by Wyatt North
On a single day in November 1939, 183 students, professors, and other staff of Jagiellonian University were arrested and deported to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. The university was closed, along with all other institutions of secondary and higher education in Poland. At least thirty-four professors and other staff of the university would be killed in the course of the war, either in concentration camps or by the Soviets.
In this setting, any act of Polish cultural resistance was heroic and accomplished at the risk of one’s own life and the lives of others. And that is precisely where we locate Karol Wojtila, who became one of approximately 800 students studying clandestinely when the university took its operations underground. He was also deeply involved in keeping Polish theater alive. The performances took place before small groups of people in private apartments. Karol even wrote several plays based on Old Testament topics but inspired by the Nazi oppression. In addition, he translated Sophocles’ Oedipus from Greek into Polish. All such activities had to be undertaken between work time and curfew. Going out after curfew meant being shot. Being caught at what they were doing would also have meant being shot.
Beatings, shootings, and roundups were part of everyday life. With the university officially closed, it was necessary for Karol to obtain a work permit in order to remain in Krakow without being deported to a forced labor camp or executed. Initially he was able to work as a messenger, but after a time he was forced into manual labor for the Solvay chemical company. For an entire bitter winter, he shoveled limestone outdoors in a quarry. Those who knew him then say he responded to the unaccustomed work stoically, quietly.
He was engaged in this harsh manual labor for only a few months. In the spring, he became the assistant of the quarry’s blaster. The following fall, in 1941, he was transferred to a different site, the Solvay factory’s water purification unit. There, he received additional food, since the plant fed the workers soup with a bit of bread. Working the night shift, he was able to sneak time to read. One of the books he read at that time held the writings of St. Louis Grignon de Montfort, from whom he learned that true Marian piety was focused on Christ, since Mary, properly understood, was the first disciple of Christ. At the same time, Karol also received an unexpected education in the life of a common laborer, which would later make him a better pastor.
The parish where he lived was struggling. Most of the priests had been arrested. As a result, the remaining priests turned to lay leaders for help, most notably Jan Tyranowski, who established a “Living Rosary,” comprised of groups of young men committed to prayer and spiritual growth. Each group had its own leader, and Karol was one of the earliest group leaders. The groups, of course, had to meet secretly. In addition, the group leaders met with Tyranowski for study, training, and guidance. In Jan Tyranowski, Karol found both a teacher and a role model. From the personal example of Tyranowski, he learned that lay people, not only priests, could be vessels for the holy in their daily lives. He took to heart an idea he heard from Tyranowski: it is not hard to be a saint. Very importantly, Tyranowski introduced him to the works of the Spanish mystic, Saint John of the Cross, who taught that God could only be reached by complete self-surrender.
During this time, some of Karol’s friends were involved in more activist types of resistance. Some were armed. Others helped save Jews by supplying them with false baptismal certificates to pass as Christians. Karol Wojtila never claimed to have saved any Jewish lives during the war. He said that he could not claim what he did not do. He provided what assistance he could to Poles whose family members had been arrested. In one case he showed up at work without a jacket because he had given his to a man without one. And he continued to believe in the power of prayer—so he prayed.
The Vocation
Captain Wojtila had taken to his bed shortly after Christmastime 1940. On a bitterly cold day in February 1941, Karol returned home from work to find his father dead, the blankets in which he was wrapped still warm. Even many years later, he confessed to being troubled that his father had died alone. He admitted that he was never so lonely as during the period after his father’s death. Some friends convinced him to come live with them for a time because they were worried about him.
Karol was twenty years old and an orphan. As difficult as this time was for him, it was now that his vocation began to come into focus. The trials and the joys of his life had coalesced to lead him to the priesthood. He contemplated this course for a while and then, in the fall of 1942, submitted himself at the archbishop’s residence as a candidate for the priesthood.
It was not a safe path to tread. Some students had already been executed, others sent to Auschwitz. The seminary had gone underground. Karol studied in secret while continuing to work for Solvay and perform in the clandestine theater. He was not to tell anyone what he was doing. Eventually, it became necessary to share the information with his theater friends, some of whom tried to change his mind.
When danger did come, it was not in the form expected. In February 1944, Karol was walking home from work in the factory when he was struck unconscious by a German truck. He experienced a severe concussion, cuts and bruises, and a shoulder injury. He awoke in the hospital with a bandaged head and his arm in a cast, and he remained in the hospital for the next two weeks. Did this head injury play a role in his later Parkinson’s disease? Perhaps one day, science will clarify the possible links. For his part, Karol considered his survival an act of grace.
The Polish Warsaw Uprising began on August 1, 1944. To prevent a similar occurrence in Krakow, the Nazis began rounding up young men. Karol was actually hiding in his apartment when the house where he lived was searched by the Gestapo. Under the circumstances, the archbishop called his seminarians to take refuge within his residence. Studies now took place on a full-time schedule within those confines.
On January 17–18, 1945, the Nazis retreated from Krakow. One oppressive regime was replaced by another. The Soviet Union was now in control, and they installed a communist government. Karol continued his theological studies at the newly reopened Jagiellonian University and graduated in 1946. The archbishop, who by now had been named a cardinal, wanted Karol to continue his studies in Rome, so Karol’s installation as sub-deacon, deacon, and then priest followed in swift succession during the summer and fall of 1946. He left for Rome in mid-November 1946, traveling by train to Paris and then on to Rome. It was Father Wojtila’s first time outside of Poland.
Life as a Priest
Father Wojtila lived with other priests and seminarians in the Belgian College while studying at the Pontifical Athenaeum of St Thomas Aquinas. The international climate suited him. He was able to practice his French and German and began also to study Italian and English. He toured Rome and the Italian countryside with his colleagues, learning about the history of the Church through its historical sites. It was during this time that he made a visit San Giovanni Rotondo to see the famed stigmatist Padre Pio, whom he would later raise to sainthood. Like others, he was most impressed with Padre Pio’s evident suffering while celebrating Mass. In the summer, Father Wojtila was able to tour Europe to see firsthand how Catholicism was expressed in different locations. He made a pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of Ars (France), where St John Mary Vianney, the Curé of Ars and patron saint of priests, resided. He came away committed to reaching out to laypeople through the confessional, as the Curé had done. This would become a focal point of his pastoral mission.
He completed his doctoral dissertation, which was written in Latin, on The Doctrine of Faith According to St. John of the Cross and completed his doctorate with near-perfect marks. He did not, however, receive his degree from the Pontifical Athenaeum because he didn’t have the money to publish his dissertation, which was the final prerequisite. When he returned to Poland, he submitted the dissertation to Jagiellonian University and received his doctoral degree there at the end of 1948.
No longer a student, Father Wojtila was assigned to his first parish as an assistant cleric in a s
mall, rural town called Niegowi, located in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains not far from Krakow. He would remain there for eight months, educating children, conducting marriages and baptisms, hearing confession, and actively working to engage the people of his parish. He even started a drama club and directed a play.
In 1949, he was transferred back to Krakow, to a large parish consisting of many intellectuals. At St. Florian’s, Father Wojtila was expected to interact not only with the regular members of the parish, but also with students from Jagiellonian University, Krakow Polytechnic, and the Academy of Fine Arts, serving as a kind of university chaplain. He held lectures, organized study groups, and visited dormitories. Under the influence of the liturgical renewal movement, he began a student choir and taught them to sing various parts of the Mass in Gregorian chant. He again directed plays, and in 1950, he started an innovative marriage preparation program, which enabled him to interact with burgeoning families. The range of his evangelism also encompassed country hikes, skiing, and kayaking. He was dedicated to bringing Catholicism out into the world.
He began to write essays for Catholic publications. Employing pseudonyms, he wrote plays exploring religious and philosophical themes. He also wrote poetry. The number of his followers grew as his reputation spread. He was known for openness, kindness, and an exacting level of intellectualism. He also impressed people with his devotion to a life of poverty, for his garments were invariably threadbare, and he gave away any presents bestowed upon him to whomever he deemed more needful. Even other priests respected him for his obviously genuine piety and goodness.
In Communist Poland, it was still important to be circumspect about Catholic undertakings. Informers were always listening for anyone speaking against the regime. Catholic youth groups had been officially banned. Restrictions on the Catholic Church were onerous and variable. As a result, many activities had to be conducted carefully. Not everyone with whom Father Wojtila interacted knew or wanted to know the young priest’s real name. Some knew him as “Wujek,” (Uncle), while others called him “Sadok.” The clever priest took these designations from his knowledge of literature and drama.
In 1951, Father Wojtila left the parish to study for a second doctorate in philosophy, but his pastoral mission persisted as he continued to minister to his sizable following. He received his second doctorate from Jagiellonian University at the beginning of 1954, writing on the topic: An Evaluation of the Possibility of Constructing a Christian Ethics on the Basis of the System of Max Scheler. In October of that year, he joined the Philosophy Department at the Catholic University of Lublin, the only Catholic university allowed to exist, albeit with difficulty, within the Communist orbit. In 1956, he was named to the Chair of Ethics, which he held for over twenty years. He donated his salary to student scholarship funds and continued his subsistence lifestyle. Because he commuted to Lublin from Krakow, he was able to maintain his chaplaincy in Krakow. He was also a chaplain, of sorts, to the students in Lublin, always available to speak with them or hear their confessions. Some of his best-attended courses were in Ethics, where he championed self-giving and coexistence as the keys to fulfillment.
In 1960, he published his first book, Love and Responsibility, a treatment of sexual and marital ethics drawn both from his philosophical pursuits and his pastoral mission. In it, he celebrated sex within the vocation of marriage. This was a rather more positive view of sexual expression than was usually found in Church discussions. He was expressing his views in the general context of the sexual revolution and the particular situation in Communist Poland. In order to undermine the Church, Poland’s Communist government encouraged sexual license among young people and had passed an abortion law permitting it as a birth control option. Instead, Father Wojtila argued that sexuality should not involve the primacy of self, but rather the mutuality of relationship. Accordingly, sexuality should be treated not as an expression of personal autonomy, but rather of personal responsibility for another person.
Just before Pope Pius XII passed away, he named the young priest a bishop (1958), making the thirty-eight-year-old Wojtila the youngest bishop in Poland. In due course, he would be named an archbishop (1964) and finally a cardinal (1967).
Karol Wojtila’s Role in Vatican II
The Second Vatican Council, or Vatican II as it was dubbed, was convened by Pope John XXIII in October 1962. He would not live to see its conclusion, and its agenda would be carried forward by Pope Paul VI. This ecumenical council took place over four autumns. Its goal was to renew the Church and enable it to speak in the modern world. It also aimed to create unity within the growing diversity of the universal Church.
At its beginning, Wojtila was a bishop, but he would soon be named Archbishop of Krakow. He was present at all four annual sessions, and it was his first time outside of Poland since he had left his studies in Rome. He took advantage of his leave-taking from Poland to also make an inspirational visit to Egypt, Israel, and the Jordanian-occupied territories, as Pope Pius VI had suggested Council participants do.
Bishop Wojtila found the Council profoundly spiritual, and he relished the vitality of the theological discourse over issues. The breadth of racial and cultural diversity he found among the clergy delighted him. He fully believed that the Holy Spirit was guiding the progress of the Council, and he was prepared to aid in the Council’s efforts to chart a course for the new millennium. Toward that end, he spoke before the Council multiple times each year. The importance of addressing the human condition and the role of the laity were recurring themes in his learned speeches (known in the Council’s terminology as “interventions”).
His best-known contributions had to do with formulating and expressing the role of the Church in the modern world. He helped write the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes (“Joy and Hope”), which was one of four Apostolic Constitutions resulting from Vatican II and promulgated by Pope Paul VI in December 1965.
By the end of Vatican II, Archbishop Wojtila’s reputation would no longer be confined to Poland. He was now well-known to his fellow clergy throughout the world.
Back in Poland
Archbishop Wojtila’s second book came about as a result of his participation in the Council. Person and Act was an attempt to express the philosophical underpinnings of the teachings that emerged from Vatican II. The book is notoriously difficult reading. An English edition exists, but critics argue that it has been modified from the original so that it does not always represent the author’s thinking.
One of the vital documents from Vatican II was Dignitatis Humanae, which among its other teachings declared that people have a right to religious freedom, both freedom from coercion to worship and freedom to worship according to their conscience. The document encouraged the structuring of society to ensure that right. This pronouncement created an obvious problem for the Communist government in Poland, whose goal was to control and suppress the Church in Poland. Then, too, both the Church in Poland and the Communist government in Poland lived under the cloud of potential Soviet intervention, which neither group wanted. Consequently, both were engaged in a delicate balancing act.
The Communist government in Poland asserted a great deal of control over Church activities, including the right to veto appointments. When that government pressed for the nomination of Karol Wojtila to become Archbishop of Krakow, they no doubt saw him as an inexperienced young man who was unschooled in politics and would be easy to manipulate. What they got was more than they bargained for. Throughout his clerical career in Poland, he confounded the regime.
Were Catholic charities banned? He created less formal charitable networks at the parish level. Was there a moratorium on creating new parishes? He found ways to evangelize the population of the neighborhood to create the reality of a parish. Did the communist bureaucrats refuse to process permits for building new churches? He created a groundswell of support that caused problems for the government and got the church built.
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p; The regime had its victories, too, as when Father Jozef Kurzeja, who had been agitating for the building of a church in a particular location, was so hounded by the security police that he died of heart failure at the youthful age of thirty-nine. Archbishop Wojtila saw to it that the church was built. He was able to dedicate it as pope, seven years after Father Kurzeja’s death, in 1983.
In a Communist country, the dominant relationship was between the state and the individual, and the individual was clearly the subordinate. The individual’s loyalty had to be to the state. All other counter-loyalties were in the way, including the bonds of family and community. Archbishop Wojtila’s strength was in building community, and he created ties among all its facets: young marrieds, youth, elderly, infirm and disabled, laity, clergy, and uncommitted. He also extended an ecumenical hand in friendship to the tiny Protestant minority in Krakow. The archbishop’s success in forging ties flew in the face of Communist goals. As a result, his movements were increasingly monitored, and his residence was bugged. Occasionally, there was even cloak-and-dagger intrigue: the secret police following Wojtila’s car were eluded through fancy driving maneuvers and a quick change of vehicles.
