countries in 104 through a heavy program of soul-searching events writing his own poetry. trips outside Italy, including seven to the United during the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, fulfilling a The Nazi blitzkrieg of Poland Sept. 1, 1939, left the States. A linguist by training, he surprised and pleased dream of his pontificate. His long-awaited pilgrimage country in ruins and opened a new chapter in millions by communicating with them in their own to the Holy Land that year took him to the roots of the Wojtyla’s life. During the German occupation he languages—which made it all the more poignant faith and dramatically illustrated the Church’s helped set up an underground university and the when his speaking abilities declined in later years. improved relations with Jews. He also presided over clandestine “Rhapsodic Theater.” At the same time At times, he used the world as a pulpit: in Africa, to an unprecedented public apology for the sins of he found work in a stone quarry and a chemical decry hunger; in Hiroshima, Japan, to denounce the Christians during darker chapters of Church history, factory—experiences he later analyzed in poems and arms race; in Calcutta, India, to praise the generosity such as the Inquisition and the Crusades. papal writings. Walking home one day after working a double shift at the Solvay chemical plant, he was n a landmark document in 2001, the pope laid out struck by a truck and hospitalized for 12 days—the About This Issue Ihis vision of the Church’s future. The apostolic first in a lifelong series of physical hardships. letter, “Novo Millennio Ineunte” (”At the Beginning Wojtyla continued work after he entered Krakow’s This week, all CNY subscribers are receiving this of the New Millennium”), called for a “new sense of clandestine theological seminary in 1942. He had special 20-page issue on the life of Pope John Paul II, mission” to take Gospel values into every area of tried to join the Carmelite order but reportedly was who died April 2. Our April edition will contain social and economic life. turned away with the comment: ‘‘You are destined APRIL 2005 reactions of New Yorkers to the pope’s death and Over the years, public reaction to the pope’s mes- for greater things.’’ He was ordained four years later, look ahead to the papal conclave. It will be distrib- sage and his decisions was mixed. He was hailed as a (WP) uted according to our normal delivery schedule. daring social critic, chided as the “last socialist,” and (Continued on next page) CATHOLIC Vol. XXIV, No. 7 (WP) HOW TO REACH US DEADLINES APRIL 2005 Editorial copy must be received in CNY’s new york 1011 First Avenue, Ste. 1721 offices by the 25th day of the month before New York, N.Y. 10022 publication. Editor in Chief General Manager Phone: (212) 688-2399 John Woods Arthur L. McKenna Fax: (212) 688-2642 CHANGE OF ADDRESS CATHOLIC NEW YORK Catholic New York (ISSN 0278-1174) is published monthly for $12.00 per year by Ecclesiastical E-mail: [email protected] Please clip old label and mail with new Communications Corp., 1011 First Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022. Periodical postage paid at New address to Circulation Dept., 1011 First Ave., York, N.Y. and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: send address changes to Catholic New Ste. 1721, New York, N.Y. 10022. York, 1011 First Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022. ON THE WEB www.cny.org P2 Delivery problems: (212) 688-2399, ext. 140. (4/05) just as the new communist regime was taking aim at a second trial. The pope publicly forgave his assailant, Father Charles Curran, for one, was stripped of his the Polish Church. He soon left for two years of study and in 1983 he visited Agca in a Rome prison cell for a permission to teach at The Catholic University of at Rome’s Angelicum University, where he earned a quiet meeting of reconciliation. In 2000, with the America in 1986 because of his views on sexual doctorate in ethics, writing his thesis on the 16th- pope’s support, Italy pardoned Agca and returned morality and divorce. century mystic, St. John of the Cross. him to Turkey, where he remains in prison. To counter doctrinal confusion, the pope was con- When he returned to Poland in 1948, Father Woj- Pope John Paul credited Mary for having protected tinually drawing—or highlighting—the line on diffi- tyla spent a year in a rural parish, then was assigned him, and on the first anniversary of the shooting he cult moral questions.