Garry OConnor - The Universal Father: A Life of John Paul II

UNIVERSAL FATHER

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

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UNIVERSAL FATHER

A Life of Pope John Paul II

GARRY O'CONNOR

BLOOMSBURY

Copyright 2005 by Garry O'Connor

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury Publishing, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

Published by Bloomsbury Publishing, New York and London
Distributed to the trade by Holtzbrinck Publishers

Every reasonable effort has been made to contact copyright holders of material reproduced in this book. If any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers would be glad to hear from them and to make good in future editions any errors or omissions brought to their attention.

For legal purposes the Acknowledgements and Picture Credits pages constitute a continuation of this copyright page.

All papers used by Bloomsbury Publishing are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in well-managed forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

eISBN: 978-1-59691-096-6

First U.S. Edition 2005

3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4

Typeset by Hewer Text Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed in the United States of America by Quebecor World Fairfield

This book is dedicated to the memory of my mother,
Rita O'Connor (nee Odoli), 1907-2004

The Christian does not live in a state of equilibrium, like the sages of old, but in a state of conflict... Even Christ was tempted. And from the intellectual point of view, what a heroic stimulus for the mind is there for us in all those revelations which we have got to understand!

Paul Claudel
Letter to Andre Gide

Availing myself of the solemn occasion of my meeting with the representatives of the nations of the earth, I wish above all to send my greetings to all the men and women living on this planet.

Pope John Paul II
Addressing the 34th General Assembly
of the United Nations
2 October 1979

Contents

List of Illustrations
with Picture Credits

Picture Section

Karol Wojtyla's parents, 1904. (John Paul II Museum, Wadowice)

Karol with Emilia before his first birthday.

Karol senior as an officer in the new Polish army. (Courtesy ofjerzy Kluger)

First communion, May 1929. (Courtesy of Jerzy Kluger)

Wadowice market square, c. 1930. (Courtesy of Jerzy Kluger)

The goalkeeper: Karol with the ball.

The choirboy, 1930.

The cadet: Karol at army summer camp, 1938. (Courtesy of Jerzy Kluger)

Sapieha, the Unbroken Prince, 1950. (Archdiocese of Krakow)

The stage lover: Regina (Ginka) Beer and Karol in Virgins' Vows, 1938.

Ginka, before fleeing Poland in 1939.

The poet and actor with the 'Slowacki look': Karol Wojtyla, 1939.

Halina Krolikiewicz, Karol's most frequent leading lady.

German soldiers tear down the white eagle of Poland, 1939.

Governor Hans Frank among ruins of Poland's Foreign Office in Warsaw.

Resisting Poles shot, then hanged as an example, 1941.

Polish women rounded up as slave labour, 1941.

The basement flat in Tyniecka Street, Krakow.

The Solvay factory worker: Karol Wojtyla, 1942.

The mystic: Jan Tyranowski.

The theatre director: Mieczyslaw Kotlarczyk.

The seminarist: Karol Wojtyla, 1943.

Karol with his aunt and godmother. (Darolle Raymond!Corbis Sygma)

Karol with students, summer camp, 1952.

Skiing with an improvised pole, 1952.

Archbishop Wojtyla, 1967. (Adam Bujak)

Cardinal Wojtyla outside Wawel Cathedral, 1968. (Adam Bujak)

The two Polish cardinals (Wyszinski, left) visit Germany, 1978.

The protege: Wojtyla with Pope Paul VI. (Associated Press)

With Pope John Paul I in 1978.

The new Pope John Paul II embraces Cardinal Wyszinski. (Rex Sipa)

God's athlete: the cover of UEuropeo, 1979. (Associated Press)

Papal kiss for a young girl, France, 1986. (Associated Press)

Dublin by Alitalia: inside the Pope's plane, 1979.

Praying at the Auschwitz Death Wall, 1979. (Associated Press)

Kissing the ground as he arrives on French soil, 1980. (Associated Press)

Knock, Eire: an estimated half million await the Pope, 1979.

The assassination attempt, 13 May 1981. (Associated Press)

The wounded John Paul II. (BettmannlCorbis)

The Pope meets his would-be assassin, 1983. (Associated Press)

Kneeling in Rakowice Cemetery. (Associated Press)

Contemplating the tapestry of Maximilian Kolbe.

With General Jaruzelski, 1987. (Rex Sipa)

The Pope greets Lech Walesa, 1989. (Rex Sipa)

The lone skier, Italian Alps, 1984. (Associated Press)

John Paul II embraces Aids sufferer, Brendon Rourke, 1987. (Rex Sipa)

With Prince Charles and Archbishop Runciey, 1982. (Press Association)

With Mother Teresa in Albania, 1993. (Osservatore Romana)

With the Dalai Lama, 1990. (Osservatore Romana)

With President Clinton, St Louis, 1999. (Gary Her shorn/Reuters)

Queen Elizabeth II received in Rome, 2000. (Daily Mail)

The inauguration of the restored Sistine Chapel. (Paolo Cocco/Reuters)

Universal Father is written as much for doubters and disbelievers as for believers of all faiths and denominations, but especially for those caught up in the maelstrom or turmoil of the many arguments and conflicts which beset not only the Catholic church, but all forms of contemporary religious belief.

Popes are paradoxes. As divine autocrats ruling the Catholic church of over a billion souls, not only do they confront the universal issues but they are expected to be authorities, if not infallible, in their pronouncements on the most sensitive aspects of human existence. Having renounced so much for their faith, how can they know what they know? 'This hermit buried in the Vatican cave,' Graham Greene observed, is, 'addressing a special audience of newly married couples on the heroic energy required in everyday life, the boredom and frustrations and torn nerves of two people living under one roof.' He tells his audience, 'One should remember during a chilly dispute that it is better to keep quiet, to keep in check a complaint, or to use a milder word instead of stronger, because one knows that the stronger word, once it is out, will relieve, it is true, the tension of the irritated nerves, but will also leave its darkening shadow behind.'