This week the Pope brings his flinty brand of conservative Roman Catholicism to the U.S. for a five-day visit, with stops in Newark, New York City and Baltimore. In appearance, the 75-year-old Pontiff is more stooped and gnarled than he was two years ago during his last United States pilgrimage, the result of mounting infirmities and advancing years. But as the titular leader of nearly 1 billion Catholics, he has lost none of his spiritual or intellectual vigor. And he will need all that strength as he tends to his fractious flock. Like many other Catholics in the West, those in the U.S., both lay and clergy, have deep disagreements with the holy father on such critical issues as abortion, contraception and the ordination of women.
In holding steadfast to his beliefs, John Paul insists he must be guided by his conscience rather than the popularity—or unpopularity—of his views. (He opposes abortion without exception, has forbidden all forms of artificial contraception and steadfastly refuses to consider the ordination of women.) "It's a mistake to apply American democratic procedures to the faith and truth," he has said. "You cannot take a vote on the truth."
In recent years he has not hesitated to criticize the West, which he sees as polluted by a "culture of death"—by which he means abortion, suicide and euthanasia. The mission of his church, he argues, is not to change with the times, but to change the ethos of the times. His supporters insist that the Pope's sometimes controversial positions are not only the result of abstract theology but also of the suffering he has seen and experienced firsthand—and of his desire to ease the pain of others. "John Paul isn't a product of bureaucracy," says Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro Valls. "He's a product of life."
Yet for all his theological conservatism, John Paul has embraced what amounts to a rather liberal position on nuclear weapons, which he opposes, and a deep concern for social and economic justice in the world. His zest for travel and for spreading the gospel around the world is well-known. Last week he completed a six-day pilgrimage to Africa, including Kenya and South Africa, marking the 67th time that he has been abroad in the 17 years of his papacy. And John Paul has departed somewhat from his predecessors in the way he conducts his day-today activities in the Vatican. Whereas past occupants of the throne of St. Peter tended to rule in relative isolation, John Paul has emphasized maintaining contact with the faithful.
The Pontiff arises every day at 5:30 a.m. in a modest-sized bedroom, which is furnished with a single bed, two straight-backed upholstered chairs, a desk, a carpet and walls decorated only with Polish icons. He prays and meditates alone, then at 7 a.m. says mass in his private chapel. By custom the papal household and as many as 50 invited guests attend the mass. Afterward, John Paul greets the guests, often bishops making the ad limina—"to the threshold"—visits to Rome required of them every five years, and poses for photographs. The Pope invites the more important visitors to breakfast, at which he favors a cup of caffe latte with a roll and jam.
John Paul generally just scans the morning newspapers, including Corriere della Sera, Italy's top daily. Rather than relying only on traditional news organizations, he gleans much of his information about the world from private meetings with political leaders and prelates. Around 8:30 a.m. the Pope closes the door to his private study for what the Vatican describes as "creative work and reflection." This time is sacrosanct. "He is not to be disturbed for any reason whatsoever," says one Vatican insider. Mostly he sits at his desk composing his theological and more popular works. (His 1994 bestseller, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, which discussed theology and morality, sold more than 4 million copies worldwide.)
By 11 a.m. he is ready to begin seeing more visitors. Most of these meetings are small, private audiences, but on Wednesdays he holds a general gathering, outside in St. Peter's Square when weather permits. Before John Paul these were rather staid affairs, but now they draw as many as 30,000 of the faithful, who delight to his singing with them or just swaying along in time to the music. At 1:30 p.m. the Pontiff sits down for his main meal of the day with his secretaries and a handful of prelates in the dining room of his private quarters. The usual fare is Italian food, especially pasta, followed by a meat dish, steamed vegetables, pastry sent from Poland or fruit and cheese. The Pope, who often has a single glass of white wine (though tea is his favorite beverage), spends most of his time at lunch deep in conversation.
On doctors' orders, he takes a half-hour nap after lunch, then spends an hour on his rooftop terrace in meditation and prayer. He works in his office until 7:30 p.m., before sitting down to a frugal supper with a few of his close aides. For the rest of the evening the Pontiff works in his private study, preparing for the next day's audiences and brushing up on those languages that he does not speak fluently. (He has an excellent command of Polish, English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Latin and several Slavic tongues.) An avid reader, he shuns light entertainment in favor of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and the German poet Rilke. He is known to like classical music and reportedly tolerates some of the milder forms of rock. Sometime between 10:45 p.m. and midnight he ends his day with prayers.
In all his daily activities the Pope is closely attended by a small coterie of loyal retainers and aides, most of them Polish. Four black-habited nuns, from the Polish order of the Servants of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, cook, clean and do his laundry. His closest confidante is Msgr. Stanislaw Dziwisz, 56. Though relatively low-ranking in the church hierarchy, Dziwisz (GEE-veesh) wields enormous influence in the Vatican by dint of his 30-year friendship with John Paul, whom he first met in Kraków. The two take almost every meal together, and Dziwisz functions as a virtual shadow of the Pope. "Whoever the Pope is, he is going to feel very much alone," says one Vatican aide. "You need someone by your side, a kind of soulmate, and that is what Don Stanislaw is." As John Paul himself has said of Dziwisz, "No one else except God knows me so well, inside and out."
A glimmer of the Pope's two most conspicuous attributes—his popular appeal and his penchant for strict discipline—can be found in his early life in Poland. Karol Wojtyla was born May 18, 1920, into a devoutly Catholic family in the small town of Wadowice, about 35 miles southwest of Kraków. His mother, Emilia, was a schoolteacher; his father, Karol Sr., was a tailor who also served as a quartermaster, first in the army of the Austro-Hungarian empire, then in the Polish military. Young Karol, nicknamed Lolek, and his family experienced more than their share of sadness. A sister died in infancy even before Lolek was born. His mother died of heart and kidney problems when he was 8, and an older brother, Edmund, later died of scarlet fever.
His father, who had already retired as a captain from the army, dedicated himself to raising his remaining son. They shared a spartan one-room apartment in Wadowice. By all accounts, the elder Wojtyla was an attentive parent. One schoolmate recalls going to the family home shortly after Emilia died and finding father and son playing soccer indoors with a ball of rags.
But Karol Sr. was also an imposing presence. "He tried to develop the same discipline in his son that he instilled in his soldiers," says Zbigniew Silkowski, one of Lolek's childhood friends. It was Karol Sr. who beseeched his son to enter the priesthood. "I know you have a girl and are thinking about civilian life," John Paul has recalled his father telling him. "I will not live long and would like to be certain before I die that you will commit yourself to God's service." (There is no evidence that Karol Jr. had any serious girlfriends.)
In his youth, Karol Jr.'s three passions were religion, poetry and the theater. Friends from that time remember him as an exceptionally gifted and intense actor with a beautiful voice. In the past at least, one of John Paul's great delights was to get up after a dinner and sing "Goralu," a sentimental Polish folk song about mountaineers. In 1938 Karol moved with his father to Kraków, where he enrolled at Jagiellonian University.
The Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 cut short his student days, and Karol Sr.'s death in early 1941 presented a different sort of challenge. Lolek began to give serious thought to his father's wish that he become a priest; and one day at rehearsal he announced to his acting friends that he had decided to study theology. "We were dumbfounded," recalls Halina Krolikiewicz, one of those present. He joined an underground seminary and, after the Nazis begun rounding up all males in the city in 1944, he took refuge at the palace of the archbishop of Kraków.
With the end of the war, young Wojtyla began working his way up through the church hierarchy. The swiftness of his rise was remarkable. By the time he was 43, he himself was archbishop of Kraków. Four years later, in 1967, he became a cardinal.
His election as Pope, in October 1978, succeeding John Paul I, who reigned just 33 days, was unexpected. He was, after all, the first non-Italian to don the white robes, in more than 450 years. Nonetheless, John Paul II, as he chose to be called, made an immediate impression. An avid skier and hiker, he radiated robustness. And there was substance to match the style. John Paul had inherited a church riven with dissent over such issues as liberation theology—priests participating in revolutionary political movements—and the role of women in the mass. He soon brought dissenters to heel by installing conservatives in key church positions and by silencing some leftist priests.
At the same time, he has tried to expand the church's reach in the Third World, particularly Africa and Asia. He also took a relatively active role in politics, most notably in Poland, where he offered private support to the Solidarity trade-union movement. Whether that activity led to the attempt on the Pope's life in 1981 is still a matter of debate. The gunman who shot the Pontiff twice in St. Peter's Square, a right-wing Turkish terrorist named Mehmet Ali Agca, at first claimed to be an operative for the Bulgarian intelligence service but later recanted. Whether Soviet leaders godfathered the attack has never been proved. In any event, the Pope declared that the assassination attempt had been a "divine test," for which he was grateful. He even visited Agca in jail to forgive him personally. (As for the two bullets that were removed from the Pope's body, one is kept at the Shrine of Fatima in Portugal, the other in Czestochowa, Poland. Both have become relics venerated by the faithful.)
John Paul has managed over the years to ruffle a good many people both inside the church and out. Some liberal Catholics, for example, questioned his dismissal earlier this year of a French bishop who advocated that those infected with HIV be allowed to use condoms. Then there was the furor last year over his awarding a papal knighthood to former U.N. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, who had been accused of serving in a German army unit that deported Greeks and Yugoslavs to death camps during World War II.
More generally, a growing number of Catholics believe that the Pope, in his desire to bring order and obedience to the church, has reversed the progressive direction taken by the church under Vatican II. "What you have got is a reformed church and an unreformed papacy," says John Wilkins, editor of The Tablet, an influential lay Catholic weekly in London. "I think John Paul is a great man, but I don't think he's a great Pope."
It is certainly true that John Paul is a man who seems more given to self-discipline than to self-doubt. Lately, though, a host of ailments has curtailed the Pope's once vigorous exercise regimen. In 1992 doctors removed a precancerous tumor the size of an orange from his colon; in 1993 he tripped in the Vatican and dislocated his shoulder; last year, after he slipped in the bathroom and broke his thigh, he had to undergo hip-replacement surgery. Visitors now notice that the Pope's left hand trembles. The palsy appears to be the result of a bullet that pierced his hand during the 1981 assassination attempt, but it has led to rumors—sharply denied by the Vatican—that he is suffering from Parkinson's disease. In any case, his steps are measured, and he often uses a walking stick. On his recent trip to South Africa, the Pope had to be helped up the stairs of his guest quarters by President Nelson Mandela, who at 77 is two years his senior.
All the same, the Pope dismisses any notion of retiring and has made it clear that he intends to lead the church into the year 2000, which he believes will open an era of enormous religious significance. It is John
Paul's dream to travel to the Holy Land and retrace the steps of the apostles in Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. Then on Jan. 1, 2000, he hopes to hold a summit of representatives of all the monotheistic religions at Mount Sinai. As one Vatican aide put it, "He has set his sights basilisk-eyed on the millennium." Certainly no one—neither friend nor foe—should ever expect this Pope to be the one to blink first.
BILL HEWITT
PEGGY POLK, TOULA VLAHOU and JOEL STRATTE-MCCLURE in Rome, JOANNE FOWLER and JOANNA BLONSKA in Poland, LYDIA DENWORTH in London and bureau reports
- Contributors:
- Peggy Polk,
- Toula Vlahou,
- Joel Stratte-McClure,
- Joanne Fowler,
- Joanna Blonska,
- Lydia Denworth.
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