Karol Wojtyla Who?
By Michael Scott
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"The opportunity that God sends does not wake up the one who is asleep." - Sengalese Proverb

Karol Wojtyla. Many people love or admire him. Some people dislike him or despise his positions. However, other people do not know him or notice his work. This last group is asleep. Karol Wojtyla is unarguably one of the true moral giants of the twentieth century. He shares the same heroic stature with men and women such as Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and Nelson Mandela.

Karol Wojtyla holds numerous titles: Bishop of Rome; Primate of Italy; Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province; Patriarch of the West; Sovereign of the Vatican States; Successor to Saint Peter; Prince of the Apostles; Vicar of Jesus Christ; and the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church. He holds one other title that is perhaps the most descriptive. Karol Wojtyla is the Servant of the Servants of God.

Karol Wojtyla is widely known as Pope John Paul II. He celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of his pontificate on October 16, 2003. Although his story is awe-inspiring, some hard statistics place his pontifical service into perspective.

Pope John Paul II is the 264th Pope. He is the first non-Italian Pope since 1522. His pontificate is the longest papacy of the twentieth century and currently the 4th longest in papal history. His ministry exceeds 9120 days. He shepherds 1,070,000,000 billion Catholic Christians worldwide!

He has made 102 apostolic trips to 129 different countries; visited 616 different towns in Italy; and visited 301 out 333 parishes within the Archdiocese of Rome. His trips currently constitute nearly 9% of his pontificate! Indeed, his trips exceed more than 720,284 miles, which is around 28 times the planet's circumference or roughly 3 times the distance between the earth and the moon.

He has elevated 233 cardinals during his pontificate. He has selected most of the 195 cardinals within the College of Cardinals. He has personally ordained 321 bishops, but has named well more than ½ of all the bishops worldwide including over 90% of them within the United States. What's more, he continues to meet with each cardinal and bishop every five years!

Pope John Paul II has written 14 encyclicals, 14 apostolic exhortations, 11 apostolic constitutions, 43 apostolic letters, and 28 motu proprios (documents of his own accord). He has presided and promulgated statements for 15 bishop synods. He has written the following best-selling books, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Gift and Mercy, and most recently Rise, Let Us Be on Our Way. Many of his catecheses between 1978 and 1984 were compiled into The Theology of the Body: Human Love in the Divine Plan which is a revolutionary advance regarding the Catholic Church's teachings about love and sexuality. He has also written thousands of letters and messages.

Pope John Paul II authorized the Catechism of the Catholic Church for the first time in 500 years. He sincerely apologized for the Church's mistakes and injustices during the last millennium and asked for God's mercy at the beginning of the Third Millennium. He has worked tirelessly with the Greek Orthodox Church's Ecumenical Patriarch, the Russian Orthodox Church's Patriarch, and other Orthodox leaders to bridge the millennial schism between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. He has visited both Jewish synagogues and Muslim mosques for the first time in the history of the papacy. He routinely meets with the world's religious and political leaders to promote programs such as the World Days of Fasting for Peace to foster peace and unity in the world. His Holy Land Pilgrimage during the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 is without precedent.

Pope John Paul II founded the Pontifical Academy for Life, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences, the John Paul Institute for the Sahel to fight drought and desertification, and the Populorum Progression Foundation for Indigenous People which serves indigenous, racially-mixed, Afro-American and the poor campesinos of Latin America and the Caribbean. He has also instituted the World Day of the Sick and World Youth Day. World Youth Day is perhaps one of the more exciting programs. It draws millions of young people from around the world every 2 or 3 years to share and strengthen their faith with the Holy Father. No celebrity or musician has a comparable following among young people.

Pope John Paul II has held 1112 general audiences with 17,119, 200 people from around the world. He meets between 150,000 and 180,000 people every year on average at smaller audiences. He has met with at least 1,475 heads of state in his time. In 1995, his World Youth Day Mass in Manila was attended by between 5-7 million young people, which made it the largest human gathering in history! Quite literally, he is the most seen person in history---and this figure does not even include being seen on television and the internet!

While many credit him for his role in the peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Bloc, Pope John Paul II continues to play a historic role in promoting peace and diplomacy in the world. The Vatican State currently has diplomatic relations with 174 countries and works collaboratively with many international and regional intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union. This fact is largely due to his personal diplomacy.

He has canonized 482 saints in 51 ceremonies and beatified 1,330 people in 145 ceremonies. Some say that he has performed more canonizations and beatifications than all of his predecessors combined!

Pope John Paul II truly follows Jesus Christ's command to "feed my sheep" and "tend my sheep." He is tireless in spite of his age, his infirmities, and assassination attempts.

Saint Athanasius wrote in his famous biography of Saint Anthony of Egypt, "Jesus glorifies them that glorify Him, and not only brings the Kingdom of Heaven those who serve Him to the end, but even here. He makes them everywhere known and spoken of for their own goodness and for helping others." And so it with His disciple, Karol Wojtyla…

By Michael Scott

For more information, please read "Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II" written by George Weigel. It is available online and in most major bookstores. It is probably one the best biographies.