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| ''His Holiness'' '''Pope John Paul II''' (''né'' '''Karol Józef Wojtyła''') (born ], ]) is the ] ], the ], and head of the ]. He is also the Sovereign of the ], an independent ]. <!--btw, make sure you can cite a news source (or two) if you claim he's died.--> | |||
| In March ] John Paul, then aged 84, fell seriously ill and went in and out of the hospital. He was largely unable to speak and at times required a ]. However, he continued to bless the daily crowds in ]. | |||
| By the end of the month, speculation was growing that he was near death. On ], he was given the Sacrament of ] (the last rites or Extreme Unction), and on ], ], his condition worsened drastically, with his heart and kidneys rapidly failing. At one point during that day, it was even reported by several Italian news outlets that he had died, though this was later proven to be incorrect. | |||
| ==Personal background== | |||
| ] | |||
| Karol Józef Wojtyła (pronounced: voy-TEE-wah; ]: {{IPA| /ˈkarɔl ˈjuzef vɔjˈtɨwa/}}) was born on ], ] in ] in southern ], a son of a former officer in the ] army. His youth was marked by intensive contacts with the then-thriving Jewish community of ], and the experience of ] occupation, during which he worked in a quarry and a chemical factory. In his youth he was an athlete, actor, ], and a superb linguist, possibly speaking as many as eleven ]. Currently, he speaks eight languages fluently: ], ], ], ], ], ], ], and ]. Though ] is considered a ], the Pope certainly has knowledge of it, as it is the traditional language of the Catholic Church. | |||
| Karol Wojtyła was ] a ] on ] ]. He taught ethics at the ] in ] and subsequently at the ]. In ] he was named ] ] and four years later he assumed leadership of the diocese with the title of ''Vicar Capitular''. On ] ], ] appointed him ] of Kraków. As both bishop and archbishop, Wojtyła participated in the ], making contributions to the documents that would become the ''Decree on Religious Freedom'' ('']'') and the ''Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World'' ('']''), two of the most historic and influential products of the council. | |||
| In ] ] elevated him to ]. In ] ], following Paul's death, he participated in the ] that elected Albino Luciani, the Cardinal ], as ]. At 65, Luciani was a young man by Papal standards. While Wojtyła at 58 could have expected to participate in another Papal conclave before reaching the age of eighty (the upper age limit for cardinal electors), he could hardly have expected that his second conclave would come so soon, for on ] ], after only 33 days in the papacy, Pope John Paul I died. In October ] Wojtyła returned to ] to participate in the second conclave in less than two months. | |||
| ==The second Conclave of 1978== | |||
| ] | |||
| The conclave itself was divided between two particularly strong candidates: ], the Archbishop of ], and ], the Archbishop of ] and close associate of Pope John Paul I. In early ballots Benelli came within nine votes of victory. However Wojtyła secured election as the compromise candidate, in part through the support of cardinals ] and others who had previously supported Siri. | |||
| == The first Polish Pope == | |||
| On ] ], at age 58, Wojtyła succeeded ]. On election, the first non-Italian pope for nearly half a millennium was referred to by many simply as the ''man from a far country''. In terms of his age, his nationality, and his rugged health, the former athlete and playwriter broke all the papal rules. He was to become, arguably, the dominant twentieth-century pope of the Catholic Church, eclipsing ] in travels, and, to some, eclipsing ] in intellectual vigour, and ] in charisma. | |||
| Like his predecessor, John Paul II opted to simplify his office to make it a less regal institution. He chose not to use the ], referring to himself as "I" instead of "We". John Paul also opted for a simple ] ceremony instead of the formal ], and he has not worn the ] during his term in office. This was done to emphasize the servant role that is expressed in the title ] (Servant of the Servants of God). | |||
| ], the mother of Jesus, to whom he | |||
| holds strong devotion</small>]] | |||
| == Assassination attempt == | |||
| On ] ], John Paul II was shot and nearly killed by ], a ] Muslim gunman, as he entered ] to address a general audience. | |||
| It was never found who commissioned the murder attempt, and much speculation has arisen through the years. Some accused the Soviet bloc, that would have been afraid of the effect of the Polish pope on the stability of Eastern European Soviet satellites, especially Poland; others yet accused factions in the Vatican, especially the so-called "freemason" faction, opposed to Wojtiła and ], of which cardinal Casaroli was a front figure. Ali Ağca himself has never been willing to reveal the truth clearly, but has often hinted that he had some help inside the Vatican. Finally, whoever the commissioner, it has been suggested that Ağca, an excellent marksman, would have killed the pope if he had intended so, and that his mission was to scare the Wojtiła rather than killing him. All of this information should be considered rumours however, because no definitive evidence has been found. | |||
| Two days after ] in ], John Paul went to the prison and met with his would-be assassin. The two spoke privately for a time, and the conversation between the two men remains secret to this day. | |||
| John Paul II becoming Pope was correctly predicted decades earlier by ]. The monk also predicted that Wojtyła's reign would be short and end in blood, a prophecy that almost came true during the shooting. The assassination was also predicted by the third secret of the ], as an analysis from the Vatican . | |||
| ==Travels== | |||
| ] | |||
| During his reign, Pope John Paul II made more foreign trips than all previous popes put together. While some of his trips (such as to the ] and the ]) were to places previously visited by Pope Paul VI ("The Pilgrim Pope"), many others were to places that no pope had ever visited before. He became the first reigning pope to travel to the United Kingdom, where he met Queen ], the ] of the ]. In a dramatic symbolic gesture, he knelt in prayer alongside the then ], ] in the See of the ], ], founded by ]. Throughout his trips, he stressed his devotion to the ] through visits to various ], notably ] in the ], ] in ], ] in ], and ] in ]. His public visits were centered around large ]es; one million people, one quarter of the population of the island of Ireland, attended his ] in ]'s ] in ]. | |||
| In ], John Paul the II became the first Pope to visit ]; stands were especially erected for him at ] in ], where he met with governor ], and at ]. | |||
| There was a plot to assassinate the Pope during his visit to ] in ] ], as part of ], a mass terrorist attack that was developed by ] members ] and ]. A ] dressed up as a ], and planned to use the disguise to get closer to the ]'s motorcade so that he could kill the Pope by detonating himself. Before ], the day on which the men were to attack the Pope during his ] visit, an apartment fire brought investigators led by ] to Yousef's laptop computer, which had terrorist plans on it, as well as clothes and items that suggested an assassination plot. Yousef was arrested in ] about a month later, but Khalid Sheik Mohammed was not arrested until ]. | |||
| In ], John Paul II visited ] and met with the local heads of the ]. Thus, he became the first Pope to visit a country with a mostly Orthodox population, ever since the ] in the ] (]). | |||
| ==Relations with the Jewish people== | |||
| ]]] | |||
| John Paul II wrote and delivered a number of speeches on the subject of the Church's relationship with ]s, and often paid homage to the victims of ] in many nations. He was the first pope to have visited ] in ], in ]. One of the few popes to have grown up in a climate of flourishing Jewish culture, one of the key components of pre-war Kraków, his interest in Jewish life dated from early youth. His visit to the ] was the first by a pope in the history of the Catholic Church. | |||
| In March ], Pope John Paul II went to the ] memorial ] in ] and touched the holiest shrine of the ]ish people, the ] in ], promoting ]-]ish reconciliation. The Pope has said that Jews are "our older brothers." While many perceive this as a loving inclusive acknowledgment of the fact that Christianity sprang from Judaism and that Jesus and his first followers were Jewish, others interpret it to follow the age-old Catholic bias -- calling Catholics, "Jacob," and Jews, "Esau," asserting the holiness of the former and the barbarism of the latter. | |||
| In October ], the ] issued a statement congratulating Pope John Paul II on the 25th anniversary of his papacy. "His deep commitment to reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people has been fundamental to his papacy. Jews throughout the world are deeply grateful to the Pope. He has defended the Jewish people at all times, as a priest in his native Poland and during his pontificate... We pray that he remains healthy for many years to come, that he achieves much success in his holy work and that Catholic-Jewish relations continue to flourish." | |||
| In February ], ] released excerpts from the pontiff's new book, his fifth, "Memory and Identity". In it, the Pope seems to compare abortion to the Holocaust, saying "There is still, however a legal extermination of human beings who have been conceived but not yet born. And this time we are talking about an extermination which has been allowed by nothing less than democratically elected parliaments where one normally hears appeals for the civil progress of society and all humanity." A leader of Germany's ] called the comparison unacceptable. | |||
| ], the Vatican's senior doctrinal official, dismissed the charges, saying the pope "was not trying to put the Holocaust and abortion on the same plane" but only warning that evil lurked everywhere, "even in liberal political systems". | |||
| ==Social and political stances== | |||
| ] church; Rome, December 1983]] | |||
| John Paul II was considered a conservative on ] and issues relating to reproduction and the ] of women. His collected writings on human sexuality, called the ], are an extended meditation on the nature of masculinity and femininity and the resulting implications for love and sex. These teachings represent a significant development of the Catholic teaching about sexuality. This development has origins in the Song of Songs, and the church's teaching on Sacraments. | |||
| He was critical of ] for over-emphasizing political liberation at the expense of spiritual liberation. In the ] encyclical '']'' (''The Gospel of Life'') he reasserted the Church's high value on human life and by extension its condemnation of ], ], and ], calling them all a part of the "culture of death" that is pervasive in the modern world. His stands on capital punishment, world debt forgiveness, and poverty issues were considered politically liberal, showing that 'conservative' and 'liberal' political labels are not easily assigned to religious leaders. | |||
| In 2000, he publicly endorsed the ] campaign on African debt relief fronted by Irish rock stars ] and ]. Indeed, the nature of the relationship between the pope and Bono was revealed when someone working at the Dublin recording studio for Bono's band ] stated that a recording session was interrupted on at least one occasion by a phone call from the Pope, who wanted to talk to Bono about the campaign. | |||
| In ], John Paul II also became a prominent critic of the ]. He sent his Peace Minister, ], to talk with US President ] to express opposition to the war. John Paul II says that it is up to the ] to solve the international conflict through diplomacy and that a unilateral aggression is a crime against peace and a violation of ]. | |||
| In ] negotiations for a new ] in 2003 and ], the Vatican's representatives failed to secure any mention of Europe's "Christian Heritage", one of the Pope's cherished goals. | |||
| The Pope was also a leading critic of ]. In his last book, "Memory and Identity", John Paul II described same-sex marriage as part of "a new ideology of evil" that is insidiously menacing society. In a chapter dealing with the role of lawmakers, the pope refered to the "pressures" on the European Parliament to permit same-sex marriage. Reuters quotes the pope as writing, "It is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if this is not perhaps part of a new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden, which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man." | |||
| ] | |||
| ==Serious health problems== | |||
| As the youngest pope elected since ] in ], John Paul II entered the papacy as an exceptionally healthy, relatively young man who, unlike previous popes, hiked, swam and skiied. However, after over twenty-five years on the papal throne, two assassination attempts, the first of which seriously injured him, and a number of ] scares, John Paul's physical health has declined. He had a ] removed from his ] in ], dislocated his shoulder in ], broke his ] in ], and had his ] removed in ]. | |||
| An ] confirmed in ] that Pope John Paul II was suffering from ], as international observers had suspected for some time. This was confirmed by the Vatican in ]. He has difficulty speaking more than a few sentences at a time and has difficulty hearing as well. He also has severe ] in his right knee, which he developed following a hip replacement, thus he rarely walks in public. Nevertheless, he has continued to tour the world. He has indicated that he accepts God's will that he be Pope, and thus he is determined to remain in office until his death or until he becomes irrevocably mentally impaired. Those who have met him say that, though physically in poor shape, he remains mentally in full health. | |||
| ===The Pope's health deteriorates=== | |||
| {{current}} | |||
| In ] ], ], who was often considered the Pope's "right hand", said that "we should pray for the Pope", raising serious concerns over the Pope's health condition. | |||
| On ], ], the pope was taken to the ] in ] suffering from acute inflammation of the ] and ], brought on by a bout of ]. The Vatican reported the following day that his condition had stabilized, but he would remain in the hospital until fully recovered. The pope appeared in public on ] to deliver the final lines of the ] in a hoarse voice from the window of his hospital room. He missed the ] ceremonies in ] on ] for the first time in his 26-year papacy, and returned to the Vatican on ]. | |||
| On ], ] the Pope began having trouble breathing and also had a fever, and he was rushed back to the Gemelli Hospital, where a ] was successfully performed. An aide to Italian ] ] said that John Paul was "serene" after waking up following the surgery. He raised his hand and attempted to say something, but his doctors advised him not to try speaking. The Pope gave 'silent blessings' from his hospital window on Sunday ] and Sunday ], and is said to have spoken in German and Italian during a working meeting with Cardinal Ratzinger in his 10th floor suite of the Gemelli on Tuesday ]. Cardinal Ratzinger told international press: "the Pope spoke to me in German and Italian. He was completely lucid. I brought the Holy Father greetings from the plenary of the Congregation for the divine cult which is meeting at this moment in the Vatican. The Holy Father will be working on material which I gave him today. I am happy to see him fully lucid and mentally capable of saying the essential matters with his own voice. We usually speak in German. The details are unimportant - he spoke of essential matters". | |||
| On ], it was announced that the Pope was scheduled to give his ] blessing on ], ]. The other ceremonies of the ] ] were to be led by cardinals. | |||
| During the Angelus of ] ] The Pope was able to speak to pilgrims for the first time since he was readmitted to hospital. Later that day he returned to the Vatican for the first time in nearly a month. On Palm Sunday (20th March) the Pope made a brief appearance at his window to greet pilgrims. He was cheered by thousands of the faithful as he silently waved an olive branch. It was the first time in his pontificate that he could not officiate at ] Mass. He watched it on his TV in his apartment overlooking ]. | |||
| On ], there were renewed concerns for the Pope's health after reports stated that he had taken a turn for the worse and was not responding to medication . | |||
| On ], Colombian Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo performed the rite of the washing of the feet, in the Vatican's St. Peter's Basilica. The cardinal stood in for Pope John Paul II at a Holy Thursday ceremony at the Vatican. He said the ailing Pontiff was 'serenely abandoning' himself to God's will. The 84-year-old Pope, whose health is precarious following throat surgery last month, watched the service on television from his Vatican apartments. | |||
| On ], Easter day, the Pope appeared at his window in the Vatican for a short time. ] read the ] message while the Pope blessed the people with his own hand. He tried to speak but he could not. | |||
| On ], the Pope developed a "very high fever caused by a urinary tract infection" , but was not rushed to hospital, apparently in accordance with his stated wishes to die in the Vatican. Later that day, Vatican sources announced that the Pope had been given the ] of the Roman Catholic Church, the first time that pope had received the sacrament since the ] assassination attempt on his life. It is unclear if the Pope received the ] as well.. | |||
| On ], the Pope had been fitted with a second feeding tube in his nose to help boost his nutritional intake as a result of his fever. Reports out of the Vatican early that morning reported that the Pope had suffered a heart attack, but remained awake. | |||
| . Vatican spokesperson Joaquin Navarro-Valls denied the reports of the heart attack, but said the Pope had suffered a "cardiocirculatory collapse" and called the Pope's condition "very serious" ]. | |||
| At around 10:30 UTC (03:30 EST) a Vatican spokesman gave a further briefing on the Pope's health, he confirmed that the Pope has had the ]. He refused to be taken to the hospital, and met with his closest associates. He also requested that he be read the meditations said on the ] a few days before. | |||
| At approximately 17:00 UTC the Italian news sources claimed that Pope John Paul II lost consciousness. At least one medical center stated that there is no more hope for him, according to ]. | |||
| The Vatican published a press release at 19:00 CET (17:00 UTC, 11:00 ET) saying the Pope's kidneys stopped functioning. The ANSA news agency reported around 19:30 CET that he lost consciousness. Several Italian media agencies reported the Pope's death at 20:20 CET (18:20 UTC, 13:20 ET), but soon afterwards, the Vatican denied that the Pope was indeed dead, and stories changed. TV Sky Italia reported that his heart and brain were functioning. | |||
| It now seems very likely that there will be a ] in ]. A number of men have been mentioned as ] (possible successors), including ] ], ], ], ], and ]. | |||
| ] coin]] | |||
| ==Other== | |||
| ] ] is the Pope's Private Secretary. A fellow Pole, he was ordained in ] by Bishop Wojtyła, he became the second secretary to Archbishop Wojtyła in ], and shortly after, the principal secretary. He was ordained a bishop by Pope John Paul in ]. | |||
| According to a '']'' article of ] ], John Paul II personally performed three ]s during his tenure as pope. The first exorcism was performed on a woman in ] who writhed on the ground. His second was in September ] when he performed the rite on a nineteen-year-old woman who had become enraged in ]. A year later, in September ], he performed an exorcism on a twenty-year-old woman. | |||
| ] (IATA: KRK) near his hometown of ], ] was named after him. | |||
| ==Selected books by John Paul II== | |||
| * ''Memory and Identity: Conversations at the Dawn of a Millennium'' | |||
| * ''The Way to Christ: Spiritual Exercises'' | |||
| * ''Crossing the Threshold of Hope'' | |||
| * ''Pope John Paul II: In My Own Words'' | |||
| * ''Gift and Mystery: On the fiftieth anniversary of my priestly ordination'' | |||
| * ''Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way'' | |||
| ==Selected movies about Pope John Paul II== | |||
| * starring: Albert Finney, Nigel Hawthorne, Alfred Burke, John McEnery, Patrick Stewart. | |||
| * — A documentary on John Paul's June '87 visit to Poland. | |||
| ==Antipopes== | |||
| For ]s during his papacy, see ]. | |||
| ==Further reading== | |||
| *], ''Witness to Hope'' (1999, 2001) ISBN 006018793X | |||
| ==Related articles== | |||
| *] | |||
| *] | |||
| *] | |||
| == External links == | |||
| {{wikiquote}} | |||
| {{Commons|Johannes Paulus II}} | |||
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| * - Unofficial blog about Pope John Paul II | |||
| {{Pope| | |||
| Predecessor=]| | |||
| Successor=''Incumbent''}} | |||
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