Pope John Paul II Left Us 4 Years Ago

Pope John Paul II advocated interreligious dialogue, women’s rights, apologised for chirch crimes, and visited 130 countries.

Pope John Paul II, whose real name is Karol Josef Wojtyla, left this world on April 2, 2005, aged 84. Four years have passed since then, but his prayers are still in the hearts of Catholics and believers in other religions.

He was a man who won over Christians hearts all over the world, known for his good relations with believers and representatives of other faiths.

Pope advocated interreligious dialogue and apologised for Church crimes

He apologised for all of the crimes that were committed in the name of the Catholic Church, and rehabilitated Galileo Galilei, who was condemned by the Church for the heliocentric system. Besides that, he knelt down and bowed to the Jewish victims of the Nazis, and was the only Pope to have visited a synagogue, he called the Jews “older brothers”, he stayed at a mosque and held a sermon in the Evangelical Church. He was a great advocator of inter-religious dialogue and a great fighter for women’s rights and oppressed peoples.

Despite fatigue, Parkinson’s disease, being operated on for a tumour, and many other hardships that occurred to him, the Pope visited 130 countries, with Croatia being amongst them, which he visited three times. He came to Zagreb for the first time in September 1994. During that opportunity he held a mass before over half a million people at Zagreb’s hippodrome. Four years later he visited Marija Bistrica and Split. He returned to Croatia in 2003.

Not even attempted assassination stopped the will to spread peace

Because of all of his travels, they called him the “Pope-passenger”, and he spread is message of peace to the world through the media.

His energy and strong will to spread the message of peace were not even stopped by attempted assassination in 1981 and 1982. Remember, a Turkish right wing supporter seriously injured the Pope at Saint Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981.

A year later, when the Pope was visiting Fatima to thank the blessed Mary for protecting him from the first assassination, the conservative priest Juan Fernandez Krohn attacked him with a knife. The second assassination attempt was only revealed in 2008, when the information was provided by cardinal Stanislaw Dziwissz for a documentary film. Besides that, according to the media, there were two assassination attempts on the Pope in Bosnia Herzegovina. The information was not officially confirmed. The Pope showed how much he believes in peace and forgiveness by forgiving those who tried to assassinate him.