Pope John Paul II, an Obituary

Pope John Paul II died at 9.35pm Rome time on Saturday April 2, ending one of the longest and most influential pontificates in the history of the Catholic Church.

The Holy Father remained "extraordinarily serene" during his final illness, according to his spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls. He had suffered heart failure the previous evening while being treated for an infection of his urinary tract. As his condition deteriorated rapidly during the day on April 1, with his body wracked by septic shock and kidney failure, the Pope remained in prayer with his closest aides, losing consciousness only in the last moments before his death.

Pope John Paul was 84 years old at the time of his death. He had been afflicted by Parkinson's disease, causing a serious curtailment of his activities, for several years. In February 2005, he was hospitalised twice for severe respiratory problems. Doctors at the Gemelli Hospital had inserted a tube in his throat to ease his breathing, and earlier this week the Vatican had disclosed that a feeding tube had also been inserted because of his difficulty in swallowing.

The Pope's last public appearance came on Easter Sunday, when he came to the balcony of his apartment in the apostolic palace to deliver the traditional Urbi et Orbi blessing. During that public appearance the Pope was in obvious pain, and unable to speak.

In October 1978, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Krakow, Poland, was elected the 264th Roman Pontiff - the youngest Pope of the 20th century and the first non-Italian to serve as leader of the Catholic world in 455 years. He took the name John Paul II, and in a memorable first appearance as Pope, immediately won the hearts of the Roman crowd as he greeted them with the words of Jesus, which would echo throughout his 26-year pontificate: "Be not afraid!"

Only two Popes - Blessed Pius IX, who served over 31 years, and St Peter himself - have held the papacy for longer than John Paul II. During his pontificate, he became the most widely-recognised man in human history, traveling around 700,000 miles all around the world, and becoming one of the principal architects of the fall of Soviet Communism. His years in the papacy saw a series of "firsts," and an astonishing output of encyclicals, apostolic letters and other writings.

Born in Wadowice, Poland, on May 18, 1920, Karol Wojtyla was raised primarily by his father, an army officer also named Karol, after his mother's death in 1929. When his father died in 1941, he was left alone, as a student in Krakow's Jagiellonian Unversity. During the occupation of Poland by German forces in World War II, he worked as a stonecutter, then in a chemical factory, but maintained an avid interest in theater.

In 1942 the young Wojtyla entered a clandestine seminary, and in 1946, he was ordained by Cardinal Adam Sapieha of Krakow. He continued his studies in Rome under the French Dominican, Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, and earned degrees in theology and philosophy, with a dissertation on the mystical works of St. John of the Cross. He returned to Poland to teach at the Krakow seminary, while also serving as a parish priest.

At the age of just 1938 he was named an auxiliary bishop of Krakow by Pope Pius XII, and in 1962 he became the city's archbishop. He was raised to the College of Cardinals by Pope Paul VI at the age of 47.

The scholarly young Polish prelate was an influential figure in the deliberations of the Second Vatican Council, taking a particularly active role in the wiriting of Gaudium et Spes, the dogmatic constitution on the Church and the modern world.

In August 1978, he took part in the conclave that elected Cardinal Albino Luciani of Venice to become Pope John Paul I; when that Pontiff died abruptly after just 33 days, he again entered the conclave-- to emerge as Pope John Paul II.

During visits to his native Poland, John Paul II proved to be a focus for the growing opposition to the country's Communist regime. On May 13, 1981, he was shot and severely wounded by Mehmet Ali Agca in an assassination attempt that took place in St. Peter's Square. Vatican officials suspected that the leaders of the Soviet Union had authorised the attempt on the Pope's life - a hypothesis that appears to have been confirmed by documents recently discovered in the archives of the East German secret service.

Alongside his historic role in the fall of Communism, John Paul II has also been the world's most influential defender of the dignity of human life; his calls for the development of a "culture of life" - and his parallel denunciations of the "culture of death" - were instrumental in rallying opposition to abortion, contraception, euthanasia and embryo research.

By far the most travelled Pontiff in history, John Paul II made 104 trips outside Italy during his pontificate, as well as 146 inside the country. His papacy saw a huge increase in the number of saints formally recognised by the Church; he beatified 1,338 people, and canonised 482. He was the author of 14 encyclicals, 15 apostolic exhortations, 11 apostolic constitutions, 45 apostolic letters, and five books that appeared during the time he served as Pope.

The Polish Pontiff was an ardent exponent of Christian unity, who made special efforts to reach out to other Christian churches. He was especially insistent on the need to bring together the Eastern and Western Christian traditions, saying that the Church must "breathe with both lungs."

One area of particularl concern during his papcy was the spread of liturgical and doctrinal abuse. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905 - 1991) attempted to stem this abuse by establishing the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) which used exclusively the old rite of Mass.

In 1971, Lefebvre announced his rejection of the revised Novus Ordo Mass. Archbishop Lefebvre met Pope John Paul II to discuss the situation and, on 5 May 1988, the Archbishop and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger signed a document meant to put an end to the dispute.

On 24 May, Archbishop Lefebvre was promised that the Pope would appoint a bishop from among the members of the Fraternity, chosen according to the normal procedures, whose consecration would take place on 15 August. Lefebvre demanded that three bishops be consecrated on 30 June. Cardinal Ratzinger replied on 30 May that the Holy See found the demands unacceptable.

On 3 June, Lefebvre wrote that he would still go ahead with the 30 June consecrations. On 9 June 1988, Pope John Paul II replied to him with a personal letter, recalling the agreement the archbishop had signed on 5 May and appealing to him not to proceed with a design that "would be seen as nothing other than a schismatic act, the theological and canonical consequences of which are known to you." When no reply came from Lefebvre, this letter was made public on 16 June.

On 30 June 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre then proceeded to consecrate as bishops four SSPX priests: Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson, Alfonso de Galarreta and Bernard Fellay.

In response, the Congregation for Bishops issued a decree declaring him automatically excommunicated.

On July 2, 1988, in his Apostolic Letter Ecclesia Dei Adflicta, Pope John Paul said: "With great affliction the church has learned of the unlawful episcopal ordination conferred on June 30 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, which has frustrated all the efforts made during the previous years to ensure the full communion with the church of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X founded by the same Archbishop Lefebvre. These efforts, especially intense during recent months, in which the Apostolic See has shown comprehension to the limits of the possible, were all to no avail.

"This affliction was particularly felt by the successor of Peter, to whom in the first place pertains the guardianship of the unity of the church, even though the number of persons directly involved in these events might be few, since every person is loved by God on his own account and has been redeemed by the blood of Christ shed on the cross for the salvation of all. The particular circumstances, both objective and subjective, in which Archbishop Lefebvre acted provide everyone with an occasion for profound reflection and for a renewed pledge of fidelity to Christ and to his church.

"In itself this act was one of disobedience to the Roman pontiff in a very grave matter and of supreme importance for the unity of the church, such as is the ordination of bishops whereby the apostolic succession is sacramentally perpetuated. Hence such disobedience--which implies in practice the rejection of the Roman primacy--constitutes a schismatic act. In performing such an act, notwithstanding the formal canonical warning sent to them by the cardinal prefect of the Congregation for Bishops last June 17, Archbishop Lefebvre and the priests Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson and Alfonso de Galarreta have incurred the grave penalty of excommunication envisaged by ecclesiastical law.

"The root of this schismatic act can be discerned in an incomplete and contradictory notion of tradition. Incomplete, because it does not take sufficiently into account the living character of tradition, which, as the Second Vatican Council clearly taught, 'comes from the apostles and progresses in the church with the help of the Holy Spirit. There is a growth in insight into the realities and words that are being passed on. This comes about in various ways. It comes through the contemplation and study of believers, who ponder these things in their hearts. It comes from the intimate sense of spiritual realities which they experience. And it comes from the preaching of those who have received, along with their right of succession in the episcopate, the sure charism of truth.' But especially contradictory is a notion of tradition which opposes the universal magisterium of the church possessed by the bishop of Rome and the body of bishops. It is impossible to remain faithful to the tradition while breaking the ecclesial bond with him to whom, in the person of the apostle Peter, Christ himself entrusted the ministry of unity in his church."

The Pope said it was necessary for all pastors and other faithful to have "a new awareness, not only of the lawfulness but also of the richness for the church of a diversity of charisms, traditions of spirituality and apostolate, which also constitutes the beauty unity in variety: of that blended 'harmony' which the earthly church raises up to heaven under the impulse of the Holy Spirit."

In that context, he stated: "To all those Catholic faithful who feel attached to some previous liturgical and disciplinary forms of the Latin tradition, I wish to manifest my will to facilitate their ecclesial communion by means of the necessary measures to guarantee respect for their rightful aspirations. In this matter I ask for the support of the bishops and of all those engaged in the pastoral ministry in the church."

He added: "Moreover, respect must everywhere by shown for the feelings of all those who are attached to the Latin liturgical tradition by a wide and generous application of the directives already issued some time ago by the Apostolic See for the use of the Roman Missal according to the typical edition of 1962."

In recent years, the Tridentine Mass was celebrated in Rome by senior Vatican prelates with the support of Pope John Paul and it was rumoured that the Pontiff himself used the old rite in his personal chapel on at least one occasion.

The Archbishop Lefebvre schism was the most serious in the Church since the Reformation. Pope John Paul II made three moves to mitigate the damage during his pontificate.

In 1984, as the Society of St. Pius X was drifting further towards schism, he promulgated the indult Quattuor Abhinc Annos which allowed the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass worldwide, with episcopal approval. His Apostolic Letter Ecclesia Dei Adflicta extended the 1984 provisions, allowing for the establishment of priestly societies and religious communities exclusively using the traditional liturgical books. At present there are over 30 such communities of men and women in the world and, unlike many diocesan seminaries and religious orders, they are inundated with vocations.

Finally, in 2002, Pope John Paul allowed the establishment of a traditional Catholic diocese in Campos, Brazil, following the reconciliation of the schismatic Priestly Union of St. John Vianney with the Holy See. Dom Fernando Rifan was the first bishop consecrated in the traditional ceremonial with full ecclesiastical approval for more than 30 years.

The traditional Latin Mass is now celebrated with approval every Sunday in St. Audoen's, High Street, Dublin 8, St. Patrick's Academy, Islandeady, Co. Mayo, and Ss. Conal & Joseph, Bruckless, Co. Donegal.