John Paul ll

T’shuvah Hero: Pope John Paul ll

Pope John Paul II was a Catholic, but his biography includes one story that is important to Jews.

Karol Joz efWojtyla

Pope John Paul II was born Karol Jozef Wojtyla in the Polish town of Wadowice, a small city fifty kilometers from Krakow. He reigned as Pope from October 16, 1978 until his death almost twentyseven years later.

His Cathol ic Story

He was baptized on June 20, 1920 in the parish church of Wadowice, made his First Holy Communion at age nine and was confirmed at eighteen. Upon graduation from Marcin Wadowita high school he enrolled at Krakow’s university in 1938. The Nazi occupation forces closed the university in 1939, and young Karol had to work in a quarry and then in the Solvay chemical factory to earn his living. In 1942, deciding to be a priest, he began courses in the underground seminary of Krakow. He was ordained to the priesthood on November 1, 1946. After years of service to the Catholic Church, he was elected Pope by the Cardinals at the Conclave of October 16, 1978. He took the name John Paul II.

“More change for the better took place in his twenty-sevenyear papacy than in the nearly two thousand years before.”

His Jewish Story

From the beginning, relationships between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people have not been good. The Church had often been guilty of anti-Semitism and was seen as silent during the Holocaust. Pope John Paul II set out to heal this relationship. In 1979 he became the first Pope to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. In 1998 he issued We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah (Holocaust). He also became the first pope known to have made an official visit to a synagogue. In 1994, in honor of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Vatican and the State of Israel, Pope John Paul II hosted the Papal Concert to Commemorate the Holocaust. In March 2000 John Paul II visited Yad Vashem, the Israeli national Holocaust memorial, and later made history by touching the Western Wall (ha-Kotel) and placing a letter in it. The letter was a prayer for forgiveness for actions against Jews in the past. Immediately after the pope’s death the AntiDefamation League issued a statement that Pope John Paul II had revolutionized Catholic–Jewish relations, saying that “more change for the better took place in his twenty-seven-year papacy than in the nearly two thousand years before.”

T’shuvah Text: pope John Paul ll’s Speech at Yad VaShem

Here is the speech of Pope John Paul II during his visit to Yad Vashem, Thursday, March 23, 2000: …As Bishop of Rome and Successor of the

Apostle Peter, I assure the Jewish people that the Catholic Church, motivated by the Gospel law of truth and love…is deeply saddened by the hatred, acts of persecution and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews by

Christians at any time and in any place. The

Church rejects racism in any form as a denial of the image of the Creator present in every human being (cf. Gen 1:26).

In this place of solemn remembrance, I fervently pray that our sorrow for the tragedy that the Jewish people suffered in the twentieth century will lead to a new relationship between

Christians and Jews. Let us build a new future in which there will be no more anti-Jewish feeling among Christians or anti-Christian feeling among Jews, but rather the mutual respect required of those who adore the one

Creator and Eternal, and look to Abraham as our common father in faith. 1. What is special about this speech? 2. H ow is it a model for t’shuvah?