A Photo Story Of Pope John Paul ll by MJ-Upbeat

We believe that Pope John Paul ll has touched all people of this world no matter what religion, creed or color. He is without a doubt a gift

sent to us from a higher place. Most of all, the children will miss him dearly for he created a bond and a trust

with them that no other pope has done before him. This page is a tribute to our beautiful and loving Pope John Paul ll.

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In The Beginning......

IMPORTANT EVENT COMING SEPTEMBER 9 & 10

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( Karol Jozef Wojtyla (the Popes original name, top left), as a schoolboy, circa 1930. )

He was born in Wadowice, a small town 50 kilometers from Krakow, on May 18, 1920. He was the second of two sons born to Karol Wojtyla, an army sergeant, and Emilia Kaczorowska. Karol lost his mother in 1929 and eldest brother Edmund, a doctor, in 1932. His father died in 1941. He was suddenly all alone.

'It gave direction to his life,' close friend Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete noted on PBS recently. 'Not only did it set him free from family responsibilities, but I believe, most important, somehow he believes this suffering involved not only his own, but by those who died, provided part of the energy that has compelled him to move.'

On graduation from the Marcin Wadowita high school in Wadowice, he enrolled in Krakow's Jagiellonian University in 1938 and in a school for drama. Nothing interested him more then than outdoor sport and the theatre. None who knew young Karol in Wadowice foresaw that his future would lie in the Church; they always thought he would be an actor.

Karol Wojtyla, 40 and now a priest, shaves in the open air.

He worked in a quarry for four years from 1940 to 1944, and then at the Solvay chemical factory to earn a living, to avoid being deported to Germany during the Nazi occupation.

After dabbling in experimental theatre, reading poetry and discussing literature that Poles are so fond of, after playing soccer and swimming, the very outdoors man abruptly decided he wanted to be a priest. In 1942, aged 22, he began courses at the clandestine seminary in Krakow, run by Cardinal Adam Stefan Sapieha, then the archbishop of Krakow. In less than 22 years, Karol Wojtyla would be an archbishop himself, an amazingly swift rise in the Church hierarchy.

After World War II, he continued his studies at the main seminary in Krakow and at the faculty of theology at Jagiellonian University until he was ordinated as a priest on November 1, 1946.

Cardinal Karol Wojtyla surrounded by children during a visit to a village near Krakow, a few months before he became Pope.

In 1948 he became professor of moral theology and social ethics in Krakow's main seminary and at the faculty of theology at Lublin.

Later he founded and ran a service that dealt with marital problems, from family planning and illegitimacy to alcoholism and physical abuse. Time magazine called it 'perhaps the most successful marriage institute in Christianity.' These were not easy times to be a priest in Poland, perhaps the most important nation after the Soviet Union in the Warsaw Pact, the Communist answer to the US and NATO.

Even though most Poles were devout Catholics -- they vigorously practiced their faith in the officially atheist State -- priests had to be careful not to cross the line and incur the Communist leadership's wrath.

On January 13, 1964, in recognition of his commitment to the Church and evangelistic zeal, Pope Paul VI appointed Karol Wojtyla Archbishop of Krakow. Three years later, June 26, 1967, the Pontiff nominated him a cardinal. He was the youngest bishop and cardinal in Polish history.

The new Pope in discussion with a layman before the mass at the Sistine Chapel, October 25, 1978.

After John Paul I's sudden death, the Conclave of Cardinals were unable to agree on a candidate after seven rounds of balloting. Cardinal Karol Wojtyla was chosen on the eighth round late in the afternoon of October 16. The Polish priest accepted his election with tears in his eyes. 'I was afraid to receive this nomination,' he told the crowd from the balcony overlooking St Peter's Square after his anointment, 'but I did it in the spirit of obedience to Our Lord and in the total confidence in His mother, the most holy Madonna.'

Pope John Paul II praying at the 'Death Wall' at the former Auschwitz concentration camp, Poland, June 1, 1979.

No Pontiff -- indeed no world leader -- has visited so many countries as Pope John Paul II. One of his first visits after being elected Pope was to his homeland. When he first returned to Poland he told a million strong crowd, living under the harsh Communist regime, 'You are men. You have dignity. Don't crawl on your bellies.' In His Holiness: John Paul II and the Hidden History of Our Time Carl Bernstein (yes, the Watergate reporter!) and Marco Politi argued that 'the fall of Communism was the direct result of a covert confederation between the United States government and the Vatican. Citing meetings between Pope John Paul II and high officials in the Reagan administration, they point to a "secret alliance" as the tipping factor in the collapse of Communism.' Lech Walesa, the Gdsank shipyard electrician who was elected Poland's first post-Communist president, put it best in an interview to AFP: 'Before Karol Wojtyla's election just a few dozen of us wanted to fight Communism. But when he became Pope, when he arrived in Poland for the first time as John Paul II and (in 1979) uttered the famous words 'do not be afraid' millions of us became committed to the fight.'

Pope John Paul II waves to the Mexican faithful outside the Basilica of Guadalupe after the Mass for Saint Juan Diego, July 31, 2002 in Mexico City, Mexico.

On May 13, 1981, five days before his 61st birthday, Mehmet Ali Agca shot John Paul II twice as the Pope blessed devotees in St Peter's Square. The Pontiff was seriously wounded, and images of him grimacing in pain shook the world, coming as it did less than six weeks after President Ronald Reagan was shot in Washington, DC. There has been suspicion -- never proven, of course -- that the KGB or one of its subsidiaries ordered the hit to halt the anti-Communist Pope in his tracks. Agca first told the interrogators he was acting on behalf of Bulgarian intelligence, which Western intelligence saw as part of the KGB's dirty games orbit. But the Turk recanted later. On January 9, 1984, the Pope visited Agca in prison and forgave him. 'What we talked about will have to remain a secret between him and me. I spoke to him as a brother whom I have pardoned and who has my complete trust,' John Paul II said. Asked an apologetic Agca: 'Tell me why it is that I could not kill you?'

Slovak President Rudolf Schuster kisses John Paul II's hand after the Pope's outdoor mass September 13, 2003 in Roznava, Slovakia.

Even though he has been ill with Parkinson's Disease for many years, the Pope refuses to abandon his exhausting schedule, which would overwhelm men a third his age, continuing to visit nation after nation, to spread the word of Christ. The Pontiff also suffers from arthrititis and the after-effects of the 1981 assassination attempt. In 1992 he had a tumour in his colon removed; two years later, he underwent hip replacement surgery. He also dislocated his shoulder in 1993, broke his femur in 1994 and had his appendix excised in 1996. During his visit to Slovakia last month the Pope -- who has refused to let his speeches be read out by anyone else despite the sadly debilitating effects of Parkinson's Disease -- could not read some of his addresses to the faithful. A fortnight later, on September 28, he canceled his weekly audience, a rare occurrence in the quarter century of his Pontificate. The Vatican said the Pope, now 83, had mild 'intestinal problems' and canceled the audience on medical advice. 'I am sorry for not being with you,' John Paul told the laity in a television appearance from his vacation home at Castel Gandolfo, in 'a weak voice and slurring his words.' The Pope is nearing 'the last days and months of his life,' Archbishop of Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, told Austrian broadcaster ORF on October 3. 'The entire world is experiencing a Pope who is sick, who is disabled and who is dying...' But, according to the Australian portal www.news.com, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer came away from a meeting with the Pope relieved that the Pontiff's health seemed better than recent reports had suggested. 'It's not like in the media. He is not on the brink,' Downer said after a private audience in the Vatican.

Pope John Paul II greets crowds at an outdoor mass, September 14, 2003 in Bratislava, Slovakia.

'He's very down-to-earth. For him there's no difference between a spiritualistic world of religion up here and the flesh and blood, down-to-earth world of cause and effect and science down here. This Pope loves science, he's got an inquiring mind. He has a group of scientists from around the world that he calls in every year. He's very much aware of theories of relativity and the Big Bang, and what science is doing in outer space.' 'His Vatican recently named 2001: A Space Odyssey as one of the most important movies of all time. We know that he sees no division between what science is saying and what his religion is saying. He often uses the quote from Jesus, "The truth will make you free," or, "It's the truth that makes us free." And...this is sort of the third corner of the triangle, if you will -- between his faith, his politics, and his science. They're all in the same world. The political story surrounding Jesus is very real to him. The ideas of trans-substantiation, of afterlife being mysterious, of how they might be illuminated by the theories of relativity, of what modern science is doing to figure out the mechanics of the Big Bang, of what Darwinian science is telling us about how our bodies evolved.' --

Bill Blakemore, ABC's Vatican correspondent from 1978 to 1983, on America's PBS network

Thousands of devotees greet Pope John Paul II as he arrives at the Roman Catholic Patriarch, May 7, 2001 in Damascus, Syria.

'To some, John Paul is a revolutionary. He takes strong stands on human rights, criticizes dictators, seeks reconciliation with the Jewish world, opens dialogue with other faiths, and tries, mostly in vain, to bring unity among Christians of the world. Many argue his support for the Solidarity movement in his native Poland helped bring down Communism in Europe. He has also turned his eye toward the growing gap between the rich and poor, criticizing the excesses of capitalism and the empty materialism of the West.' 'To his detractors, he is a reactionary trying to turn back the clock on modern reality. Some harshly criticize his ultra-conservative theology, which prohibits female ordination and prohibits birth control and abortion. He brands the notion of over-population a myth and says the use of condoms as a precaution against AIDS only encourages the behaviour that leads to the spread of the disease.' --

Andrew Wiese, for CBC News Online, July 2002

Pope John Paul II takes a break during his Alpine vacation in July 2000 in Val d'Aosta, Italy

'His power rests in the word, not the sword. As he has demonstrated throughout his papacy, John Paul needs no divisions. He is an army of one, and his empire is both as ethereal and as ubiquitous as the soul. In a slum in Nairobi, Mary Kamati is dying of AIDS. In her mud house hangs a portrait of John Paul. "This is the only Pope who has come to this part of the world," she says. During his most recent visit, he sprinkled her with holy water. "That," she says, eyes trembling, "is the way to heaven..."' 'Pope John Paul II has, among many other things, the world's bully-est pulpit. Few of his predecessors over the past 2,000 years have spoken from it as often and as forcefully as he. When he talks, it is not only to his flock of nearly a billion; he expects the world to listen. And the flock and the world listen, not always liking what they hear.' --

William F Buckley in Time magazine

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UNITY OF CHURCH OF CHRIST BY HOLY SPIRIT

August 22, 2006

Dear Sirs,

I am writing to inform you of a most important event coming up that is important to the United States of America. On Sept 9 and 10 of 2006, the rededication of America to the Lord. Many years ago the original founding fathers dedicated America to the Lord and over the next few hundred years He has blessed America mightily. In the last few generations America has strayed from its roots and is in danger of losing its blessing and special place in the earth. Dedicating and declaring America to be the Lord’s will have huge changes in our present situation. Those whom belong to the Lord has His blessing and protection. From without and within America is meeting challenges from our children not being able to complete high school or have the skills to go to work to attacks from terrorists. Now this year is the time to put all agendas aside and work at changing the direction of where our country is headed.

Join with us in these days of praying, meetings and declaration of the return to the former blessed relationship we have shared in the past with the Lord. Whatever your denomination or religion Christian or Jewish it is time to join hands in placing our nation back in the hands of the Most High God.

Besides joining us in prayers companies, churchs and individuals are encouraged to sponsor rallies, meeting rooms, transportation, stadiums and advertising. Your support is needed to insure that the event have a maximum impact and join as many Americans as possible to rededicating America.

One of the leaders of this event has experience in dedicating Kenya, East Africa and Africa to the Lord. The website is Unityofchurchofchristbyholyspirit.com. Donations can be given by check or by credit card.

God Bless You

In Christ’s Service

Unity of Church of Christ by Holy Spirit

206 235 8210

2019 S 231 St. Des Moines WA. 98198

[email protected]

www.unityofchurchofchristbyholyspirit.com

Joe M Mwaniki

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