Pope John Paul II, A man for others Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Pope John Paul II, A man for others - Essay Example In the later part of his pontificate, he spoke against war, communism, dictatorship, materialism, abortion, contraception, relativism and unrestrained capitalism. John Paul II was Pope during a period in which the Catholic Church's influence declined in developed countries but expanded in the Third World countries. During his reign, the pope traveled extensively, visiting over 100 countries, more than any of his predecessors. He remains one of the most-traveled world leaders in history. He was fluent in numerous languages. He canonized a great number of people. In 1992, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. On April 2, 2005 at 9:37 p.m. local time, Pope John Paul II died in the Papal Apartments. Millions of people came to Rome to pay their respects for his funeral. This paper researches how he was a man for others and how he developed himself through his childhood and adulthood days. Childhood days: St.John Paul II was born as Karol Jozef Wojtyla in Wadowice, a town of 8,000 Catholics and 2,000 Jews 35 miles southwest of Krakow in 1920, the second son of Karol Wojtyla 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..His playmate Kluger had once remarked about the pope as "The people in the Vatican do not know Jews, and previous popes did not know Jews but this pope is a friend of the Jewish people because he knows Jewish people." In fact, 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." John Paul II was very athletic in his youth days: he played soccer as a goal keeper, took daring swims in the flooded Skawa River and enjoyed skiing, hiking, mountain climbing and kayaking. He was also an excellent student. Adversities: His infant sister died before he was born. In 1929 his mother died of heart and kidney problems. When he was 12, his 26 year old brother died of scarlet fever. He himself had two near-misses with mortality in his youth. He was hit once by a streetcar and again by a truck in 1944 while he was a college student. He had been beset by physical difficulties including a dislocated shoulder, a broken thigh that led to femur-replacement surgery, the removal of a precancerous tumor from his colon Passions and occupations: Wojtyla's passions in those early years were poetry, religion and the theater. After graduating from secondary school in 1938, he and his father moved to Krakow where he enrolled at Jagiellonian University to study literature and philosophy. He also joined an experimental theater group and participated in poetry readings and literary discussion groups. He was an intense and gifted actor, and a fine singer. After the Germans invaded Poland, he escaped deportation and imprisonment in late 1940 by taking a job as a stone cutter in a quarry. His father was very much interested in making him a priest before he died but died with his interest unfulfilled. After his father's death he began studying at an underground seminary in Krakow and registered for theology courses at the university. He continued his studies,