Pope John Paul II, spiritual father to the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics, has died.
Hobbled for nearly a decade with the complications of Parkinson’s disease and arthritis, on March 30 the pontiff slipped into a fever from which he never recovered. He was pronounced dead at 9:37 pm on April 2, after, according to Catholic ritual, a cardinal called his baptismal name three times and he did not respond. Bells tolled across the Holy See to mark his passing.
Earlier, as news of the Pope’s failing health spread, Catholics the world over congregated in churches and cathedrals to pray for their ailing leader. Romans and pilgrims alike had flooded into St. Peter’s square in Vatican City and kept vigil underneath the pope’s bedroom window day and night, where he lay surrounded by aides and church leaders. The worshippers’ numbers swelled to 70,000 as they wept, sang, and prayed for an end to his suffering.
When the end did come, Archbishop Leonardo Sandri announced to the crowd that “Our holy father John Paul, 84, has returned to the house of the father.” His papal ring was broken, and his papal seal, the symbol of his reign, was smashed.
U of T students, staff, and faculty gathered as well to remember the pontiff. John Paul II’s visit to Toronto for World Youth Day in 2002 lingered especially in the minds of students who had gone to see him there.
“I was very sad to hear about the Pope’s passing,” said Matthew Borkowski, a fourth-year U of T engineering science student. “He was a force for change in the world for so long. He was so full of love for people of all races and all religions. I felt very attached to this Pope because of my polish heritage and he had such a special vocation for youth. He had limitless energy for World Youth Day and young people everywhere. Even when he was sick and dying he made a supreme effort to be with us and to be our leader and our shepherd. He was a hero to me, personally.” Borkowski was holding a rosary that the Pope had blessed at the 2002 World Youth Day before going into a special Sunday evening service at the Cardinal Newman Centre.
Over the past year, the Pope had been in and out of hospital numerous times, most recently to undergo an emergency tracheotomy on February 24. The operation, which involved inserting a breathing tube into his windpipe, left him so weak that he was unable to speak publicly. He was forced to forgo giving his annual Good Friday blessings in Rome for the first time in his papacy.
John Paul’s deteriorating condition in recent months had led many to conclude that he was no longer capable of carrying out his duties to the church. There were even calls for him to step down, which would have been an unprecedented break from Catholic practice, as traditionally popes serve until their death. In his final years, he appeared frail and weak in public, too affected by his ailments to stand for long periods and only able to address his followers in a low, mumbling voice, a sharp contrast to the man who appeared so animated through most of his papacy.
John Paul II was born Karol Wojtyla in Wadowice, Poland, in 1920. He endured the Nazi occupation of the country, during which he was forced to work in a quarry and then a chemical factory. The Nazis closed down the country’s Catholic institutions, and Wojtyla began his religious studies in a seminary which was operated in secret until the occupation ended. He became a priest in 1946.
He rose through the ranks of the Catholic Church in Poland to become the archbishop of Kraków in 1962, at a time when the church faced constant harassment from the country’s Communist government, which attempted to limit the church’s power. Wojtyla gained recognition in the global Catholic community during the Vatican Council II meetings which reformed the church. He showed himself to be a strong and eloquent supporter of religious freedom and became one of the leaders of the council.
Five years later he was appointed cardinal by Pope Paul VI, and became Poland’s pre-eminent religious leader. He was forced to negotiate between a national congregation which longed to practice their religion freely and a powerful government wary of organized religion. Wojtyla shrewdly served his followers while appearing flexible enough to not incur the wrath of the Communists, as his hard-line predecessors had done.
The Sacred College of Cardinals elected him pope in 1978, after the sudden death of Pope John Paul I, who reigned for only 34 days. At the time, Wojtyla, now John Paul II, said “I was afraid to receive this nomination, but I did it in the spirit of obedience to Our Lord and in the total confidence in His mother, the most holy Madonna.”
Soon afterward, he returned to Poland, where he was met with massive crowds wherever he went. Millions listened as he urged them to demand their human rights, and not to be afraid of the Communist government. The visit was a huge embarrassment to the government, and laid bare the deep fissures between the public and the state which characterized Communist Poland, an officially pro-Marxist, atheistic society. Many credited John Paul II with hastening the fall of communism in his own country and the Soviet Bloc as a whole.
John Paul’s papacy, the 265th, was one of many firsts. He was the first pope from Eastern Europe, and the first non-Italian one since the 16th century. He was also the first to visit and pray in a Jewish synagogue, which he did in Israel in 1994 in a symbolic gesture of penance for the church’s role in the long-standing rift between Catholics and Jews. He is the only pope to ever have been shot, narrowly surviving an assassination attempt when a man fired into his body at point-blank range in St. Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981.
Although widely revered, he was also criticized by those within and outside the church. He was said to be overly dictatorial, and did not allow for debate on issues of vital importance. To the dismay of many, he flatly refused to change the church’s stance on the ordination of women. He also presided over the Vatican while the world became aware that the Catholic establishment had been astonishingly negligent in punishing pedophilic priests in North America.
He was inflexible on the issue of contraception, and some accused him of endangering global health when he released statements saying that condoms were not effective in stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS. This adamant adherence to Catholic orthodoxy was seen as a detriment to the church by progressive Catholics who believed it must modify its doctrines in order to reach people in a modern, increasingly secular world.
But his most lasting legacy will be that he changed what it means to be the pope. John Paul was the first pontiff to truly reach a global audience. From very early on, he made full use of modern technology to spread his message across the globe. Charismatic and charming, he captured the attention of Catholics and non-Catholics alike in television appearances which were beamed all over the world.
His predecessors mostly confined themselves to the Vatican, isolated and seemingly unapproachable as the supposedly infallible Vicar of Christ. But John Paul was history’s most widely traveled pope, making 104 international journeys in his 26-year papacy, three of them to Canada. He went on 38 official state visits, and held 738 audiences and meetings with heads of state, including Yasser Arafat and Fidel Castro. He visited Africa and Latin America most often, a reflection of the changing nature of the religion which used to be considered European property but is now strongest in the Third World, while industrial nations have become predominantly secular.
His efforts to reach out to the world made him an international icon, and put a human face on the monolithic Catholic Church. Many dubbed him ‘the people’s pope.’ His death is to be followed by nine days of official mourning, whereafter the Sacred College will meet and elect a new pontiff who will be charged with adapting the church to the 21st century. How successful he will be is uncertain, but it is difficult to imagine that he will overshadow the reign and life of John Paul II.
