Physical illness and death

Physical illness and death

John Paul II was the first pontiff to leave the Vatican City to be hospitalized. Since the attack of May 13, 1981, he was admitted to the Policlinico Agostino Gemelli several times: on June 20 of that year, for an infection derived from the wound suffered; On July 15, 1992, in which a cholecystectomy was performed, with an additional removal of thirty centimeters of intestine by the presence of a benign tubulovellosal adenoma; On 11 November 1993, for a shoulder dislocation; The 28 of November of 1995 by a femoral fracture; On September 8, 1996 for an operation of appendicitis. The progression of Parkinson's disease weakened him to defenselessness, limiting his ability to speak.

The physical deterioration of John Paul II increased until his death in 2005. In that year he had to be hospitalized for a respiratory distress syndrome. He underwent a tracheotomy in mid-March. By the end of the same month his condition worsened and between March 31 and April 1, he suffered sepsis due to a complication of a urinary tract infection.

He died on April 2, 2005 at 21:37 (the night before Divine Mercy Sunday). A few minutes later, Monsignor Leonardo Sandri announced the news to the people gathered in St. Peter's Square and to the whole world.

His death was due to septicemia and an irreversible cardiopulmonary collapse, aggravated by his Parkinson's disease. He was 84 years and 11 months old. In his agony, he dictated to his secretary, Stanisław Dziwisz, a letter in which he said:

"I am happy, so be you, I do not want tears, let us pray together with satisfaction. The pope's spokesman, Joaquín Navarro Valls, initially said that the pontiff, in his last moments, dedicated a few words to the crowd, especially young people, gathered in St. Peter's Square (I have looked for them and now they come to look for me, I thank you), making the gesture of blessing to the window of his chambers, to the faithful stationed in St. Peter's Square

Obispo en Polonia, Pontificate

Obispo en Polonia

Visita a la iglesia de la Visitación de la Santísima Virgen María, en Cracovia. Comienzos de junio de 1967, poco antes de ser nombrado cardenal.

El 4 de julio de 1958, el papa Pío XII lo consagró obispo auxiliar de la arquidiócesis de Cracovia, bajo el administrador apostólico, arzobispo Eugeniusz Baziak.

A partir del 11 de octubre de 1962, comenzó a tomar parte activa en el Concilio Vaticano II. Destacan sus puntualizaciones sobre el ateísmo moderno y la libertad religiosa. Realizó una contribución importante a la elaboración de la constitución Gaudium et spes. El cardenal Wojtyła participó también en las cinco asambleas del Sínodo de los Obispos, anteriores a su Pontificado. El 8 de diciembre de 1965 pasó a formar parte de las congregaciones para los Sacramentos y para la Educación Católica, y del Consejo para los Laicos. En 1962, al morir el arzobispo Baziak, fue nombrado vicario capitular y el 30 de diciembre siguiente el papa Pablo VI al consagró arzobispo de Cracovia. El 29 de mayo de 1967 fue nombrado cardenal, lo que se convirtió en el segundo más joven de la época, con 47 años de edad.

Durante el sínodo de obispos sobre la catequesis celebrado en octubre de 1977 en Roma, coincidió por primera vez con Joseph Ratzinger, y cardenal de Múnich.

Pontificate

Mapa indicando los países visitados por el papa Juan Pablo II.

On September 28, 1978, John Paul I died in unenlightened circumstances, after a pontificate of 33 days. On October 16, 1978, after two days of deliberations of the conclave, Wojtyła was chosen successor of San Pedro. He adopted the name of Johannes Paulus pp II (John Paul II) and became, at 58, the youngest pope of the twentieth century and the first non-Italian from the Dutch Adriano VI (1522-1523). On November 5 he visited Assisi, in the first of his 144 trips in Italy. On January 25, 1979 he undertook the first of his 104 trips outside Italy: the Dominican Republic and Mexico. The last was on 14 August 2004 at the Marian shrine of Lourdes in France. In total it visited 129 different countries, some of them several times

Chirlen and youth

Chirlen and youth

Karol Józef was born on May 18, 1920 in Wadowice, a town in Poland near Krakow.

He was the youngest of the three children of the marriage composed by Karol Wojtyła and Emilia Kaczorowska. His mother was a fervent Catholic, and he managed to have his son born near a temple, because he wanted the first thing his son heard to be the "songs to God." When Karol was still very young, his mother said to other women: You will see that my little Karol will be a great person. His mother died in 1929, when he was nine years old. His sister Olga had died before he was born. His older brother Edmund, who was a doctor, died in 1932 because of an illness when he cured a man of humble condition. Together with his father, Karol moved to Krakow to begin his studies at the Jagiellonian University. His father, a non-commissioned officer of the Polish army, died in 1941 during the occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany. His father always led him on the path of faith and Christian love.

After finishing high school, an era in which he excelled as a consummate chess player (becoming a winner in several student championships), he enrolled in the Jagiellonian University of Krakow and also in a theater school. When German forces closed the university in September 1939, the young Karol had to work in a quarry and then in a chemical factory (Solvay), to earn a living and to avoid being deported to Germany. Fichado by the Gestapo, it took refuge in an attic of Cracow. At that time he joined the group of the famous Polish actor Mieczysław Kotlarczyk, creator of the Rhapsodic theater, with which he played roles of patriotic content.

During the German occupation of Poland, he especially cultivated culture, theater and friendships, in the context of the Unia group, formed by young Catholics who wanted to resist, both peacefully (like Wojtyła) and action (directly helping the Jews Or using violence), to the Nazi occupation. Later, his situation was complicated and he had to take refuge in the underground ones of the archbishopric of Cracow.

Important for his spiritual growth was the person of a tailor, Jan Tyranowski, who gave him to read St. John of the Cross. They met in 1940; Tyranowski was gathering a group of young people.

One of the places where he liked to go to pray and rest was Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, where his grandfather and great-grandfather had worked as guides for the pilgrims who went there.

Pastoral education

Pastoral education

In 1943 he entered the clandestine seminary founded by Archbishop Adam Stefan Sapieha, cardinal archbishop of Krakow, beginning the career of Theology. At the beginning of 1945 the Soviets entered Krakow and the future Pope saved the life of a curious, almost miraculous way, thanks to Vasily Sirotenko, a Russian university student who, before being sent to liberate Krakow like official, studied the last course of History ; The Red Orchestra (prosovitic spies infiltrated into the German army) reported then that the Germans were to assassinate Polish workers enslaved by them; Attacked that group by the Russians and forced to surrender, they discovered among the eighty Polish workers released in a quarry of the factory Solvay to 18 seminarians. Following Stalin's directives they were all sent to a gulag from Siberia where they did not return, but not the future pope, since the commander needed someone like him who knew languages ​​and translated the books in Latin and German that he had been compiling for Pursue his career after the war; Indeed, Wojtyla even knew Russian for being his mother of Ruthenian ethnicity, according to Pedro Beteta López in his book Recalling John Paul II (2009). Sirotenko thus prevented his expatriation to Siberia, even in spite of the opposition of a Russian political commissary. No doubt this tragic fact had to reinforce its anti-Stalinism. He was ordained a priest on November 1, 1946 in the private archbishop's chapel. Shortly afterwards he went to Rome to attend the courses of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Pontifical Athenaeum Angelicum, and obtained his doctorate in Theology with the thesis The act of faith in the doctrine of St. John of the Cross. In 1948 he returned to Poland and exercised his first pastoral ministry as coadjutor vicar of the parish of Niegowić, around Krakow, for thirteen months. In November of that same year he obtained the qualification to practice the teaching in the Faculty of Theology of the Jagellónica University. On August 17, 1949 he moved as vicar to the parish of St. Florian in Cracow, where he served for two years, alternating with his work as a counselor to the students and graduates of the state university of that city
It was very popular among students, with whom I often went on a field trip, something that was not common at the time, because it could attract the attention of the police authorities. Appointed professor of moral theology and social ethics of the Krakow metropolitan seminary on October 1, 1953, he began lecturing in Ethics at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Catholic University of Lublin in 1954, where two years later he was appointed director Of said chair