JOHN PAUL II

Malgorzata Parker

Mid-Continent University

Professor Dena.K Skees

March 20, 2012

John Paul II: The Peoples Pope

Background

Pope John Paul II was born Karol Jozef Wojtyla (pronounced "voy-TEE-wah") in Wadowice, Poland, on 18 May 1920. He was the third of three children born to a strict Roman Catholic family. A sister, Olga, died in infancy before Karol was born. His mother Emilia (Kaczorowska) Wojtyla, who was Lithuanian descent, died when he was only nine. His brother Edmund, who was much older than Karol, died four years later. His father, Karol Wojtyla, Sr., was a pensioned army sergeant; he died in 1942 (Weigel, 2003).

In school, the young Karol Wojtyla excelled in sports, dramatics, and academics. He enrolled in Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland in 1938 to study literature. There he acted with an amateur theatrical troupe and participated in poetry readings and literary discussions. He began his seminary studies in secret while earning a living as a manual laborer, first in a quarry and later in a chemical factory during Poland's occupation by the Nazis in World War II (1939-45).

Wojtyla was ordained in Krakow in 1946, after which he worked in France as a pastor to French working-class youth and Polish refugees. He then went on to further his studies at the Pontifical Angelicum University in Rome. After graduating, he returned to Poland to serve a parish for some years, later becoming a professor of ethics at the Catholic University of Lublin. In addition to his native Polish, the pope speaks fluent Italian and Latin. He is also conversant in English, French, German, and Spanish. He is the first non-Italian pope since the year 1522 and the first Slavic pope ever (Varat, 1920).

Political Background

The Vatican City is the physical seat of the Holy See, the central government of the Roman Catholic Church. For many centuries, the popes of the Roman Catholic Church held sovereignty over a wide band of territory across central Italy. In 1861, however, these Papal States fell under the control of the Kingdom of Sardinia. The pope's sovereignty was limited to Rome and its surrounding areas. In 1870, even Rome itself was forcibly incorporated into the new Kingdom of Italy. In 1871, the Italian Parliament passed the Law of Guarantees that secured the pope's spiritual freedom, an income, and special status for the Vatican area. Unwilling to accept this arrangement, however, the popes from 1871 until 1929 remained as self-imposed prisoners in the Vatican until a more permanent political and financial agreement, the Lateran Treaty, was signed with the Italian government in 1929. A new concordat was signed in 1984 that further specified church-state relations between the Holy See and Italy (Stevens, 1983, 21).

Following the death of a reigning pope, the College of Cardinals is called into conclave to choose a successor from their number. The cardinal who receives two-thirds of the vote is elected pope for life. There are no political parties and no local government. Much of the government's work is devoted to the needs of the Catholic Church and ...