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The Twilight of the John Paul II Institute? An interview with Prof. Stanisław Grygiel Hanna Nowak (Teologia Polityczna): In recent days there have been great changes in the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, which you created together with Karol Wojtyła 40 years ago. How do you pull yourself together in the face of your dismissal? Was it possible to predict such a situation? Prof. Stanisław Grygiel (philosopher, ethicist, anthropologist): There have been no changes in the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family. The Institute was simply dissolved by Pope Francis exactly...

A champion of life—that title expertly captures the work and legacy of Pope John Paul II. More than a decade after his death, the author of Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) remains one of the greatest heroes of the pro-life movement, respected by people of all faiths and all walks of life.The story of Pope John Paul II’s life is filled with suspense, heroism, and intrigue. What is particularly striking is the number of times during the course of his long life, he escaped death. His life hung in the balance when he was hit by a vehicle in...

A new report out today suggests Pope John Paul II’s mother rejected an abortion when pregnant with him. The report suggests that the future Pope John Paul II was in danger of not being born because of the precarious state of health of his mother Emilia Kaczorowska. The book, “The Mother of the Pope,” indicates Emilia Kaczorowska, married in 1905 with Karol Wojtyla, the army of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, rejected an abortion. According to the gynecologist Kindziuk of Wadowice, Jan Moskala, he mother had lost her daughter Olga, who died shortly after giving birth. The report says the doctor advised...

Two years later, John Paul II remembered Ian Hunter, National Post Published: Saturday, March 31, 2007 The life of Karol Wojtyla, the relatively unknown Polish Cardinal who became Pope John Paul II, came to an end two years ago this Monday: April 2, 2005. And what a life it was. Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev credits the late Pope for bringing about the end of communism. During his 27-year papacy, John Paul II conducted mass in the presence of countless worshippers; he was seen in the flesh by more people than any other human being who ever lived. John...

Jews, Catholics plan friendship memorial May. 30, 2006 at 10:14AM Poland's Catholic church has agreed to turn the house where the late Pope John Paul II was born into a memorial of the Jewish-Catholic friendship. During his four-day stay in Poland, the German-born Pope Benedict XVI Saturday paid a brief stop in Wadowice, the birthplace of his predecessor and mentor John Paul II, to enter and bless the house, the Washington Post reported. Some 20 years ago the house was turned into a museum. About 200,000 pilgrims from Poland and around the world annually visit the site, containing memorabilia of...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Under Pope John Paul II's 26-year papacy, the Catholic Church grew by 45 percent, struggled to replace priests and religious, and experienced a significant "graying" of its hierarchy, according to statistics released recently by the Vatican. In a sense, the statistics complete a by-the-numbers portrait of Pope John Paul's pontificate. They cover the period from 1978, the year of his election, through the end of 2004, three months before he died. The worldwide Catholic population increased by 342 million during that time, from 757 million to just under 1.1 billion. That sounds huge, but it was...

THERE ARE OVER 50 MILES of secret police files at the Institute of National Remembrance (Instytut Pamieci Narodowej) in Warsaw and its branches throughout post-Communist Poland. Among other things, one can find there U.S. Army counterintelligence manuals, accounts of American leftists cozying up to the Communists, surveillance records of U.S. diplomats and visitors, including compromising pornographic material, files of CIA spies captured by the Communists, and numerous reports on "The Main Enemy": the United States of America. Most of the files, however, concern Poland and the Poles. They show how, for half a century, the Communist secret police (SB) endeavored...

The Pope John Paul II TV MovieDecember 1, 2005The eventful life and times of the late POPE JOHN PAUL II are coming to the small screen in an all-new, four-hour miniseries on CBS -- and ET's MARY HART goes one-on-one with star JON VOIGHT when he drops by the ET set."He had great charisma and he had great love for people in general, and a great regard for young people," Voight tells ET. "He had real faith and real fervor, and he was a man of God. He did some great things, some controversial things."Shooting in authentic locations, including the...

Faith & Values Media Premieres "A Man Who Became Pope" On Hallmark Channel Before he became Pope, Karol Wojtyla’s life was a vigorous search for love and freedom. His transformational journey led him to the theatre, to profound experiences of love, friendship and loyalty, to scholarship, to the Catholic priesthood. And finally, it led him to Rome and the Chair of St. Peter. Karol’s heroic, true story, based on Gian Franco Svidercoschi’s book, Stories of Karol: The Unknown Life of John Paul II , comes to television in "A Man Who Became Pope," a four-hour movie event presented by Faith...

Mourning for pope continues in Poland Sunday, April 10, 2005 Associated Press Warsaw, Poland - Hundreds of Poles packed the cathedral in Pope John Paul II's hometown of Wadowice again Saturday, keeping up their prayer vigils even after the official mourning period ended for their beloved countryman. Pastry shops in the town also were crowded, as Poles stood in long lines to buy kremowki, a cream-filled pastry that the pope once mentioned he used to buy as a boy - and that have since become known as "pope pastries." Prayer vigils in the pope's hometown cathedral and in churches across...

Polish life ‘has undergone a transformation’Published: Sunday, 10 April, 2005, 11:56 AM Doha Time WARSAW: After a week spent in the glare of global spotlights following the death of John Paul II, the Pope’s Polish compatriots stepped out of the limelight yesterday and back into normalcy, but not without the feeling that life has changed indelibly. Since the death of John Paul II - born Karol Wojtyla in the southern Polish town of Wadowice in 1920 - life in Poland has been moving at slow motion, punctuated by tributes at the hour of the Pope’s death, 9.37pm, by the closure...

Washington, D.C. -- "Be not afraid!" No better eulogy can be written for Pope John Paul II than this exhortation from his inaugural Mass on October 22, 1978. His simple statement resonated from the halls of the Kremlin to the streets of Eastern Europe, from the jungles of Central America to the oppressed tending rice paddies in Communist China. These words even touched hearts here in secular America. Those three words -- "Be not afraid" -- from Matthew, quoting Christ's command to a group of fearful men in peril on a dark and dangerous sea -- defined who he was...

Poles want pope's heart buried in country By MONIKA SCISLOWSKA ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER Nuns and children pray for the late Pope John Paul II in Krakow, southern Poland, on Monday, April 4, 2005 in front of the residency of the archbishop. Pope John Paul II died in his Vatican apartment Saturday, April 2, 2005. He was 84. John Paul was a bishop in Krakow before he became the Pope. (AP Photo/Jockel Finck) KRAKOW, Poland -- Some officials in Krakow, where Pope John Paul II was archbishop, hope his heart can be buried in their cathedral alongside Poland's medieval kings and...

Poles Awake to New World Without Pope Mon Apr 4, 2:46 AM ET Europe - AP By VANESSA GERA, Associated Press Writer WARSAW, Poland - Amid grief at the death of Pope John Paul II, Poles began asking what they'll do now without the inspiring figure whose 26-year papacy offered moral guidance and helped bring the nation from behind the Iron Curtain to its new home in the European Union. As they mourned Sunday in Masses throughout the country, Poles repeated a common refrain: the death of the national hero has left them feeling orphaned. "This death is a shock...

Poles Head for Rome to Bid Farewell to 'Their' Pope Mon Apr 4, 2005 1:57 PM BST By Pawel Kozlowski WARSAW (Reuters) - Thousands of grieving Poles struggled Monday to find spare seats in trains, planes and buses headed for Rome to take part in the funeral of their country's greatest son, Pope John Paul. "Within 15 minutes after our announcement of extra trains to Rome one million people clicked on our Web site, which just collapsed," Jacek Przesluga, head of state railway PKP Intercity told a news conference. PKP said it can offer no more than 4,000 seats on...

Poles Pray for Most Famous Native Son Sat Apr 2, 9:59 AM ET Europe - AP By MONIKA SCISLOWSKA, Associated Press Writer WADOWICE, Poland - Poles prayed for Pope John Paul II on Saturday with grief over their beloved native son's approaching death mixed with a wish to see an end to his long and public suffering. At a noon Mass in St. Mary's basilica in Wadowice, the southern Polish town of 20,000 where the pope was born 84 years ago, the Rev. Krzysztof Glowka told a packed church that "we are here to be with John Paul in his...

Humor Helps Pope Deal With Health Crises Sat Feb 26, 4:40 PM ET Europe - AP By JOJI SAKURAI, Associated Press Writer VATICAN CITY - As Pope John Paul (news - web sites) II struggles with his second health crisis in a month, he is displaying something not usually associated with the dignity and solemnity of his office: a sense of humor. "What did they do to me?" was the quip Vatican (news - web sites) aides say he scrawled on a piece of paper Friday after he woke up following surgery to ease his breathing problems. Ahead of the...

NewsMax.com's religion editor Fr. Mike Reilly notes that relations between President Bush and Pope John Paul II remain warm despite their disagreement over the war in Iraq. While Pope John Paul II joined the chorus of European critics urging President Bush not to make war on Iraq, Bush had nothing but praise for the Pope during his recent visit to Poland. Zenit news reported that on the eve of Secretary of State Colin Powell's meeting with the Pope, President Bush told cheering crowds that, "At Wawel Cathedral in 1978, a Polish cardinal began his journey to a conclave in Rome,...