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The impact of Pope John Paul II
Essay on pope john paul 2 before he became pope
Essay on pope john paul ii
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Before he became the Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Christ, Successor of St. Peter, Prince of Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Patriarch of the West, Primate of Italy, Sovereign of Vatican City and the only pope featured in a comic book -- Marvel doing the honor in 1983 -- Pope John Paul II was Karol Jozef Wojtyla.
Friends in Wadowice, a town of 8,000 Catholics and 2,000 Jews 35 miles southwest of Krakow, called Wojtyla "Lolek." Lolek was born in 1920, the second son of Karol Wojtyla (voy TIH wah) Sr., a retired army officer and tailor, and Emilia Kaczorowska Wojtyla, a schoolteacher of Lithuanian descent.
The Wojtylas were strict Catholics, but did not share the anti-Semitic views of many Poles. One of Lolek's playmates was Jerzy Kluger, a Jew who many years later would play a key role as a go-between for John Paul II and Israeli officials when the Vatican extended long-overdue diplomatic recognition to Israel.
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Pictorial Biography
Kluger told The New York Times that he spent many afternoons sitting in the kitchen next to the Wojtylas' coal stove listening to Lolek's father tell stories about Greece, Rome and Poland.
Lolek, in turn, went to the Klugers' 10-room apartment overlooking the town square and listened to music performed by a string quartet composed of two Jews and two Catholics.
"The people in the Vatican do not know Jews, and previous popes did not know Jews," Kluger told the Times. "But this pope is a friend of the Jewish people because he knows Jewish people."
Indeed, Wojtyla became the first pope to visit a synagogue and the first to visit the memorial at Auschwitz to victims of the Holocaust. In ending the Catholic-Jewish estrangement, he called Jews "our elder brothers."
Not a happy childhood
FACTOID
John Paul II is possibly the most athletic Pope in history. In his youth, he played soccer as a goal-keeper, took daring swims in the flooded Skawa River, and enjoyed skiing, hiking, mountain climbing and kayaking
As a schoolboy, Wojtyla was both an excellent student and an athlete who skied, hiked, kayaked and swam in the Skawa River. But death hovered over the family, making itself felt first when an infant sister died before Lolek was born.
It struck again in 1929 when his mother died of heart and kidney problems, just a month before Lolek's 9th birthday. And when he was 12, Lolek's 26-year-old brother Edmund, a physician in the town of Bielsko, died of scarlet fever.
There are many heroic individuals in history that have shown greatness during a time of suffering ,as well as remorse when greatness is needed, but one individual stood out to me above them all. He served as a hero among all he knew and all who knew him. This individual, Simon Wiesenthal, deserves praise for his dedication to his heroic work tracking and prosecuting Nazi war criminals that caused thousands of Jews, Gypsies, Poles and other victims of the Holocaust to suffer and perish.
Ventresca, Robert. Soldier of Christ: The Life of Pope Pius XII. Cambridge, MA: Belknap of Harvard UP, 2013. Print.
He was very well liked worldwide because he was not afraid to travel. He was the first pope to ever visit the white house. President Carter welcomed John Paul II to the white house on October 6, 1979. They discussed situations concerning world peace and justice. He was not afraid to show his love all over the world in various countries. He was also the first modern pope to visit a Synagogue. Israel saw this as a positive sign for the relationship between the catholic church and the Jewish community. Pope John Paul was all about building relationships between the different religions throughout the world. He taught people to always love one another no matter what they believe. He also was the first Pope to ever visit Cuba. When he addressed cuba he in his homily said "The good of a nation must be promoted and achieved by its citizens themselves.” During his time as Pope, he always wanted peace for every country all around the
There are many heroic individuals in history that have shown greatness during a time of suffering ,as well as remorse when greatness is needed, but one individual stood out to me above them all. He served as a hero among all he knew and all who knew him. This individual, Simon Wiesenthal, deserves praise for his dedication to his heroic work tracking and prosecuting Nazi war criminals that caused thousands of Jews, Gypsies, Poles and other victims of the Holocaust to suffer and perish.
During this dark time, the Catholic Church was shepherded by Pope Pius XII, who proved himself an untiring foe of the Nazis, determined to save as many Jewish lives as he could. Yet today Pius XII gets almost no credit for his actions before or during the war.
ultimate bishop, the bishop of Rome. Not only did he show that the pope was to be a
“We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son.” Said by St. Pope John Paul II during one of his World Youth Day homilies this quote perfectly represents the man that St. Pope John Paul II was: a bold, forgiving, selfless, and loving man. Born on May 18, 1920 in Wadowice, Poland; John Paul II suffered a number of tragedies in the early years of his life. By the age of the twenty he lost all of his immediate family, and he credits the death of his father as the point in his life when he heard the call to live a life of religious vocation. In 1939, about one year after John Paul enrolled in The Krawkow Jaggelonian University, the Nazi closed the school and to avoid deportation to Germany all able men had to work. From 1940 to 1941 his holiness did various jobs, but it was during this time period that he was seriously contemplating priesthood. In 1942 John Paul II started studying at the underground seminary run by the Archbishop of Krakow, and during this time he was hit by a truck and recovered in matter of two weeks. To him this was a confirmation of his vocation. Once the war was finished the future pope was ordained priest and was then sent to Rome for further studies. After a two year time period in Rome, His Holy Father received his doctorate in theology and returned to Poland. After serving in several parishes and becoming a well-known religious face in Poland, St. John Paul II became the bishop of Ombi. During the six year time period that his holiness was the Bishop of Ombi, he achieved one of his life’s major accomplishments: he became one of the leading thinkers on the Vatican II council. While he was one the Vatican II co...
One day was praying in the ruins of the church of St Damian when he had a vision of Christ saying, “Francis go and repair my house which is falling down.”
Although there were many popes during this time period the Roman Catholic Church only acknowledges the line of popes that were in Rome. The line would go as follows: Pope Gregory XI, Pope Urban VI, Pope Bonaface IX, Innocent VII, and Pope Gregory XII and after the Council of Constance Pope Martin V.
“Through both his powerful teaching and his leadership, Pope St. Leo the Great very much strengthened the office of the Papacy and made a strong biblical case for the Divine institution of this ministry by examining the biblical evidence for Peter's unique role among the apostles.”(D’Ambrosio) Leo I dealt with many political issues such as Attila the Hun and Gaiseric the Vandal in 455 AD which contributed to the influence of the papacy. Leo I is
Early on, Jews in Kraków, Poland, during World War II had been forced by the Germans from their homes and required to crowd into a 16-block ghetto. Oskar Schindler
Over the next few weeks, I got to know Mr. Long a little better. He loved classical music, and would often come over to our house after church
Currently, these views have changed in the western world. Feelings of anti-Semitism are frowned upon and the western world is trying to make reparations for the times the Jews were persecuted. Museum, biographies and memoirs are released to remind us about the dark times of the Jews. With peace treaties, Israel and western countries created a union, making Israel a common holy land between the Jews, Christians and Muslims. Even though the Middle Eastern countries still harbor anti-Semitic feelings, the western countries have offered alliance with Israel. With these new changes, Christianity and Judaism have found common grounds between them, just like the time during John Chrysostom.
Pope Francis I is the current Pope, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church. He was elected to the title of Pope on March 13, 2013 after the retirement and abdication of Pope Benedict XVI on February 28, 2013. Pope Francis was born as Jorge Mario Bergoglio on December 17, 1936 in the neighborhood of Flores in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Both of Pope Francis’ parents were immigrants to Argentina from Italy. Mario José Bergoglio, his father, arrived from in Argentina at the age of 21from Italy’s Piedmont region and pursued a job as an accountant for the railroads. After arriving he met Regina María Sívori, Pope Francis’ mother, and the two of them got marries six years later. The couple had five children, including Pope Francis. Maria Elena is his only living sibling.
St Ignatius of Loyola is an inspiring person and has touched the lives of many people even now centuries after his death. Loyola has affected the lives of an uncountable number of people, either directly or indirectly. He started as an extremely brave and tough soldier and turned into the founder of a powerful religious order. He was born in 1491 in Spain and founded the Jesuits in 1540 at the age of 49.The Jesuits today are still a devoted religious order. Everything they do is in God’s name, hence their motto AD MAIOREM DEI GLORIAM this literally means “for the greater glory of God”. (Linten, Seven Things) Many Jesuits (and even non Jesuits like Pope John Paul II) sign their documents with amdg at the end to show that they do their work for God and not solely for themselves. (Linten, Seven Things) The Jesuits have survived multiple persecutions and yet have still remained a major influence in the church and in universities around the world. If it were not for an unfortunate cannonball shattering a soldier’s leg then none of this may have happened.