Wednesday, 2 April, 2025, marks the 20th anniversary of Saint Pope John Paul II's departure to the House of the Father at the age of 84, after carrying the cross of a terrible Parkinson disease for 14 years. He had been leading the Catholic Church in the world for 26 years.
Karol Józef Wojtyła, John Paul II's family name, was born in Wadowice, Poland, on 18th May, 1920. He was elected Pope on October 16, 1978, becoming the first non-Italian to be elected pope in centuries. The news that the Catholic Church would be headed by a priest from behind the Iron Curtain terrified both the Kremlin and the Moscow-inspired Polish communist government of the time.
The new Pope's first international apostolic journey was a three-country visit to the Dominican Republic, Mexico and the Bahamas in January 1979. Then, on 2nd June, 1979, he went to his homeland Poland, which was the largest of the Soviet Union's satellite states. Poland's communist regime reluctantly agreed for him to visit his birthplace.
In June 1979, he was given a resounding welcome by crowds in Warsaw, Gniezno, Czestochowa, Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, his hometown of Wadowice, the former German Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, Nowy Targ, and Kraków, the city used to be his diocesan seat.
An enormous impact
The visit had an enormous impact on the spiritual renewal of the Polish nation. It also paved the way for democratic changes in Poland and inspired future freedom fighters in other parts of the Soviet empire.
"The pope's 1979 visit was the pebble that started the avalanche that changed the geopolitical situation of not only East (and) central Europe, but of the whole world," said Prof. Pawel Skibinski, a professor of history at the University of Warsaw to OSV News45 in June 2024. "It led to a major crisis of communism and was one of the factors that led to the expansion of the frontiers of the free world."
Skibinski, whose book "The Renewal of This Earth: John Paul II's First Pilgrimage to Poland, June 1979" won the readers' award for Best History Book in Poland, explained that the papal visit, during which 11 million people in a nation of 36 million at the time turned up to see the Pope, helped many Poles understand that they were not alone in their rejection of the regime.
One year after John Paul's pilgrimage, Solidarność, the first non-communist trade union in the Soviet bloc, led by electrician Lech Walesa, was formed in the Lenin Shipyards in Gdansk.
Images of John Paul II and the Black Madonna of Czestochowa were hung in the shipyard gates, in spite of the Polish regime's official stance on atheism,
Step by step, Solidarność developed into a very strong non-violent national liberation movement with which communist leaders in Warsaw and Moscow had to cope. The movement was born when, on 31st August,1981, Walesa signed the Gdansk accords which led to the government legalising Solidarność.
Apart from Skibinski, there are other historians who agree that the 1979 pilgrimage played a crucial role in the beginning of the end of communist domination in East-Central Europe, a point of view initially raised by papal biographer George Weigel.
Historian John Lewis Gaddis, in his history of the Cold War, wrote: "When John Paul II kissed the ground at the Warsaw airport on 2nd June, 1979, he began the process by which communism in Poland, and ultimately everywhere, would come to an end."
Moreover, in his book entitled "Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century", Christian Caryl describes the pilgrimage as one of the five historical moments that made 1979 the year that would pave the way for a different geopolitical order.
Inspired Ukrainians and Lithuanians
Prof. Skibinski further holds the view that another effect of the 1979 pilgrimage was that "soviet-dominated societies, particularly the Ukrainians and Lithuanians, took great interest in the papal visit." He says that John Paul II's homily in Gniezno particularly inspired Ukrainians and Lithuanians, simultaneously terrifying the Soviet elites, who, as KGB documents show, considered the sermon to be a "mortal threat."
On that particular occasion, the Pope spoke in detail of the Christian national identity and European identity of the Slavic nations:
"We must call to mind the Christianisation of the Slavs: that of the Croats and Slovenes, among whom missionaries worked as early as about 650 and largely accomplished their evangelisation by the year 800; that of the Bulgarians, whose prince, Borys I, received baptism in 864 or 865; that of the Moravians and Slovaks, who were reached by missionaries before 850 and then in 863 by Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius, who came to Greater Moravia to consolidate the faith of the young communities; that of the Czechs, whose Prince Borivoj was baptised by Saint Methodius.
"The field of the evangelising influence of Saint Methodius and his disciples also included the Vislans and the Slavs living in Serbia. We must also recall the baptism of Russia at Kiev in 988. We must also remember the Christianisation of the Slavs dwelling along the Elbe: Obotrits, Wielets and Lusatian Sorbs. The Christianization of Europe was completed with the baptism of Lithuania in 1386 and 1387."
Following 1979, Cardinal František Tomášek of Prague, Czechoslovakia, who up until then was considered as having a compromising approach towards the regime, became a brave supporter of the anti-communist dissident movement, defender of religious freedom, and supporter of the underground Czechoslovak Church.
Biographer Weigel sees John Paul II's 1979 visit to Poland as having started "the revolution of conscience." He said that in Warsaw, at Victory Square, the Pope "gave an amasing homily, during which he asked the Holy Spirit to renew the face of the Earth. It was as if an electric charge went through the crowd."
It was a revolution that generated in people's hearts the flame of freedom that step by step, within ten years, brought down the Iron Curtain and liberated the countries concerned from the communist claws of Soviet suppression.
On 3rd May, 1981, an attempt was made on Pope John Paul II's life in Saint Peter's Square. He strongly believed that he was saved by the maternal hand of the Mother of God. Following a lengthy stay in the hospital, he forgave the attempted assassin and, aware of having received a great gift, intensified his pastoral commitments with heroic generosity.
Value of human life
One of the favourite subjects in John Paul II' teaching was the significance of human life. He dedicated his fourth Encyclical, "Evengelium Vitae" (25 March, 1995) precisely to the value and inviolability of human life.
He wrote that the Church knows that the Gospel of life, which she has received from her Lord, "has a profound and persuasive echo in the heart of every person-believer and non-believer alike-because it marvellously fulfils all the heart's expectations while infinitely surpassing them."
He added that, even in the midst of difficulties and uncertainties, every person sincerely open to truth and goodness can, by the light of reason and the hidden action of grace, come to recognise in the natural law written in the heart the sacred value of human life from its very beginning until its end, and can affirm the right of every human being to have this primary good respected to the highest degree. "Upon the recognition of this right, every human community and the political community itself are founded."
John Paul II pointed out that his first Encyclical, the fruit of the cooperation of the Episcopate of every country of the world, "is therefore meant to be a precise and vigorous reaffirmation of the value of human life and its inviolability, and at the same time a pressing appeal addressed to each and every person, in the name of God: respect, protect, love and serve life, every human life! Only in this direction will you find justice, development, true freedom, peace and happiness!"
Companion of people everywhere
John Paul II lived his entire life under the sign of his superabundant and unconditional love for Jesus, to whom he consecrated his life. Motivated by this love, he gave himself generously, without reserve, without measure, without counting the cost. Precisely because he drew ever closer to God in love, he could become a travelling companion for people everywhere, sprinkling in the world the scent of God's Love.
Pope Benedict XVI, his immediate successor and a close friend of his since the days of Vatican Council II (1962-1965), speaking on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of John Paul II's demise said that those who had the joy of knowing him and seeing him regularly could appreciate how alive was his certainty that he would "see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living".
It was a certainty that accompanied John Paul II throughout his life and that was manifest in a special way during the last period of his pilgrimage on this earth: his increasing physical weakness due to the devastating damage of Parkinson, a heavy cross which he carried for 14 years without ever asking for sedatives, did not corrode his unshakable faith, his luminous hope, his fervent charity. "He let himself be consumed for Christ, for the Church, for the whole world: his was a state of suffering lived to the end for love and with love," said Pope Benedict XVI.
In his Homily for the 25th anniversary of his Pontificate, John Paul II confided that at the moment of his election he had felt echoing in his soul, Jesus' question to Peter: "Do you love me? Do you love me more than these? He added: "Every day that same dialogue between Jesus and Peter takes place in my heart. In spirit, I focus on the benevolent gaze of the Risen Christ. Although he knows of my human frailty, he encourages me to answer confidently, like Peter: 'Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you'. And then he invites me to take on the responsibilities that he himself has entrusted to me" (Homily, 16 October 2003; L'Osservatore Romano English edition, 22 October, p. 3).
John Paul II died on Saturday, 2nd April, 2005, the vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday, which he had instituted. He was beatified on 1st May, 2011 by Pope Benedict XVI. He was canonised by Pope Francis on 27th April, 2014, together with Pope John XXIII.