"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.
