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Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II In Latin: Ioannes Pavlvs PP. II

Papacy October 16, 1978 - April 2, 2005
Predecessor John Paul I
Successor Election pending
Date of Birth May 18, 1920
Place of Birth Wadowice, Poland
Date of Death April 2, 2005
Place of Death Apostolic Palace, Vatican City

His Holiness Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyla (18 May 1920 – 2 April 2005), was Pope and Bishop of Rome for almost 27 years, from 16 October 1978 until his death, ruling Vatican City and leading the Roman Catholic Church and its Eastern Rites. He served the third longest papacy following Saint Peter and Pope Pius IX. He was the first non-Italian to serve in office since the Dutch-German Pope Adrian VI assumed the papacy in 1522.

Though not immune to harsh criticism, Pope John Paul II was considered by many as one of the greatest moral leaders of the world in recent history. Movements to call him "Pope John Paul the Great" and speculation for future beatification and canonization into sainthood, testify to the public respect gained by the Pope. As his mission by virtue of his office, Pope John Paul II emphasized what he called the universal call to holiness and attempted to define the Roman Catholic Church's role in the modern world. He spoke out against communism, imperialism, materialism, Nazism, racism, oppression and unrestrained capitalism. He defended traditional Roman Catholic teachings on human life by opposing abortion, contraception, human cloning, capital punishment, euthanasia, and war. He also defended traditional Roman Catholic teachings on marriage by opposing divorce and same-sex marriage.

Pope John Paul II died on 2 April 2005 after a long fight against Parkinson's disease and other illnesses. The public viewing of his body in St. Peter's Basilica drew over four million people to Vatican City and became the largest single pilgrimage in the history of Christendom.

Biography

Biography of Pope John Paul II

Early life

Karol Józef Wojtyla was born on 18 May 1920 in Wadowice in southern Poland. His mother died in 1929, and his father supported him so that he could study. His youth was marked by intensive contacts with the then-thriving Jewish community of Wadowice.

Karol enrolled at the Jagiellonian University. He worked as a volunteer librarian and did compulsory military training in the Academic Legion. In his youth he was an athlete, actor, and playwright, and learned as many as eleven languages.

During the second world war, academics of the Jagiellonian University were arrested and the university suppressed. All able-bodied males had to have a job. He variously worked as a messenger for a restaurant and a manual labourer in a limestone quarry.

Church career

Pope Paul VI with Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, later to become Pope John Paul IIIn 1942, he entered the underground seminary run by Cardinal Sapieha, the archbishop of Kraków. Karol Wojtyla was ordained a priest on 1 November 1946, by the Archbishop of Kraków.

In 1962, Bishop Karol Wojtyla took part in the Second Vatican Council, and in December 1963, Pope Paul VI appointed him Archbishop of Kraków. Pope Paul VI elevated him to cardinal in 1967.

A Pope from Poland

In August 1978, following Paul's death, he voted in the Papal Conclave that elected Pope John Paul I, who at sixty-five was a young man by Papal standards. Nobody could have expected that his second conclave would come so soon, for on 28 September 1978, after only 33 days as Pope, John Paul I was discovered dead in the papal apartments.

Like his immediate predecessor, Pope John Paul II dispensed with the traditional Papal Coronation and instead received ecclesiastical investiture with the simplified Papal Installation.

Assassination attempts

On 13 May 1981, John Paul II was shot and nearly killed by Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turkish gunman, as he entered St Peter's Square to address an audience. Agca was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment. Two days after the Christmas of 1983, John Paul visited the prison where his would-be assassin was being held. The two spoke privately for some time. John Paul II said "What we talked about will have to remain a secret between him and me. I spoke to him as a brother whom I have pardoned and who has my complete trust."

Another assassination attempt took place on 12 May 1982, in Fatima, Portugal when a man tried to stab John Paul II with a bayonet, but was stopped by security guards. The assailant, an ultraconservative Spanish priest named Juan María Fernández y Krohn, reportedly opposed the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and called the pope an "agent of Moscow." He served a six-year sentence that was followed by his expulsion from Portugal.

Health

Pope John Paul II in old age.As the youngest pope elected since Pope Pius IX in 1846, John Paul II entered the papacy as a healthy, relatively young man who hiked, swam and went skiing. However, after over twenty-five years on the papal throne, two assassination attempts and a number of cancer scares, John Paul's physical health declined.

On Palm Sunday (20 March) the Pope made a brief appearance at his window and silently waved an olive branch to pilgrims. Two days later there were renewed concerns for the Pope's health after reports stated that he had taken a turn for the worse and was not responding to medication. By the end of the month, speculation was growing, and was finally confirmed by the Vatican officials, that he was nearing death.

Death

Pope John Paul II dies

On 31 March 2005 the Pope developed a "very high fever caused by a urinary tract infection" (BBC News, 1 April 2005) , but was not rushed to the hospital, apparently in accordance with his wishes to die in the Vatican. Later that day, Vatican sources announced that John Paul II had been given the Anointing of the Sick (informally known as Last Rites) of the Roman Catholic Church, the first time that the pontiff had received the sacrament since the 1981 assassination attempt.

A crowd of over two million within Vatican City, over one billion Catholics world-wide, and many non-Catholics mourned John Paul II. The Poles, who had a deep sense of devotion towards the pontiff and referred to him as their "father," were particularly devastated by his death. Many world leaders expressed their condolences and ordered flags in their countries lowered to half-staff. Numerous countries with a Catholic majority, and even some with only a small Catholic population, declared mourning for John Paul II, including at least one on almost every continent.

Funeral of Pope John Paul II

The funeral of Pope John Paul II became the largest single pilgrimage in the history of Christendom, drawing over 4 million people to Vatican City in addition to over 3.7 million residents already in Rome. Only 2 million were permitted to see the body lying in state. The death of Pope John Paul II set into motion centuries-old rituals and traditions dating back to medieval times. The Rite of Visitation took place from 4 April and extended through the morning of 8 April at St. Peter's Basilica. On 8 April, 10:00 a.m. CEST (08:00 UTC), the Mass of Requiem was offered by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger by virtue of his office as Dean of the College of Cardinals. Pope John Paul II was interred in the grottoes under the basilica, the Tomb of the Popes. He was lowered into the tomb vacated by Pope John XXIII, who was moved by Pope John Paul II for beatification.

"John Paul the Great"?

Since the death of John Paul II, a number of clergy at the Vatican, including Angelo Cardinal Sodano in the written form of his homily at the Mass of Repose, have been referring to the late pontiff as John Paul the Great - only the third pope to be so acclaimed, and the first since the first millennium. One Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera called him even "The Greatest". Scholars of canon law state that there is no official process for declaring a pope "Great"; the title establishes itself through popular, and continued, usage.

Succession

Papal conclave, 2005

Following the funeral of Pope John Paul II, the succession process began. Members of The College of Cardinals below 80 years of age at the time of John Pauls's death will be eligible to vote for the next Pope. The new pope will receive investiture through the simplified Papal Installation, unless he wishes to return to the tradition of Papal Coronation with the triregnum.

His first encyclical letters focused on the Triune God; the very first was on Jesus the Redeemer ("Redemptor Hominis"). He maintained this focus on God throughout his pontificate. Right after being elected as Pope, he told the cardinals who elected him that he saw that his main work was to implement the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, an important centrepiece of which is a universal call to holiness. This is the basis for his canonization of saints from all walks of life, as well as for establishing and supporting the personal prelature of Opus Dei, whose mission is to spread this call to laity and to secular priests through its association the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross.

John Paul II's Coat of Arms

A controversial point of the John Paul II papacy was the Congregation for Doctrine's 1 October 1986 letter to bishops that described homosexuality as a "tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil" and "an objective disorder." His book Memory and Identity claimed that the push for homosexual marriage might be part of a "new ideology of evil ... which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man."

Pastoral trips

Pope John Paul II visiting a synagogue in Rome in April 1983. During his reign, Pope John Paul II ("The Pilgrim Pope") made more foreign trips (over 100) than all previous popes put together. In total he logged more than 1,167,000 km (725,000 miles). He consistently attracted large crowds on his travels, some amongst the largest ever assembled in human history. While some of his trips (such as to the United States and the Holy Land) were to places previously visited by Pope Paul VI, many others were to places that no pope had ever visited before. Some have argued that he has travelled farther and met more people than any human being in history.

In September, 2001, amid post September 11th concerns, he travelled to Kazakhstan, with an audience of largely Muslims, as well as Armenia, to participate in the celebration of the 1700 years of Christianity in that nation.

Relations with other religions

Pope John Paul II travelled extensively and came into contact with many divergent faiths. However, he ceaselessly attempted to find common ground, whether it be doctrinal or dogmatic. He made history with his establishment of contacts with Israel, praying at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. He was also the first Roman Catholic Pope to pray in an Islamic mosque. The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism visited with Pope John Paul II eight times, more than any other single dignitary. The Pope and the Dalai Lama often shared similar views and understood similar plights, both coming from peoples who have suffered under communism. (Both the Pope and the Dalai Lama are the only two prominent international figures to carry the title of "His Holiness.")

Relations with the Jewish people

The Pope at the Western Wall. John Paul II wrote and delivered a number of speeches on the subject of the Church's relationship with Jews, and often paid homage to the victims of the Holocaust in many nations. He was the first pope to have visited Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, in 1979. One of the few popes to have grown up in a climate of flourishing Jewish culture, one of the key components of pre-war Kraków, his interest in Jewish life dated from early youth. His visit to The Great Synagogue of Rome was the first known visit to a synagogue by a pope since the early history of the Catholic Church.

In March 2000, Pope John Paul II went to the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem in Israel and touched the holiest shrine of the Jewish people, the Western Wall in Jerusalem, promoting Christian-Jewish reconciliation. The Pope has said that Jews are "our elder brothers."

In October 2003, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued a statement congratulating Pope John Paul II on entering the 25th year of his papacy. "His deep commitment to reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people has been fundamental to his papacy. Jews throughout the world are deeply grateful to the Pope. He has defended the Jewish people at all times, as a priest in his native Poland and during his pontificate... We pray that he remains healthy for many years to come, that he achieves much success in his holy work and that Catholic-Jewish relations continue to flourish."

On 18 January 2005, a group of 138 Jewish leaders from around the world, Rabbis and Reverend Cantors, met with Pope John Paul II in Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace, to thank the Pontiff for all he had done for the Jewish People and for the State of Israel. This meeting was the last official public meeting that this Pope had had, and brought with it the making of world history.

Gary Krupp, the seventh Jewish person to be knighted into the Order of St. Gregory by this Pope, offered a few words thanking the Pope for the support of the Jewish people. The Pontiff's numerous reconciliatory acts had been a hallmark of his pontificate, as he had tried to repair rifts in all religions of the world. The Pope then gave an enthusiastic welcome to the Jewish audience, composed of Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jewish leaders. In his remarks, the Pope noted that that year had marked the fortieth anniversary of the Vatican's landmark Nostra Aetate declaration, which rejected the charge that Jews collectively were responsible for the death of Jesus. "May this be an occasion for renewed commitment to increased understanding and co-operation in the service of building a world ever more firmly based on respect for the divine image in every human being", he said. "Upon all of you, I invoke the abundant blessings of the Almighty, and in particular, the gift of peace. Shalom Aleichem, shalom, shalom." Rabbis then blessed him with the Priestly Blessing, and the Pontiff greeted the crowd individually. Meanwhile thirteen Cantors: Avraham Amar, Ofer Barnoy, Victor I. Beck, Gadi Elon, Motti Fuchs, Lawrence Eliezer Kepecs, David Montefiore, Leslie Rimer, Yehuda Rossler, Josh Rubenstein, Steve Shor, Michael Trachtenberg, and Sol Zim, sang a Hebrew blessing to him. The artist Cantor Lawrence Eliezer Kepecs presented Pope John Paul II with a personally designed mezuzah inscribed with the Priestly Blessing. No other group in the world had ever said "thank you", giving blessings to the Pope. It was the first time in history that such a large contingent of Jewish clergymen officially met with a Pope. It also marked the first time in history that Jewish Cantors sang in front of a Pope, leaving a lasting impression on the entire Judeo-Catholic community.

On 2 April 2005, the ADL stated that Pope John Paul II revolutionised Catholic-Jewish relations, saying that "more change for the better took place in his 27 year Papacy than in the nearly 2000 years before." (Pope John Paul II: An Appreciation: A Visionary Remembered)

Given the significant difference between Catholic Christianity and Judaism, it should not be surprising that a number of points of dispute exist between the Catholic Church and the Jewish community. A number of issues supported by John Paul II caused dissension within elements of the Jewish community, including:

How to deal with baptised Jewish children during the Second World War who were never returned to their Jewish roots
The beatification of Pope Pius XII, whom many Jewish groups believed did not act correctly during the Holocaust.
The opening of Second World War era Vatican archives
The beatification of Jews who were converted as infants to Catholicism
Vatican positions on Israeli policy
The Pope John Paul saw all abortion as murder, while for reasons endangering health, Jews view some abortions as permissible.
Nonetheless, the number of issues that divide Jewish groups and the Vatican have dropped significantly during the last forty years.

Relations with the Eastern Orthodox Church

Pope John Paul II meets with Archbishop Christodoulos of Greece. In May 1999, John Paul II visited Romania. This was the first time a Pope had visited a predominantly Eastern Orthodox country since the Great Schism, the event that separated Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Roman Catholicism in the year 1054. The visit was prompted by an invitation from his Beatitude Teoctist, the Patriarch of the autocephalous Romanian Orthodox Church. On his arrival, the Patriarch as well as the President of Romania, Emil Constantinescu, greeted the Pope. The Patriarch stated, "The second millennium of Christian history began with a painful wounding of the unity of the Church; the end of this millennium has seen a real commitment to restoring Christian unity."

Pope John Paul II and Archbishop Christodoulos issue a "common declaration". Two years later, in 2001, John Paul II became the first Pope to visit Greece in 1291 years. The visit was controversial, and the Pontiff was met with protests and snubbed by Eastern Orthodox leaders, none of who met his arrival.

In Athens, the Pope met with Archbishop Christodoulos, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church in Greece. After a private 30 minute meeting, the two spoke publicly. Christodoulos read a list of "13 offences" of the Roman Catholic Church against the Orthodox Church since the Great Schism, including the pillaging of Constantinople by crusaders in 1204. He also bemoaned the lack of any apology from the Roman Catholic Church, saying that "until now, there has not been heard a single request for pardon" for the "maniacal crusaders of the 13th century".

The Pope responded by saying, "For the occasions past and present, when sons and daughters of the Catholic Church have sinned by action or omission against their Orthodox brothers and sisters, may the Lord grant us forgiveness," to which Christodoulos immediately applauded. John Paul also said that the sacking of Constantinople was a source of "deep regret" for Catholics.

Later, John Paul and Christodoulos met on a spot where Saint Paul had once preached to Athenian Christians. They issued a "common declaration", saying, "We shall do everything in our power, so that the Christian roots of Europe and its Christian soul may be preserved. ... We condemn all recourse to violence, proselytism and fanaticism, in the name of religion." The two leaders then said the Lord's Prayer together, breaking an Orthodox taboo against praying with Catholics.

However, during the visit the Pope avoided any mention of Cyprus, still a source of tension between the two faiths.

John Paul II visited other heavily Orthodox areas such as Ukraine, despite lack of welcome at times, and he said that an end to the Schism was one of his fondest wishes.

With regard to the relations with the Serb Orthodox Church, Pope John Paul II could not escape the controversy of the involvement of Croatian Catholic clergy with the Ustasa regime of World War II. He beatified Aloysius Stepinac in 1998, the Croatian war-time archbishop of Zagreb, a move seen negatively by those who believe that he was an active collaborator with the Ustaše fascist regime. On June 22, 2003, he visited Banja Luka in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a city inhabited by many Catholics before the 1992-1995 war, but since then predominantly Orthodox. He held a mass at the Petricevac monastery, a place of considerable controversy and distress, both during the World War II and during the Yugoslav wars.

Catholics in Belarus (at least 10-15% of the population) had hoped for the Pope to visit their country, a trip he himself wished to make. Resistance from the Russian Orthodox Church and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, however, meant the visit never happened.

The Pope had been also saying during the entire pontificate, that one of his greatest dreams was to visit Russia, which never actually happened. He had made several attempts to solve the problems which arose during centuries between the Roman Catholic Church and Russian Orthodox Church, like giving back the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in August 2004. However, the Orthodox side was not that enthusiastic, giving the statements like: "The question of the visit of the Pope in Russia is not connected by the journalists with the problems between the Churches, which are now unreal to solve, but with giving back one of many sacred things, which were illegally stolen from Russia." (Vsevolod Chaplin).

It is said, that the Russian president Vladimir Putin was not present at the funeral mass of the Pope, because the Patriarch Alexei II, the head of Russian Orthodox Church told him not to go.

The Pope for youth

John Paul II had a special relationship also with the Catholic youth and is known by some as "The Pope for Youth". He was a hero to many of them.

He established World Youth Day in 1984 with the intention to bring young Catholics from all parts of the world together to celebrate their faith. These week-long meetings of the youth happen every two or three years, attracting hundreds of thousands of young people, who go there to sing, party, have a good time and deepen their faith.

His most faithful youths gathered themselves in two organizations: Papaboys (Il ragazzi del Papa)[5] (http://www.papaboys.it) and Papagirls.

Apologies

John Paul was not ignorant of church history, and realized that various people had been wronged by the Church throughout the years. He publically apologised for many of these mistakes:

Social and political stances

Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope ever to preach in a Lutheran church; Rome, December 1983John Paul II was considered a conservative on doctrine and issues relating to reproduction and the ordination of women. His collected writings on human sexuality, called the Theology of the Body, are an extended meditation on the nature of masculinity and femininity and the resulting implications for love and sex. These teachings represent a significant development of the Catholic teaching about sexuality. This development has origins in the Song of Songs, and the church's teaching on Sacraments.

Regarding abortion, the Pope wrote, "There is still, however a legal extermination of human beings who have been conceived but not yet born. And this time we are talking about an extermination which has been allowed by nothing less than democratically elected parliaments where one normally hears appeals for the civil progress of society and all humanity."

He was critical of Liberation Theology for over-emphasising political liberation at the expense of spiritual liberation. In the 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) he reasserted the Church's high value on human life. He also extended it to condemnation of abortion, euthanasia, and virtually all uses of capital punishment, calling them all a part of the "culture of death" that is pervasive in the modern world. His stands on warfare, capital punishment, world debt forgiveness, and poverty issues were considered politically liberal, showing that 'conservative' and 'liberal' political labels are not easily assigned to religious leaders.

The Pope, who began his papacy when the Soviets controlled his homeland, the People's Republic of Poland, as well as the rest of the Eastern Europe, was a harsh critic of communism and offered support to those fighting for change, like the Polish Solidarity movement. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev once said the collapse of the Iron Curtain would have been impossible without John Paul II. This view is shared by many people of the post-Soviet states, who view him, as well as Ronald Reagan, as the heroes responsible for bringing an end to the communist tyranny. In later years, Pope has been also criticised some of the more extreme versions of corporate capitalism.

In 2000, he publicly endorsed the Jubilee 2000 campaign on African debt relief fronted by Irish rock stars Bob Geldof and Bono. It was reported that during this period, U2's recording sessions were repeatedly interrupted by phone calls from the Pope, wanting to discuss the campaign with Bono.

In 2003, John Paul II also became a prominent critic of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. He sent his "Peace Minister", Pío Cardinal Laghi, to talk with US President George W. Bush to express opposition to the war. John Paul II said that it was up to the United Nations to solve the international conflict through diplomacy and that a unilateral aggression is a crime against peace and a violation of international law.

In European Union negotiations for a new constitution in 2003 and 2004, the Vatican's representatives failed to secure any mention of Europe's "Christian Heritage", one of the Pope's cherished goals.

The Pope was also a leading critic of same-sex marriage. In his last book, "Memory and Identity", John Paul II described same-sex marriage as the "pressures" on the European Parliament to permit same-sex marriage. Reuters quotes the Pope as writing, "It is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if this is not perhaps part of a new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden, which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man."

The Pope also criticised transsexual and transgender people, as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which he supervised, banned them from serving in church positions and denied church workers the ability to change records and otherwise accommodate them, as well as considering them to have "mental pathologies".

Criticism

Despite his popularity, John Paul II had many critics. One charge sometimes levelled at the Pope was that his opposition of communism led him to support right-wing dictators. John Paul occasionally met with—and, some say, supported—dictators such as Augusto Pinochet of Chile. John Paul, however, pressed Pinochet to restore democracy and was maneuvered by Pinochet's entourage into appearing in a photograph with him. He allegedly endorsed Pío Cardinal Laghi, who critics say supported the "Dirty War" in Argentina.

John Paul was also criticised for his support of the Opus Dei prelature and the canonization of its founder, Josemaría Escrivá. Some argue that Opus Dei is essentially a cult operating within the Church; John Paul saw it as part of a larger return to the Church's founding principles and his thrust to remind people of the universal call to holiness.

Besides Escrivá, several of his other canonisations and beatifications have been criticised because the people in question allegedly supported fascist political parties. The Pope's supporters respond that these allegations are false and some were deliberately misconstrued by their enemies.

Other criticism centred on his beliefs. In particular, John Paul's beliefs about gender roles and sexuality came under attack. Some feminists criticised his positions on the role of women, and gay-rights activists disagreed with his enunciation of the Church position that homosexual desires are "objectively disordered", and particular opposition to same-sex marriage.

His beliefs about contraception were particularly controversial to many people. John Paul followed traditional Catholic teaching and believed that one of the essential purposes of sex for a potentially fertile couple is procreation. Accordingly, he argued that using a contraceptive was an immoral act. Many people disagreed with this belief, but even some that agreed suggested that it was impractical to condemn use of condoms when sexually transmitted AIDS is spreading. A separate but related claim is that John Paul's administration spread an unproven belief that condoms do not block the spread of HIV; between these two claims, many critics have blamed him for AIDS epidemics in Africa and elsewhere.

His supporters say that John Paul's stress on abstinence and fidelity has actually been very effective in the battle against AIDS, as shown in countries like Uganda, which campaigned for it.

John Paul II was also sometimes criticised for the way he administered the Church; in particular, critics charged that he failed to respond quickly enough to the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal. He was also criticised for recentralizing power back to the Vatican following the earlier decentralisation of Pope John XXIII. As such he was regarded by some as a strict authoritarian who would accept no dissent from within the church, the excommunication of Father Tissa Balasuriya being seen as a prime example of this by his critics.

Besides all the criticism from those demanding modernisation, Traditional Catholics were at times equally vehement in denouncing him from the right, demanding a return to the Tridentine Mass and repudiation of the reforms instituted after the Second Vatican Council. Some took their opposition to the point of sedevacantism while others remained within John Paul's obedience while decrying his policies as not conservative enough. Former United States president Bill Clinton added after the pontiff's death that the Pope "may have had a mixed legacy," but he called him a man with a great feel for human dignity.[8] (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050406/D89A4IV80.html)

The Northern Irish Protestant leader Ian Paisley has repeatedly accused John Paul II of being the Antichrist.

Other

Pope John Paul II appears on the Vatican's €1 coin. John Paul II's apostolical motto was Totus Tuus ("all yours"); he borrowed the motto from the Marian consecrating prayer of Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort.

According to a New York Post article of 19 February 2002, John Paul II personally performed three exorcisms during his tenure as pope. The first exorcism was performed on a woman in 1982 who writhed on the ground. His second was in September 2000 when he performed the rite on a nineteen-year-old woman who had become enraged in St Peter's Square. A year later, in September 2001, he performed an exorcism on a twenty-year-old woman.

The John Paul II International Airport (IATA: KRK), in Balice, Poland, near Kraków, was named in honour of him, where he served as Archbishop before being elected Pope.

On 14 March 2004, his pontificate overtook Leo XIII's as the third-longest pontificate in the history of the Papacy (after Pius IX and St Peter). The length of his reign is in marked contrast with that of his predecessor Pope John Paul I, who died suddenly after only 33 days in office, and in whose memory John Paul II named himself.

Further reading

Books by John Paul II

In chronological order:

Meditations and philosophy

Plays by John Paul II

Poetry by John Paul II

Biographies of Pope John Paul II

George Weigel, Witness to Hope, HarperCollins (1999, 2001), ISBN 006018793X.

Films about Pope John Paul II