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| Sunday, 6 March 2005 |
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Pope John Paul II : Standing by his convictions Pope John Paul II, a man of controversy and conviction, and dubbed the greatest Pope that ever lived has always been in the news. But the recent spate of hospital visits, since he was admitted on February 1 for respiratory difficulties and the emergency tracheotomy performed on Thursday, 24 has elicited a sea of concern and care.
It has also raised ethical questions as to the extent to which the life of the 84-year-old Pope is to be preserved by artificial means. We take a look at the life and times of the most talked about Pope. Compiled by Rikaza Hassan He is said to be the most recognised person in the world and TIME Magazine named him 'Person of the Year' in 1994. He speaks eight languages, has travelled to 117 countries and is the first non-Italian to hold his post in 456 years. Pope John Paul II is the most travelled and possibly the most athletic pope in history; he skied, kayaked, hiked, took daring swims in the Skawa river and climbed mountains. He was an excellent student and before his ordination as a priest, was a member of an experimental theatre group, a stonecutter, a published poet and a chemical company boiler-tender. Born Karol Jozef Wojtyla (voy-tih-wah) on May 18, 1920 in Wadowice, Poland to Karol Wojtyla Sr., a retired army officer and tailor and Emilia Kaczorowska Wojtyla, a school teacher, he was called 'Lolek'. Though Strict Catholics, his parents did not hold anti-semitic views like most other Poles of that day. Lolek himself had many Jewish playmates and was to later become the first Pope to visit a synagogue and the hold a memorial for Holocaust victims at Auschwitz. He called Jews "our elder brothers" when the Vatican extended diplomatic recognition to Israel and officially ended the Catholic-Jewish estrangement. His childhood was an unhappy one as death seemed to linger over the family even before Lolek was born, as it took away an infant sister. In April 1929 his mother succumbed to heart and kidney disease and when he was 12, his 26 year old brother fell victim to scarlet fever. Lolek himself had two close calls with death when he was knocked by a car and then a truck while still a college student in 1944. It is these ensuing injuries that left the 175 pounds, 5 feet 10 1/2 inches, robust pope in his prime with stooped shoulders that were quite noticeable when he was tired. As an adult he suffered a dislocated shoulder, a broken thigh that led to femur-replacement surgery, the removal of a pre-cancerous tumour from his colon among other injuries. He also survived an assassination attempt in 1981 by a gunman whose two bullets wounded him in the abdomen, right arm and left hand. He later visited the Turk, Mehmet Ali Agca in his cell and forgave him. The astonished Agca said, "How is it that I could not kill you?" Lolek lived with his father who was now devoted to raising his only remaining child in a bare, single roomed apartment behind the church. Wojtyla Sr. made the teenage boy study in a chilly room to toughen him up and improve his concentration, trying to instil the same discipline in his son that he had instilled in his soldiers. However the father also let Lolek time for recreation, even playing soccer with him in the apartment with a ball made of rags. Once he completed secondary school, Wojtyla and his father moved to Krakow where he enrolled at the Jagiellonian University in 1938 to study literature and philosophy. It is then that he discovered his passion for poetry, participating in poetry readings and literary discussion groups. He was also described as a gifted actor in his theatre group as well as a fine singer. In 1941 after the Germans invaded Poland, Wojtyla escaped deportation And imprisonment by working as a stone cutter in a quarry. In February 1941, his 61 year old father passed away leaving his wish to see his son ordained as a priest unfulfilled. "I will not live long and would like to be certain that you will commit yourself to God's service" he said his father told him. Wojtyla commenced his education again in August 1942 when he began Studying at an underground seminary and registered for theology courses at the university. He continued in the same vein while working in a chemical plant until the Germans began rounding up Polish men forcing him to take refuge in the residence of the archbishop of Krakow where he remained until the end of the war. He was finally able to fulfil his father's dream in 1946 when he was ordained in Krakow. The next few years he spent studying, earning two masters degrees and a doctorate before taking up priestly duties as an assistant pastor in Krakow in 1949. The early years of his priesthood Wojtyla served as a chaplain to university students at St. Florian's Church while working on a second doctorate in philosophy. In 1954 he was hired by the Catholic University of Lublin, the only Catholic university in the communist world as a non-tenured professor. Apart from studying and training to teach and counsel, he also founded and ran a service that helped solve marital disaccord due to family planning, illegitimacy, alcoholism and physical abuse. It was "perhaps the most successful marriage institute in Christianity" according to TIME magazine.His appointment to the Chair of Ethics at the Catholic University in 1956 began his ascent through the hierarchy of the church. In 1958 he was named the auxiliary Bishop of Krakow and was one of the intellectual leaders at the deliberations that revolutionised the church in 1962 by the Vatican Council II. His appointment as cardinal in 1967 by Pope Paul VI was welcomed by the communist government which saw him as 'flexible.' He shrewdly bided his time not letting his distaste of communism show while demanding permits to build churches, defending youth groups and ordaining priests to work underground in Czechoslovakia. Once asked if he feared retribution from the government, he replied "I'm not afraid of them, they are afraid of me." Although a formidable intellectual presence, an able administrator and Fund raiser, Wojtyla's election to the papacy on October 16, 1978 after the death of Pope John Paul I surprised more than a few. He is said to have formally accepted his election before the cardinals with tears in his eyes. Wojtyla at 58 was the youngest pope in 132 years. He told the crowd, "I was afraid to receive this nomination, but I did it in the spirit of obedience to our Lord and in total confidence of His mother, the most Holy Madonna." "Have you been a diligent and vigilant master of the church? Have you tried to satisfy the expectations of the faithful of the church and also the hunger for truth that we feel in the world outside the church?" John Paul II asked himself as he celebrated 20 years as a pope in October 1998. The pope offered no answers to his questions but opinion is divided as to whether he has really been one of the best or the worst popes in history. Pope John Paul II's time in office has been far from the ordinary Tenures of past popes. Depending on who you ask, he either inherited a church Put in shambles by the reforms introduced by the second Vatican Council and restored it to new glory while firmly grounded in conservative tradition or, put an end to the church's participation in humanity's struggle for peace and justice and brought the church back to its previous 'holy isolation.' John Paul changed the style of being a pope; where most popes used to stick to the environs of Rome, John Paul has made over 170 visits worldwide. Instead of staying home in Europe he has used his travels and the media to brighten up the image of the church and bring it more attention and help. He has also made a lot of inroad in the issue of human rights, lending support towards bringing down autocratic regimes and promoting democracy, as well as playing a pivotal role in the collapse of communism. In his visit to then communist Poland after his ascension to pope, he told the crowd of 1 million gathered, "You are men. You have dignity. Don't crawl on your bellies." The pope however hasn't played favourites, warning the West of the danger of materialism (he regards capitalism and communism as flip sides of the same coin), selfishness and secularism. He suggested lowering their standard of living and sharing their wealth with the Third world, a message that did not play well. He has been especially critical of the US in certain issues such as the Gulf War and what he describes as the "scandalous" arms trade. His run of his own house has been less than democratic. In 1989 the Vatican announced that all church office holders, be they parish priests or philosophy and theology teachers in seminaries must not only give formal assent to major church dogmas but also assent to doctrine not formerly proclaimed as obligatory, such as the Church teachings on sex. His interventions made over 300 eminent European theologians sign the Cologne Declaration, which accused the pope of "overstepping and enforcing in an inadmissible way" his proper competence in the field of doctrinal teaching. Pope John Paul II has been adamant in his abhorrence of contraception, abortion and euthanasia. "A nation that kills its own children has no future," he said when his motherland liberalised its abortion laws in 1996. He is also opposed to cloning and the harvesting of embryos' stem cells to grow body parts. His view of women in the higher strata of the church has been anything but modern, refusing to even discuss the barring of ordaining women, a move that polls show is favoured by a majority of Catholics. A recent directive from the Vatican even bars altar girls, hence eliminating one of the last paltry remaining positions that women are allowed to hold in church. In 1979, the renowned Swiss Catholic theologian, Hans Kung whose license to teach theology in Catholic institutions was revoked by the Vatican commented that the pope "had waged an almost spooky battle against modern women who seek a contemporary form of life." The omnipresent papacy has had its downside with John Paul having made comments that were then too late to retract having reached the years of those around the world. Buddhists priests boycotted his trip to Sri Lanka after he was quoted describing Buddhism a largely "atheistic system." He later tried to make amends by declaring his "his profound respect and sincere esteem" for the religion. As Father Reese opportunely points out, "The pope is a human being trying to do the best job he can and he's had incredible achievements. He's played a major role in the changing of the course of history of this century. And to condemn him or canonise him is to ignore the complexity of the person and the world we live in." In the end assessing the pope's exact place in history is of no consequence for you are responsible for your actions. The greatest pope that ever lived, spiritualist of the millennium or revivalist of aged doctrines that hold no water in this contemporary world, Pope John Paul II has stood by his convictions throughout his papacy unflinchingly and for that he is simply a great man. **** Choosing a Pope The methodology of choosing a pope has been numerous and varied over in the nearly 2000 year history of the papacy, since the appointment of St. Linus in the year 67, to replaced the first pope, St. Peter (32 A.D.). Local clergymen who lived close to Rome chose the first popes, but were influenced by kings, emperors and other persons of influence. At certain times those discontented with the result appointed their own man, known as the 'antipope'. In 1059 Pope Nicholas II decreed that henceforth all papal electors must be cardinals and in 1179 Pope Alexander III gave all cardinals an equal vote in the election. In 1274, Pope Gregory X decided that the cardinals must meet within ten days of a pope's death and that they should be kept in seclusion until a pope was chosen. By the late 1500s, most of the electoral procedures now used were in place. The pope can be elected by one of three methods. A voice vote is permissible if the decision is unanimous as is the unanimous selection by the cardinals of a nine to fifteen member committee. Election by ballot however is the most common method: at the death of a pope the dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals notifies the cardinals and calls a meeting, always held in the morning, that must begin within 20 days of the death. The Five Most Likely Successors Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, Cardinal Francis Arinze, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Cardinal Diongi Tettamanzi. |
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He has been in a steady decline of health in the past years, ailing from
Parkinson's disease (yet to be officially acknowledged by the Vatican) The
recent infirmities prevented the pontificate from participating in the Ash
Wednesday service for the first time in twenty six years and caused much
anguish to his faithful flock who have set up 24 hour prayer vigils
worldwide. 
