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- [Narrator] Friday September 1st, 1939, 6:00 AM.

A university student assists at morning Mass

in Krakow's Wawel Cathedral.

Poland has suffered invasions before,

but the nightmare to come lies beyond the imagining

of all who have worshiped here for centuries.

[priest speaking in foreign language]

[sirens blaring] [planes buzzing]

The student's thoughts turned toward his ailing father,

alone at home.

[bombs bursting]

World War II has begun.

[bombs bursting] [dark ominous music]

forged by the fires of war, and the subsequent brutalities

of the communist regime,

that student, Karol WojtyBa from Poland,

becomes Pope John Paul II, one of the world's

great defenders of religious freedom and human rights,

preaching the power of the word over the power of the sword.

He is a major catalyst

in the nonviolent collapse of communism.

[John Paul speaking in foreign language]

John Paul II has been seen by more people

than any other human being.

His appeal and charisma reach beyond

the billion members of his flock.

Yet this Pope remains one of the most

controversial figures of our times.

A revolutionary thinker rooted

in ancient religious traditions.

he is both revered and vilified.

He is a man of many faces, poet, playwright,

actor, philosopher, mystic, pastor.

Above all, John Paul II describes himself

as a witness to hope.

[majestic solemn music] [audience applauding]

[crowd chanting in foreign language]

[soft gentle music]

To understand this complex man from the inside,

we begin in Poland.

[soft gentle music]

The Second Polish Republic arose

out of the ashes of World War I.

Two years later on May 18th, 1920,

Karol WojtyBa, the future Pope, is born.

[birds flapping]

His father, Karol Sr., is a military man

stationed at the Garrison in Wadowice,

a small town outside Krakow.

[bells clanging]

The family lives in a modest apartment

across from the church.

For his mother Emelia, young Karol is a gift from heaven.

She lost a baby girl in infancy,

and her older son is already a teenager.

- According to various local legends,

she would walk her son in a pram through the town streets

and say, "My Lolek," the diminutive form of his name Karol,

"will be a great man one day."

I don't know whether that's true or not,

but it's a nice story and it's been told so often

that perhaps we can give it the benefit of the doubt.

[children chattering]

- He is known as Lolek the Goalie.

He is happy and carefree,

but tragedy strikes him at an early age.

[soft poignant music]

He is nine years old when his mother dies of heart disease.

Three years later, he is shocked by the sudden death

of his older brother Edmond, a doctor,

who succumbs to Scarlet fever while caring for a patient.

- [John Paul] My mother's death left a deep impression

on my memory, and my brother's death perhaps

an even deeper one.

I was left alone with my father, a deeply religious man.

After my mother died,

his life became one of constant prayer.

Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night

and find my father praying on his knees.

- He never talked about his mother to me, you know?

He was, because he was, he seemed, well inside-minded.

He didn't say words outside his soul, you know?

He was always keeping his sorrow.

[soft poignant music]

- Still mourning their loss, Lolek and his father

come here to Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, a vast outdoor shrine

devoted to Jesus Christ and his mother Mary.

On their pilgrimage, this impressionable child

witnesses the reenactment of Christ's passion.

[soft solemn music]

Along with thousands of other Poles,

they kneel in prayer before the most powerful

icon of hope in Polish culture, the Virgin Mary,

who will remain a protector throughout Karol WojtyBa's life.

- [George] Church, culture, nation are intensely intertwined

in Poland in a way that is not easily replicated

in other parts of the world.

[worshipers singing in foreign language]

Poland has been and arguably is today,

the most intensely Catholic country in the world.

And that's the atmosphere, that's the culture,

the normality of faith, the normality of intense piety,

in which Karol WojtyBa grew up.

[soft solemn music]

- [Narrator] Shortly after his mother's death,

he makes his first Holy Communion.

[priest speaking in foreign language]

as an altar boy, he goes back and forth from church

to his apartment across the street.

His faith deepens.

[priest and altar boys speaking in foreign language]

- His religious faith, I mean, he was exceptional among us

because of the early loss of his mother.

And every day he was twice or even three times

going to the church.

- [Narrator] At home, under the wings of the church,

he observes his father's constant prayer

and his austere way of living.

He later writes that his home was his first seminary.

- [Interpreter] His father not only raised him a pious boy,

but he also fulfilled the role as a mother

to such an extent that he even cooked, he sewed,

he cleaned, so that Karol wouldn't waste

even one second on trivial matters, so he could study.

- [Narrator] His father, now retired,

becomes an unofficial tutor for Lolek and his friends

in history and literature,

the foundations of Polish cultural identity.

He listens with fascination to the stories

of Poland's tumultuous past,

how the country had been a conqueror and conquered,

reclaimed and resurrected over its thousand-year history.

During the entire 19th century,

Poland simply disappeared from the map of Europe,

partitioned in 1795 among the Russian, Prussian,

and Austro-Hungarian empires for 123 years.

- You can look at any map of Europe

printed during that period,

and there's nothing called Poland on that map.

And yet Poland continued to exist

in the minds of the Polish people,

who preserved their nation through their culture

when their state was destroyed.

And it was out of that intense sense of culture,

language, literature, religion, that the state of Poland

was eventually reborn in the aftermath

of the First World War.

- [Narrator] Lolek and the second Polish Republic

grow up together.

[children speaking in foreign language]

But Poland's newfound freedom will be short-lived.

[crowd chanting in foreign language]

in the 1930s, the world around Poland

is changing drastically.

To the West, Adolph Hitler

and the Nazi party are transforming Germany.

To the East, Joseph Stalin presides

over a reign of terror in the Soviet Union.

Freedom is threatened everywhere.

Antisemitism is intensifying throughout Europe.

[orator and crowd speaking in foreign language]

In the years after World War I,

the largest population of Jews in Europe lives in Poland.

In Wadowice, one in five townspeople is Jewish.

Wadowice has a history of tolerance toward Jews,

and many of Lolek's friends are Jewish.

One of them, Jurek Kluger, hearing of their promotion

to high school rushes to tell Lolek the news.

- He was so pleased 'cause they both passed.

So he rushed to the church where Lolek was serving Mass,

and a Catholic woman saw Jurek and said,

"Aren't you the son of Dr. Kluger,"

and says, "what are you doing in the church?"

And so, Jurek didn't say anything, he just sat there.

Then Lolek came out and he was very cross about the fact

that this woman had said to Jurek,

"What are you doing in the church?"

And he said, "What nonsense,

we are all children of the same God."

And that was at 12 years old.

[soft lively jazzy music]

- [Narrator] Now in high school, Lolek falls in love

with the theater and with 19th century Polish literature.

These classics appeal to Lolek's love of language

and religious nature.

At 14, an important mentor enters his life.

- He came under the influence of a remarkable character

named MieczysBaw Kotlarczyk,

a man who had an intense sense of language,

and who wanted to create without props and costumes,

a kind of free space between actors and audience,

in which the truth of the spoken word

could be best communicated.

[actor speaking in foreign language]

Wojtyla was deeply influenced by both this idea of theater,

and by the idea that in fact,

all of life might be structured dramatically,

that each one of us in our lives is living a drama.

The drama lived in the gap between the person I am

and the person I ought to be.

That's the drama of the moral life, as Wojtyla would later

come to describe that philosophically.

So his early theatrical experience

both gave him some skills,

but also gave him a view of the world.

- [Interpreter] Karol Wojtyla as a young man

had an extraordinary gift.

He spoke intellectually, intelligently, straightforwardly,

more like we act today.

Beyond all that, he was very handsome,

well-built broad shouldered,

but already as a young man he bent his head a little.

Moreover, he had a head of hair

which refused to listen to him.

He couldn't help himself.

It was so unruly that he had a problem keeping it in order.

So we as friends made up a little poem that ended,

"Doesn't Wojtyla have a comb?"

- Karol Wojtyla as a young man is in some sense,

almost too good to be true.

He was an extremely gifted student.

He was a natural athlete.

He was deeply involved in the theater.

He had a wide range of friends and most astonishingly,

no one seemed to resent all of this.

He was not a grind.

He had the normal social life of a teenager of those days,

and in a culture in which piety

was considered normal and admirable,

his intense piety was regarded as normal and admirable.

- [Narrator] In fact, he and his friends

believe he is destined for the stage.

After graduating from high school,

he moves to Krakow with his father

to study Polish literature at the Jagiellonian University.

For centuries, Krakow has been

the center of Poland's cultural life.

For the next year, he immerses himself

in his university studies and amateur theater.

Yet all around him, sense of foreboding grows.

To the South on March 14th, 1939,

the Nazis complete their occupation of Czechoslovakia.

[dark somber music]

A possible invasion of Poland looms.

Antisemitism casts a deepening shadow

over much of the nation.

- [Interpreter] Wojtyla as a student

witnessed antisemitism at the Jagiellonian University.

Whenever there were manifestations of antisemitism,

he was always with the Jewish students,

always against those who were antisemitic.

He made clear his solidarity with his Jewish colleagues.

[soft somber music]

- [Narrator] One of his Jewish friends,

Ginka Beer, decides to leave Poland forever.

As her friends see her off at the train station,

Karol's father reminds her

that not all Poles are antisemitic.

Karol is too upset to say a word.

- [George] Wojtyla would often be found

in argument with others, asking how people

could be antisemites when Christianity

emerges out of the Jewish tradition.

It makes no sense to Karol Wojtyla

for the followers of a Jewish prophet to be antisemites.

[Hitler speaking German]

- [Narrator] On September 1st, 1939,

Poland's worst fears are realized as Hitler invades.

As the bombs fall on Krakow's suburbs,

Karol rushes home to his ailing father.

The Polish army fights bravely for weeks,

but it is no for the German juggernaut.

[airplanes buzzing] [soft poignant music]

The Second Polish Republic comes to an abrupt end.

With only a battered suitcase,

Karol and his father abandon their apartment.

They joined thousands of other refugees,

fleeing eastward to escape the German army

advancing from the West.

They find themselves in ditches,

seeking shelter from the strafing German aircraft.

- After 10, 12 days of flight eastward,

it became clear that another army

was about to invade Poland,

the Soviet army from the East.

So they turned around and walked 200 kilometers

back to Krakow, where they found the swastika

flying from the ramparts of Wawel Castle.

[soft somber music]

- [Narrator] The rule of law ceases to exist,

and a reign of terror begins.

- [Hans] Every vestige of Polish culture

should be eliminated.

They will work, they will eat little,

and in the end they will die out.

There will never again be a Poland.

Hans Frank, Governor General, Krakow.

[soft somber music]

- [George] The German occupation of Poland

during the Second World War

was an indescribably brutal business.

Its intention was to eliminate the Poles,

as a race of subhumans, from the face of the Earth.

The first tactic in that strategy of extermination

was a decapitation tactic.

Poles of learning and culture were to be eliminated.

- [Narrator] The Nazis invite the faculty

of the Jagiellonian University to a special meeting.

All those who come are arrested.

184 professors are sent to the Sachsenhausen

concentration camp, where many perish.

Wojtyla's life as a student abruptly ends.

[soft somber music]

Nearly two million Poles are shipped out of the country

to slave labor camps.

Anyone over the age of 16 without a work permit is a target.

[dynamite exploding]

Through a family friend, Karol lands a job

in a limestone quarry outside Krakow

as an assistant dynamiter.

Here, he discovers a world he has never known.

- [George] It was an immensely important

influence on Wojtyla's thinking.

This was his real introduction to the world of manual labor,

and he came out of that with a tremendous respect

for the dignity of work and the dignity of workers.

- [Narrator] Extreme hardship becomes a way of life.

For Karol and his father, hunger is a constant companion.

Roundups and executions are commonplace.

- [Interpreter] The sense of dread

was terrible for me as a child.

As for detailed memories, undoubtedly the most

intense memory is the memory of that moment

when the Gestapo came to our house,

arrested my father, took him away,

assured us that he would return in a few days,

and my conviction that I would never see him again.

And indeed he was shot nine days later

in a street execution.

That I will have etched somewhere in my mind until I die.

All of those experiences, moment for moment.

[soft somber music]

- [Narrator] It is not a question of knowing

whether you will be alive next year.

The question is whether you will be alive tomorrow.

University, cultural, and religious life go underground.

The Catholic Church is targeted by Poland's Nazi masters,

who understand that decapitating Polish society

means decapitating the church.

Overlooking the old town sits the majestic Wawel Cathedral.

Many of the country's political

and cultural leaders are buried here.

Wawel Cathedral has been the magnetic pole

of the nation's emotional life since the 14th century.

The Nazis take it over.

Nearly 5,000 priests and nuns throughout Poland

are sent to concentration camps.

[choir soloist singing in foreign language]

The terrors of the war are inescapable.

Karol's father is now gravely ill,

and Wojtyla lives in a frightening and brutal world

that seems to have gone mad.

During this time he meets Jan Tyranowski,

a mystic whose relationship with God is extremely personal.

Meeting this mystical man will change

Karol's experience of faith forever.

Through Tyranowski, Karol discovers

a deeper relationship with God through contemplative prayer.

He learns to pray as a means of entering God's presence.

That experience of presence

then animates every aspect of his life.

[birds tweeting]

Tyranowski introduces him to the poetry and theology

of the 16th century Carmelite mystic,

Saint John of the Cross.

Carmelite mysticism is a spirituality

of abandonment centered on the crucified Christ.

This idea of abandoning oneself completely

to the will of God so seizes Karol's imagination

that he considers joining a Carmelite monastery,

but the monks tell him

they are not accepting candidates during the war.

[choir soloist singing in foreign language]

In February, 1941, Karol faces

another great loss in his young life.

- [John Paul] I lost my father.

I remember the day so clearly.

I returned home from work and found my father dead.

I never felt so alone in my life.

I had already lost all the people I loved,

and even the ones I might have loved,

such as a big sister who had died six years before my birth.

[soft somber music]

- [Narrator] At 20, he is left alone in the world,

without a family, an orphan.

- [Interpreter] He joined a secret organization

which formed part of the resistance in Poland,

and called itself UNIA.

He was sworn in in 1941.

UNIA had various chapters,

including a chapter engaged in armed resistance.

Wojtyla was not a member of that chapter.

He was active in the UNIA of culture.

Standing up to the Germans did not mean

just throwing grenades and blowing up armament transports,

but also cultural resistance,

underground education, underground universities,

and they cultivated theater.

It doesn't sound perilous, but it was mortally dangerous.

You could be sent to Auschwitz for that.

One actually risked one's life for that.

[soft somber music]

- [Narrator] All Polish cultural activity

is strictly forbidden.

Even the composer Chopin is banned.

In this draconian atmosphere,

his mentor Kotlarczyk and Karol

create a clandestine theater group.

- [George] The Rhapsodic Theater was an attempt

to save Poland through saving its memory.

The Germans were saying in effect,

"You are no nation, you have no culture."

The most effective form of resistance to that

was to keep alive Polish culture.

- [Interpreter] We simply stood and recited.

There were no scenes, no contact between us.

[actors speaking in foreign language]

These were typically recitations of epic or lyrical poems.

It was a dialogue between us and the audience.

[soft gentle piano music]

- [Interpreter] The shows were performed in private homes.

It was dangerous, we entered and left one by one.

Arrests were frequent then, those were terrible times.

The Rhapsodic Theater gave us wings,

and made us feel that we were doing something

that lifted the spirit of our poor, tormented people.

[soft somber music]

- [Narrator] The Nazi presence is impossible to escape.

- [Interpreter] We were performing fragments

from the great Polish epic, "Pan Tadeusz",

and in the course of Karol Wojtyla's monologue,

a loudspeaker came on, announcing more victories

of the occupation army.

The loud speaker was blaring and completely drowned out

what was being said in the apartment,

and also Karol's voice.

No one could hear what he was saying,

but Karol did not stop speaking.

[officials speaking in foreign language]

- I think that has become in my mind,

a metaphor for Karol Wojtyla's life.

He doesn't ignore the evil that's around him.

He has tremendous faith in the power of the word

to cut through the static of the world's wickedness.

[dark somber music] [gunfire blasting]

- [Narrator] All of Europe is engulfed in warfare.

[gunfire blasting]

Hitler begins his demonic Final Solution,

the wholesale murder of European Jews.

Wojtyla's Jewish friends disappear,

childhood friends are killed,

and Jurek Kluger flees the country.

- [Interpreter] Certainly the tragedy that befell the Jews

has been and still is something very personal to Wojtyla.

Of course he knew that Jews needed help,

but how do you help the Jews who were sequestered

in a ghetto, who were guarded by cordons of police?

[soft somber music]

- [Narrator] During the nightmare of the war,

he looks for answers to the meaning of life.

Why is he alive while others are dead?

At 21, he has emerged as actor, student,

mystic, playwright, poet,

but he is uncertain which path to follow.

- Karol was in a struggle of vocational clarification.

That vocational struggle clearly intensified

in the wake of his father's death.

Was it the stage, or was it perhaps

a different kind of stage in a different kind of drama?

And he wrestled with this throughout 1941.

- [John Paul] I was devoting myself

as far as the terrors of the occupation allowed

to my taste for literature and drama.

My priestly vocation took shape in the midst of all of that,

like an inner fact of unquestionable and absolute clarity.

I knew that I was called, I would be a priest.

- [Narrator] He goes to the Archbishop of Krakow.

Adam Sapieha is conducting an underground seminary,

and Karol enters his fold.

[soft somber music]

He now lives a double life.

One night on his walk home from work,

what could have been a tragedy becomes a sign from God.

[car rumbling] [man exclaiming]

He is hit by a German truck,

and suffers a severe concussion.

Left for dead, he is only discovered later by a passerby.

This brush with death deepens Wojtyla's conviction

that God has a plan for him, his life has a purpose.

- I think what Wojtyla decided,

certainly by the time he was 21,

was that he was not in charge of his life.

God was in charge of his life.

But I think that's the source of his fearlessness.

It's the fearlessness of someone who has, in a sense,

handed himself over to the power of God at work in his life

and is prepared to go with that power to the end.

[soft thoughtful music]

[gunfire blasting]

- [Narrator] Nearly five years into the war in August, 1944,

the Polish resistance launches the Warsaw Uprising.

Despite remarkable heroism, it fails.

In retaliation, Hitler orders the city

destroyed block by block.

[bombs exploding] [soft somber music]

To prevent a replication of the Warsaw Uprising,

the Gestapo sweep the city of Krakow, arresting young men.

They search Karol's house.

He is behind a closed door,

praying that the Nazis won't find him.

Sapieha orders his underground seminarians

to make their way to his residence.

Karol works his way across town, avoiding the Nazi patrols.

[soft tense music]

He disappears behind these doors, erased from society,

hidden with a dozen other seminarians until the war is over.

[singer singing in foreign language]

In May, 1945, the war in Europe ends.

The Nazis have been defeated,

but Poland's freedom is short-lived.

[singer singing in foreign language]

As the Soviets begin their 40-year-long attempt

to turn the country into a communist satellite,

Poles describe World War II as the war they lost twice.

- With communism, we were already so tired

after one occupation when the second one came,

and not so much changed.

Well, that was a feeling of,

many people were completely discouraged.

When I make a list of my best friends,

practically none of those whom I had

before the war is alive anymore, people to whom

we pinned our best hopes for the future.

So human losses were such

that it became a different society.

- [Narrator] But Poland is different

from the other satellite countries.

The Church remains a powerful force in Polish society,

challenging the atheistic doctrines of the regime.

- Poland was first of all, overwhelmingly Catholic.

Poland was very nationalistic.

Poland has a tradition of national resistance.

So Poland was always different.

Poland was the most difficult pill to swallow,

and the Soviet leaders knew that, and that's why

they tended to treat Poland very carefully.

- [Narrator] Poland has been shattered by war.

Karol comes to terms with the tragedies he has endured

and his own survival through a deep, mystical spirituality.

Wojtyla is once again drawn to the monastic life,

but Archbishop Sapieha does not approve.

He knows the Church is facing a new battle

with the communist regime and its atheism.

The Church needs charismatic, young intellectuals

like Wojtyla working actively in society.

So the hand of Sapieha leads

a young man of mystical intuition

into the active world of the priesthood.

On November 1st, 1946, Karol Wojtyla is ordained.

- [John Paul] I can still remember myself in that chapel,

lying on the floor, awaiting the moment

of the imposition of hands.

I was overwhelmed with emotion.

[soft gentle music]

- [Narrator] The next day, Father Wojtyla

celebrates his first Mass in St. Leonard's Crypt

in Wawel Cathedral.

- [John Paul] All who visit the cathedral

find themselves immersed in the nation's history.

This was why I wanted to celebrate my first Mass

in the Crypt of St. Leonard.

I wanted to express my special spiritual bond

with the history of Poland,

a history symbolized by the hill of battle.

[soft thoughtful music]

- [Narrator] At 26, Father Wojtyla leaves his homeland

for the first time, sent to Rome

to get his doctorate in theology.

His thesis on the nature of faith

according to St. John of the Cross

explores the personal nature

of the human encounter with God.

He concludes that this encounter with God

is the center of every human life, and without it

one loses what is most truly human in all of us.

Here Wojtyla defines the line of battle

on which for 40 years, he will challenge communism

for the soul of Poland.

- There's an immense struggle going on

for the next generation, who are being bludgeoned

day in and day out with Marxist ideology

and propaganda in the university.

So Sapieha wanted to put able, bright, attractive

young priests in active contact with these students.

- [Narrator] Sapieha appoints Wojtyla assistant pastor

at St. Florian's church in the center of Krakow,

an urban parish frequented by university students

and intellectuals.

- He was shy to the point of being sometimes even awkward,

but so interested in people and so forgetful about himself.

That was a feature which struck you at first.

His early sermons were very philosophically oriented,

in a way also mystically oriented,

because he was fascinated by St. John of the Cross,

and therefore they were difficult.

And I think little by little,

he realized that he must make himself accessible

to a less educated listener, as well as an educated one.

- [John Paul] I spoke to the students

about the fundamental problems

concerning the existence of God

and the spiritual nature of the human soul.

These were important issues, given the militant ideas

being promoted by the communist regime.

- In Poland we were lucky enough to have the Church

much more free than in any other communist country,

and the church gave people this feeling

of authenticity and of integration.

If there was one place at least where people could think

and express themselves and sing and pray

in a way which made sense.

- [Narrator] Despite the freedom felt inside the church,

once the parishioners leave,

they enter the stifling world of Stalinist Poland.

[priest speaking in foreign language]

All sense of community disappears.

- There was a kind of fear

so that people couldn't be sincere with each other.

Of course, they couldn't express their views openly

in no way, because that would be,

mean going to prison directly.

So many people imagine that they will live their whole life

in this realm of grayness, and there was no hope.

[soft poignant music]

- [Narrator] The communist regime forbids

people to gather spontaneously

outside government-controlled events.

Despite this, Father Wojtyla clandestinely escorts students

into the natural world of the Polish countryside,

making friendships that will last for decades.

[birds tweeting]

The mountains have been part of Karol Wojtyla's life

since he was a boy.

[soft gentle music]

It was his father who passed on to him

his love of the Polish landscape

and his special connection with nature.

- He has a very strong sense of nature as the image of God,

the extremely important part of creation itself.

He experienced that excursions in the nature

as a quite special kind of moral experience.

[soft thoughtful music]

- [Narrator] Accompanying a group of students

into the countryside is dangerous business

in communist Poland.

This new form of resistance marks Karol Wojtyla

as a different kind of priest.

- [Interpreter] A priest who gathered

a group of young people outside of church

could easily have been accused

of plotting against the government,

so there was certainly that risk.

- Some aspect, it was dangerous.

For me no, because I was studying

and then I was working at the university, but for him, yes.

- [George] All of this was pretty radical stuff

in the Polish Catholicism of the 1950s.

He was creating a zone of freedom for people

to live as they truly were.

And as they would say, the young people in this group,

"We were never more truly ourselves than when we were

in conversation with him and with each other."

[soft gentle music]

- [Narrator] His friends introduced Father Wojtyla,

whom they all call Uncle, to the world of kayaking.

It is a perfect vehicle for him.

As they glide across the water,

he gets to know each person on an individual basis.

- [Karol] He didn't want to impose his view.

He was always questioning.

This, his attitude of questioning,

of listening and questioning rather than,

than to answer immediately with, you know,

with his knowledge.

And that is why he himself learned

from the people to whom he spoke.

[soft gentle music]

[John Paul speaking in foreign language]

- [Narrator] Father Wojtyla celebrates Mass

with his friends each morning in a most unusual way.

The overturned kayak becomes an altar, the paddles a cross.

- [Interpreter] And here again was an element of risk.

One can say the risk was such that we had to be careful

not to offend anyone.

At that time, if someone from a nearby village

saw us taking part in a Mass in the forest,

I think he would've been shocked,

and it wouldn't have been good for us.

- This was a man, remember, without a family at this point,

and they became his extended family.

And I think it's fair to say, I think he would say,

that these young men and women formed him

into the kind of priest that he became.

This is one of the most interesting dimensions

of Wojtyla's priesthood, is that this intensely

priestly priest was formed into that in large part,

by an intense series of friendships with lay people.

- [Narrator] These experiences would ultimately end up

on the written page in poetry and plays.

In poems, Wojtyla can express his spiritual insights

in ways that are impossible

in sermons or philosophical essays.

His first published poem, "Song of the Brightness of Water",

appears under a pseudonym in the fiercely independent

Catholic newspaper, "Tygodnik Powszechny".

- [Interpreter] In 1950, it is the period of the heaviest

communist terror in Poland.

There are about 400,000 people in prison.

There are endless executions, especially involving those

who fought for the freedom of Poland.

And suddenly there appears a mystical voice,

addressing things about which no one speaks or thinks,

or if one wanted to express these things

in ideological terms, they would be arrested.

It is very difficult poetry.

If he had not become Pope,

his poetry would not be so famous.

- [Narrator] Wojtyla's poetry is filled with natural images

that speak metaphorically to the mystery of the human soul.

Shimmering light, flowing water, deep reflections,

all these images touch a people's yearning to live free.

[priest speaking in foreign language]

A constant struggle ensues

between the communists and the Church.

In 1953, the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski,

is imprisoned for three years for refusing

to be subservient to the communist party.

Finally, Wyszynski strikes a deal with the government.

The communists will tolerate the Church at least formally,

and in return, the Church will not interfere

with politics, at least directly.

Wyszynski feels that for the Church to survive and prevail,

he must play a careful, steady game.

Wojtyla will join Cardinal Wyszynski as a major force

in the Church's battle against communism.

But for the moment, Father Wojtyla's years

as a risk-taking parish priest come to an end.

In 1954, 34-year-old Father Wojtyla accepts

a teaching position at the Catholic University of Lublin

in the philosophy department.

In Poland, the Nazi past and the communist present

have created a crisis of ideas and ideals.

Students and professors like Father Wojtyla

feel compelled to reexamine the most fundamental questions

about human nature and society.

Why is there evil?

What is the nature of good?

What are the basic rights of every human being?

- [Interpreter] These were the worst years,

the somber years of Stalinism,

but it was the only university

where philosophy was not Marxist.

The only place where philosophy was free,

between Berlin and Seoul.

- [Narrator] Wojtyla will teach here

for the next 24 years, specializing in ethics.

His philosophy classes are standing room only.

- [Narrator] I was a beginning student

and he was professor of ethics.

I couldn't understand a thing that he was teaching.

To me, he was a terrible professor

because I had no idea what he was talking about.

I know that he had among the advanced students,

some who absolutely worshiped him, fans, enthusiasts.

I really tried to see that enthusiasm,

but I could not keep it up, it was too difficult for me.

- [Narrator] These impassioned years at the university

honed Wojtyla's most important ideas about human rights

and religious freedom, and will ultimately shape his papacy.

His teachings, writings, and pastoral experience

do not go unnoticed.

At 38, he becomes the youngest Bishop in Poland.

From this point forward, his rise in the church

will be nothing short of meteoric.

[birds tweeting]

[soft thoughtful music]

in 1962, far from Karol Wojtyla's homeland in Poland,

Pope John XXIII is setting in motion the most

important event in the history of the Catholic Church

since the Reformation in the 16th century.

[soft thoughtful music]

Over the next four years, the Church

will be radically changed as the Second Vatican Council

brings this ancient institution into open dialogue

about its mission in the modern world.

- [Reporter] The Vatican Ecumenical Council-

- [Narrator] Pope John summons 2,500 bishops to Rome.

- [Reporter] The first Ecumenical Council in 93 years.

- [Narrator] The Council will address issues

that Bishop Wojtyla has been struggling with

behind the Iron Curtain.

[train clattering]

It is a turning point for Karol Wotjyla.

- Western culture, he seemed to think,

had gone off the rails sometime

in the past several hundred years.

And if you asked the question,

why did the first half of the 20th century

produce within 50 years, two World Wars,

three totalitarian systems, oceans of blood,

mountains of corpses?

Wojtyla's answer to that was, "It's because our idea

of the human person, our idea of the innate dignity

and value of every human person has gotten lost."

- [Reporter] The Council's immediate aim is to-

- [George] One of Wojtyla's principle accomplishments

at the Second Vatican Council was to help the world Church

in the person of these 2,500 bishops,

come to understand that religious freedom

was the first of human rights.

And he worked very hard on what came to be called

the Declaration on Religious Freedom,

which was adopted by the Council in 1965.

- [Reporter] Of earthly grandeur, and spiritual-

- [Narrator] He makes a name for himself

as a formidable thinker at a Council

that will shape his Papacy.

- The Second Vatican Council was the time

in which the rest of the world Church began to understand

what the Polish Church already knew.

Namely that in Karol Wojtyla

there was a pastor, an intellectual,

a priest of extremely high voltage pastorally,

who had a lot to say about how to be

the Church in the modern world.

- [Narrator] Back in Poland, the struggle persists

between communist atheism

and the Christian belief of the people.

[bells tolling] [soft solemn music]

One great symbol of this struggle is Nowa Huta,

a steelworks town built on the outskirts of Krakow

after World War II.

Nowa Huta is the first town in the thousand-year

history of Poland constructed without a church.

- [Interpreter] The communists declared that atheism

would be the foundation of that town.

They said that this would be a great town,

but it would be a town without God.

- [Narrator] When the communists bulldoze across,

it is back again the next day.

For the next 20 years, Bishop Wojtyla

supports the workers of this town who defy the communists

and attend Mass every Sunday in an open field.

[soft hopeful music]

[Jozef speaking in foreign language]

- [Interpreter] Thousands of people came,

regardless of the weather.

Heat, frost, rain or snow, they came to that place

where the church was supposed to stand.

There was no church there,

it existed only in their imagination.

- [Narrator] Nova Huta becomes the proving ground

for Wojtyla's style of tenacity and prudence

in dealing with the communist regime.

His quest for a church in this city without God

will be unrelenting.

[soft thoughtful music]

To get away from the public eye,

he seeks the solitude of the mountains.

His more contemplative side is always present.

[soft thoughtful music]

He finds solace and inspiration in the Polish landscape

that is so much a part of him.

Closer to nature, closer to God.

On camping and skiing trips with university students,

he developed many of the insights for his first book,

"Love and Responsibility", published in 1960,

which explored the ethics of sex, love and marriage.

Each of these personal encounters

shapes this intellectual man

and his understanding of the human experience.

- [Interpreter] He wrote a book that was a sensation

in Poland because no one had ever talked about sex

that way in Poland, and especially in the Polish Church.

Neither the language nor the emphasis

was something natural at that time.

- Wojtyla was simply quite a good theologian

and quite a good philosopher.

So as a Christian, as a man of Bible,

he was convinced that the creation is good,

and so the sex is good also.

And he knew also very well that the very place

of this good use of sex is a family,

you know, is a marriage.

- [Narrator] Wojtyla's frankness on the beauty

of sex in marriage marks him

as a distinctive Catholic thinker.

The current Pope, Paul VI, reads his book and asks Wojtyla

to help draft an encyclical on family planning.

The encyclical's opposition to artificial contraception

creates a tremendous controversy in the Church

and around the globe.

Wojtyla becomes one of Paul's most ardent defenders,

and a deep mutual respect develops.

In 1963, Pope Paul appoints him

the new Archbishop of Krakow.

Cardinal Wyszynski, the powerful Primate of Poland,

fears that Wojtyla is too much the poet

to be an effective public leader.

The communists however, look fondly

on the new choice of Archbishop.

They think Wojtyla is an intellectual,

uninterested in affairs of state.

- They thought, "Here we have an old Cardinal in Warsaw,

and a young Archbishop in Krakow.

Let us try to oppose one against the other and so on."

But here they were bitterly disillusioned, I must say,

because he was absolutely loyal to Wyszynski.

Even when he didn't agree with him completely,

he was still very loyal.

- [Narrator] At the only two outdoor religious processions

permitted each year by the government,

Archbishop Wojtyla evolves, finding his public voice.

- [Interpreter] As Bishop he could not be indifferent.

If he felt it was right, he gave sermons

at large religious gatherings,

such as the Corpus Christi processions,

that touched on matters the government

did not want discussed in public, acts of intolerance

and discrimination against religious people.

[John Paul speaking in foreign language]

- He talked very openly in his sermons.

He tried to explain to people our motivation,

"These young people have the courage to feel responsible

for this country and it's our duty to be with them.

And what do you do?"

I remember such a sermon, "What do you do to help them?"

It wasn't a political support.

It were values, you know?

Like freedom is a value and these people want to live free,

but it wasn't directly political.

[choir singing in foreign language]

[soft somber music]

- [Narrator] By the late '60s,

unrest deepens behind the Iron Curtain.

In 1968, Moscow proclaims the Brezhnev Doctrine,

declaring it legal to use brutal force

to maintain communist control of East Central Europe.

Two years later, three Polish cities erupt

when the state raises food prices.

The Polish government uses the Polish army

against the Polish people, 44 die.

[tense somber music]

- There were many kinds of harassment.

They tried to discourage us as much as possible,

and as successfully as possible.

So they would, for example, interrogate us for hours.

The whole day one was seated somewhere,

and interrogated for hours.

Then you could be put to an arrest

for 48 hours without any reason,

and that would happen every now and then.

The nasty thing about those arrests was

that they didn't inform anybody where you were.

And we lived with our families and we were young,

and the families were often very worried.

[tense somber music]

- [Narrator] Wojtyla, now a Cardinal, is convinced

that the Church must protect those fighting for freedom.

His residence becomes a meeting place for dissidents,

the very same place where he was hidden

as a young seminarian during the war.

- [Interpreter] Wojtyla created

a kind of protective umbrella for members of the opposition.

In fact, all important opposition people

at one time or another were at his residence.

He organized symposia where one could

think through various problems.

He encouraged me, a priest, to take certain actions

which were forbidden by the government,

saying that we should expand the sphere of freedom,

even at the risk of a fine,

or having to stand before a tribunal.

Those activities might not have been spectacular,

but they were very deep-reaching,

and because of that, long-lasting and effective.

- There were several churches in Krakow

that would open their doors for such lectures,

and these churches or these parish priests

were encouraged by our Bishop Wotjyla to do this,

so we knew that we had this support there.

- [Narrator] In Nowa Huta, the town without a church,

Wojtyla's perseverance pays off

after two decades of struggle.

A campaign of steady, careful pressure on the regime

results in the building of the Arc Church,

[soft gentle music]

constructed entirely with volunteer labor.

Two million stones are brought from the river beds

of Poland to decorate the facade.

The workers from the Lenin Steelworks

forge a giant figure of Christ.

In 1976, 70,000 people stand in the rain

to be a part of this historic occasion,

the dedication of the Arc Church.

An emotional Cardinal Wojtyla speaks to the crowd.

[John Paul speaking in foreign language]

He tells them, "This city belongs to you."

[John Paul speaking in foreign language]

"No one can arbitrarily dictate your beliefs."

[John Paul speaking in foreign language]

"This city is the city of the children of God."

[soft thoughtful music]

Two years later, startling events catapult

the Archbishop of Krakow,

Karol Wojtyla, to the world's stage.

[soft thoughtful music]

In August, 1978, the Catholic Church has a new Pope.

[crowd applauding]

John Paul I radiates hope and confidence,

precisely what the Church is looking for.

33 days after his election, a household Sister

finds the Pope dead, stricken by a massive heart attack.

Catholics around the world are stunned.

[soft serious music]

John Paul's sudden death is a psychological earthquake

for the Cardinals charged with electing a new Pope.

They convene in the Sistine Chapel for the second time

in less than two months.

Many Cardinals believe God is asking them

to act boldly, even radically.

[soft thoughtful music]

Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, the Archbishop of Krakow,

enters the Vatican to vote for a new Pope.

The first day ends deadlock.

The next day, October 16th, after eight ballots,

the Cardinals elect Karol Wojtyla,

the first non-Italian Pope in 455 years,

and the first Slavic Pope ever.

Wojtyla is overwhelmed.

He bends over, his head in his hands,

as alone as a man can be.

- The terror of the papacy, the enormous burden

of the papacy was that you were called to a greater love.

You were called to a more intense outpouring of yourself,

a more intense self-sacrifice.

He has to be more the lover of the Church

and less and less and less the lover of himself.

After he formally accepts the office,

he walks through the Sistine Chapel

and proceeded to break precedent right away

by receiving the Cardinals standing up.

When of the master of ceremonies tried to point him

into a chair so that this procession could come up

and they could genuflect, and Wojtyla says,

"I receive my brothers standing,"

the first signal that things were going to be very different

in the pontificate of John Paul II.

[crowd cheering]

[announcer speaking in foreign language]

The election of Cardinal Wojtyla as Pope

was a tremendous surprise to many people around the world.

This was not so much of a surprise

to those churchmen who knew Wojtyla well,

and perhaps it was not so much of a surprise to him.

[John Paul speaking in foreign language]

[crowd cheering]

The normal pattern was simply to give

his first Papal blessing in Latin.

Wojtyla began talking to the crowd

from the balcony St. Peter's in Italian.

[John Paul speaking in foreign language]

[crowd cheering]

[John Paul speaking in a foreign language]

[crowd cheering]

[bells clanging]

- [Narrator] The news quickly reaches Poland.

A spontaneous celebration erupts throughout Krakow.

The gigantic nine-ton bell at Wawel Cathedral rings out.

[bell clanging]

Soon, every bell in Krakow is ringing.

[bells clanging]

- For the people behind the Iron Curtain

and in Slavic countries, that was an explosion of joy,

but not only of joy, an explosion of hope,

because in that situation, which was of persecution,

it was like a light in the night.

It was nothing rational.

It was more a kind of intuition of expectation of new times.

- In fact, we were in tears, also because we are moved,

but also because we realize now he's gone.

And a friend of mine said after the Mass said,

"You know, that would be too wonderful to keep him

just for us the whole life.

We have to share him with the world."

- [Narrator] In Rome at his installation,

John Paul II exudes confidence.

He insists that Stefan Wyszynski, the Primate of Poland,

be the second Cardinal he greets.

Out of deep respect for this towering figure

in the Polish church, the Pope bends down

and kisses the Cardinal's ring.

Karol Wojtyla, who in Poland could rarely speak

to large gatherings, now has a global audience.

[John Paul speaking in foreign language]

He calls out to the world with words

that will be emblematic of the years to come,

"Be not afraid."

[John Paul speaking in foreign language]

- I think Pope John Paul II came to the papacy

with a profound experience of the 20th century

as a century of fear, as a century of terror,

as a century of unprecedented human suffering.

And so in his first public address to the world,

he wanted to challenge the world to a new fearlessness.

[soft thoughtful music]

- Vatican City, the Pope's residence and a sovereign state,

is a place of protocol, tradition, even intrigue.

The Pope is the successor of St. Peter,

and to hold Peter's office is to inherit

2000 years of history.

Many Renaissance Popes came from the aristocratic class,

sons of the most powerful families of Italy.

Inside the Vatican, their influence is evident

in the works of great artists,

Michelangelo, Botticelli, Raphael.

[soft thoughtful music]

Karol Wojtyla brings a new energy and freshness

to this venerable institution.

He is determined not to be a prisoner of the Vatican.

[John Paul and audience speaking in foreign language]

John Paul II takes on the papacy with great zeal,

abandoning himself once again to God's will.

[John Paul and audience speaking in foreign language]

Drawing on his experience as an actor,

he instinctively knows how to act like a Pope.

After nine months of tough negotiations,

the communist regime in Poland

finally allows him to return home.

No hero in Polish history ever entered Warsaw

as John Paul did on this June day in 1979.

- [Interpreter] His first announced visit

was something magnificent for Poland.

Our heads were bowed under the weight of humiliation.

He came and raised them up.

We were able to lift our heads because of him.

[crowd cheering]

- It was for the first time in our lives

is that we have the feelings we are here together

because we have to, we are here because we want to,

look how many of us, and it's okay, and it's all right.

And we can listen to someone who is very important

and he's with us.

And I think this was the first experience of freedom

for very many people.

And once you enjoy freedom, [laughing]

it changes all your behavior.

- The Pope comes and the whole nation turns out,

and the regime can't control it.

And all of a sudden the regime discovers it has no choice

but to permit the Pope to celebrate Mass

right in the middle of its capital,

with a million or two of the people turning out,

and everywhere he's adulated, and that had an impact.

[soft poignant music]

- [Narrator] An estimated three million people

gather to see John Paul as he enters Krakow.

During his farewell Mass, he asks them

to cherish their spiritual heritage.

[John Paul speaking in foreign language]

- [Narrator] These powerful words touch deep chords

in the Polish soul.

For many, it is a turning point

with profound historical consequences.

Poland will never be the same.

[John Paul speaking in foreign language]

- What the Pope did in those days

was to give the Polish people back

their authentic history and their authentic culture.

And by giving his people back their identity,

he gave them tools of resistance,

which communism had no antidote to.

He gave them back their identity.

- [Narrator] 13 Million Poles, more than one-third

the national population, see the Pope in person.

Virtually everyone else watches him on television

or hears him on radio.

John Paul finds it hard to say goodbye.

- [Interpreter] It was really a very painful moment

for the Pope when he had to leave us in Poland.

And by chance I met him when he was getting into the car

to go to the airport.

I asked if he was leaving.

He didn't even look at me or answer me,

because he was suffering so much.

I believe that was perhaps his greatest suffering,

that he had to abandon everything that he loved so much.

- [Narrator] As he climbs up the ramp,

he brushes away a tear.

John Paul leaves his country, but not without leaving

an indelible mark on his countrymen.

[soft thoughtful music]

13 months after he leaves Poland,

thousands of workers at the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk,

go on strike in August, 1980.

This marks the birth of the Solidarity movement.

Their leader, an unemployed electrician named Lech Walesa.

- [George] John Paul II ignited the Solidarity movement,

an utterly unprecedented mass movement of resistance,

labor resistance first, political resistance second,

in the communist world.

- Many, many people in Poland opposed communism,

didn't like the Soviet-imposed reality,

but many of them also thought that perhaps

they were a little isolated in that view.

- [Narrator] In direct defiance of their communist rulers,

the workers organize a free, self-governing union.

They attend daily open-air Masses,

and decorate the shipyard gates with religious symbols.

John Paul clearly indicates his support

for the Polish workers and their call for freedom.

- [Zbigniew] He had a very deep feeling for Solidarity,

and how much can be achieved by a common action

with a common feeling, with a common aid,

with a common effort with a kind of brotherhood.

And that was something, almost a discovery

that was a powerful boost for people.

[crowd cheering]

- [Narrator] A nonviolent revolution has begun.

From the Soviet point of view, John Paul had done

enormous damage during his epic pilgrimage to Poland.

The Solidarity movement is a profound threat to communism.

Now the Soviets plan to reassert their dominance in Poland

as they had done in Hungary in 1956,

and in Czechoslovakia in 1968.

In December, 1980, Warsaw Pact troops

are poised on Poland's borders, ready to strike.

At the last minute, the Soviet tanks pulled back.

- For one thing, the Soviet leaders were concerned

that there would be resistance in Poland.

Secondly, they had a lot of reason to be concerned

that the United States would not be indifferent.

And of course there was the question of the moral authority

of the Pope and the likely reaction of the world at large.

They knew damn well if they entered Poland,

there would be blood on the streets,

and not just Polish blood.

I phoned the Pope on the President's instructions

to alert him.

It was rather amusing in a way,

because we didn't have his phone number.

And to my knowledge, no one prior to that

had been phoning the Pope in this way.

But finally, when I got him on the line,

I think around 11:30 at night Vatican time,

and I briefed him.

And then at the end, I said to him,

"I may have to call you again, as the situation unfolds.

Could you give me your private personal number?"

And he says, "Well, wait a minute."

And then I can hear him speaking in Polish,

"Father Givish, do I have a private number?" [laughing]

- [Narrator] Five months after that phone call

on May 13th, 1981, John Paul II arrives

in St. Peter's Square for a general audience.

Tension between the Soviet Union

and the Church still runs high.

[crowd cheering]

- The Pope came, we saw him going

on the [speaking in foreign language]

and suddenly we listen to the thousand of pigeons going out.

And after that, we hear the pistol shot.

[gunshot blasting] [soft solemn music]

- [Narrator] The Pope is shot at point blank range.

Amidst the chaos of the moment, the assassin,

Mehmet Ali Agca, is quickly apprehended

by the Italian police.

[soft solemn music]

But the Pope is gravely wounded.

He receives the Last Rites of the Church.

[soft solemn music]

- I still suspect that in some fashion,

the KGB was behind the assassination of the Pope.

It was the KGB that had the biggest stake.

And we do know that the Soviet leaders

thought the Pope to be a menace.

[soft solemn music]

- [Narrator] The shooting stuns the world.

In Krakow, nearly one million people dressed in white

come to the main square to pray for the Pope.

- It's interesting that the Pope himself,

in talking about that experience,

said that he had the presentiment that he would be saved.

And certainly he felt that Mary had been at his side.

As the Pope once put it,

"One finger fired and another directed the bullet."

[footsteps clacking]

- [Narrator] The Pope is convinced

that nothing in life is accidental,

remarking one year after he was shot,

"In the designs of Providence,

there are no mere coincidences."

[soft solemn music]

By the mid 1980s, East Central Europe is changing.

In Poland, martial law is lifted after two difficult years.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the new leader

of the Soviet communist party, calls for economic reforms.

In this atmosphere in 1987, the Pope returns

to Poland for the third time.

[crowd cheering]

In Gdansk, the birthplace of Solidarity,

he tells the crowds, "Human life should be governed

by truth, freedom, justice, and love.

There is no freedom without solidarity."

[crowd cheering] [soft poignant music]

In 1989, the communist regime collapses in Poland.

From Czechoslovakia to Lithuania,

captive nations claim their freedom.

A complex of forces causes the Iron Curtain to crumble.

The Berlin Wall, the great icon of Soviet oppression, falls.

- By igniting a revolution of conscience,

in Poland and indeed throughout the region in June, 1979,

he helped make possible a nonviolent

political transition in 1989.

And this is not the way massive social change

has usually happened in the 20th century.

I mean, it's usually been blood all over the place,

enormous violence, great destruction.

That did not happen in this case.

Something was different here.

And I think the answer to that difference

is that this was a moral revolution

prior to being a political revolution.

- What was done several times

was to compare the Pope with Gandhi.

And I think it's not unjustified,

in the sense of nonviolent means achieving something

which people wouldn't have expected

to be able to achieve, finally.

[lively upbeat music]

- I never dreamt that I would live or die in a free Poland.

That was far too optimistic.

It really overcame all my expectations,

that I have children who live in a free country.

Never did I dream that Poland would

in my life get rid of communism.

Poland today looks very different from then.

You know, then that colors were gray

and the people were gloomy, and walked with their heads down

not to be noticed was the most important.

Don't be different than everybody else.

And today, you know, the streets are colorful

and people carry their heads in a different way.

[lively upbeat music]

- [Narrator] 70 Years of fierce anti-Catholic

Soviet propaganda comes to a halt.

Two years later, the Soviet Union no longer exists.

[crowd applauding]

After the downfall of communism,

John Paul returns to Poland, but with an unexpected message.

Rather than congratulate the Poles

on their new-found freedom, he warns them

of the dangers of a new materialism.

The Pope believes the fundamental crisis

of the modern world remains unresolved.

This vigorous opponent of communism

is convinced that capitalism undisciplined by morality

will ultimately self-destruct.

As events unfold behind the Iron Curtain,

the Pope's strong critique of Marxism gets a different,

even conflicted reception in Latin America.

Here, the politics of the 1980s are dividing the Church.

Military dictatorships, social upheaval

and civil war are creating turmoil.

Some priests believe social change

requires a violent revolution.

They adopt a Liberation theology that combines

Marxist ideas with Catholic social doctrine.

The Pope insists that this is an impossible compromise.

- The Pope throughout his entire life has been a man

who believes it is a moral duty to resist tyranny.

He has also come to the view that in most circumstances

that is most appropriately done

through nonviolent means of resistance.

- John Paul's critique of Liberation theology

creates a decade and a half of controversy.

In March, 1983 in Nicaragua,

the Pope publicly scolds a priest

who is an official of the Marxist Sandinista regime.

John Paul insists that his clergy must not be partisans.

- A priest is to be a sign of unity within the Church,

and he can't be that if he's a partisan political actor,

much less a violent partisan political actor.

In fact, the Pope went to Latin America

to encourage a much more vigorous presence of the Church

in the public life of those countries.

The question was, what were the terms

in which that was gonna be done?

What was the message the Church was going to preach?

The Church cannot preach a message

of class warfare, of division, of violence.

- [Narrator] This man, a rigorous and worldly intellectual,

has confused many around the globe.

[crowd chanting]

Catholics and non-Catholics alike are disturbed,

angered, even embittered by John Paul's unshakeable stance

on birth control, homosexuality, abortion, celibacy,

and women's ordination to the priesthood.

The Pope doesn't take these issues lightly.

He writes extensively, trying to place

these traditional Catholic teachings

in a modern theological context, but debate and controversy

continue inside and outside the Church.

- [Interpreter] His teaching should be understood

within the context of his faith.

I think this is a person who cannot be understood

without Christ, without God.

If one looks at the Pope from the religious point of view,

his teachings cannot be other than what they are.

- People often try to understand him from the outside in.

They see an enormous presence on the world stage.

They see someone who's had a great impact

on the politics of our time,

but that's to try to get him from the outside in.

To get him from the inside out, you have to reckon

with the fact that this is a man who is first and foremost

a Christian disciple, who secondly is a priest

of the Catholic Church, and who thirdly

is the Bishop of Rome,

the holder of the world's oldest institutional office,

which happens to be a religious office.

It's not a political office, it's not a diplomatic office.

It has those dimensions to it, but at it's heart,

it's a pastoral office.

[crowd applauding]

- [Narrator] At the age of 74,

John Paul faces another personal challenge

when he is diagnosed with a form of Parkinson's disease,

a degenerative illness of the nervous system.

Despite this, he relentlessly pursues

the great themes of his papacy, including his outreach

to other religions and to the youth of the world.

[upbeat majestic music]

On this day, the king of Morocco

is making a state visit to the Pope.

[upbeat majestic music]

This young King's father, Hassan II, had invited John Paul

in 1985 to address Muslim youth in Casablanca.

This was the first time the leader of an Islamic country

had invited a Pope to address a Muslim audience.

[crowd chanting in foreign language]

- [George] He didn't back away

from the religious differences

between Christians and Muslims, but said to them,

"Let's concentrate on those convictions we have in common

and see if we can build out of that

a better relationship for the future."

- He is in many respects, the first truly

ecumenical religious figure in the world,

in the sense that he has managed to personalize

the spiritual dimension of human existence

in a way that no other religious leader has done.

- [Narrator] As the first Pope to visit a synagogue in Rome,

he tells the congregation that there is

no theological justification for antisemitism.

[John Paul speaking in foreign language]

- John Paul II is truly charismatic.

Everybody feels it.

For instance in India, they were not Catholics.

They were not Christian.

They have seen in him in India the man of God,

or the holy man, or the saintly man.

It is a kind of category we don't know

in our Western cultures.

[crowd singing in foreign language]

- Many countries in Africa have still

to deal with the problem of national unity,

harmony between people of varying backgrounds,

people who were put together by colonial masters.

The Pope's visits to various countries in Africa

have been like moments of grace,

when even people of varying political parties

were together as they never were before.

They felt one, they felt challenged

to face a common necessity to build up their country.

[choir singing in foreign language]

[crowd cheering]

- [Narrator] By the late 1990s,

the Pope's physical difficulties are unmistakable,

but despite age and illness,

his charismatic appeal to young people is astonishing.

Surrounded by enthusiastic crowds,

he is still the young priest who creates a zone of freedom

for the younger generation, but now on a grand scale.

On one occasion in the Philippines,

he gathers the largest crowd in human history,

nearly seven million people.

[crowd chattering]

- [Interpreter] Once I asked the Holy Father

how he could explain the youths' attraction to him.

He's getting old, and the young generation

is rebelling against the older generation

within families, everywhere,

and he attracts them magnetically.

And he looked at me, it was during a meal and said,

"Marek, it's the Holy Spirit."

That's his explanation.

Coming from his lips, it can't be banal.

- There is a dimension of his interior life,

a dimension of his spiritual life,

which takes place in a world without words.

It's beyond words, it's before words,

it's a dialogue that's indescribable.

And in that sense, the deepest dimension

of Pope John Paul II's spiritual life

is literally indescribable.

- [Interpreter] This encounter with God,

one can see it in his face, his hands,

the position of his body.

Even in his back, one sees a man bent over in prayer.

- [Interpreter] When the Pope is praying,

he looks like a rock, he cannot be moved.

When he is praying, the world around him ceases to exist.

Then suddenly he gets up from his knees after praying

and with a radiant, smiling face he turns around and asks,

"Now, where are you from?"

Those are two different worlds,

his conversations with God

and his conversations with people.

I think he lives in both worlds with all his might,

and he gives his all to both worlds.

- [Narrator] During the Jubilee year of 2000,

John Paul continues to pursue the key ideas of his papacy,

human rights, religious tolerance,

and respect for all cultures.

In an unprecedented sermon in St. Peter's Basilica,

John Paul publicly asks forgiveness for all the sins

Catholics have committed against their fellow human beings.

[John Paul speaking in foreign language]

- [Narrator] Nine days later, John Paul travels

to the Holy Land, fulfilling a dream he has had

since the first days of his pontificate.

On this 91st international trip, he reaches out

to other Christian communities and to Islam.

But even more significantly, this pilgrimage marks

his most dramatic gesture towards the Jewish people.

At the Western Wall of the temple in Jerusalem,

he once again asks God's forgiveness

for the suffering Christians have caused Jews.

- When the Holy Father was in the Western Wall,

the most sacred place for Jews in Jerusalem,

and he was there.

I can tell you that almost all the country

was watching that on television.

[soft poignant music]

- I almost cried.

It was for me it really, I would not believe,

to place inside of that stone

the prayer that he had recited in St. Peter to ask pardon.

That was really a dramatic gesture.

[soft poignant music]

- I have come to Yad Vashem to pay homage

to the millions of Jewish people who,

stripped of everything, especially of their human dignity,

were murdered in the Holocaust.

In this place of memories, the mind, heart and soul

feel an extreme need for silence,

silence in which remember, silence in which to try

to make some sense of the memories which come flooding back.

Silence, because there are no words strong enough

to deplore the terrible tragedy of the Shoah.

- He is above all else, a person who has somehow or other

in a very charismatic fashion managed to create a link

between humanity and divinity

in the age of modern communications,

and that no other religious figure has been able to achieve.

The age that we are about to enter,

which risks of becoming the first truly post-human age,

is an age which could threaten

the transcendental mystery of the human being,

and then the response to that has to be somehow

found in the area of religion and spirituality.

He embodies that, he conveys that,

he personalizes and dramatizes that.

And I think that is the key

to his very special place in the world.

[crowd chattering]

- He is today an old man, slightly younger than myself only.

[chuckling] And still has, I think,

the knack of making new spiritual discoveries,

of paving new ways, and of rethinking old truth.

And he is a man who will continually evolve.

[choir singing in foreign language]

- On some occasions you get the idea

by seeing the Holy Father that here,

you see a soul draw in a body,

and couldn't be otherwise.

I think this is the reality.

I can tell you that I don't remember an occasion

in which, because of his health,

he couldn't do what he wanted to do.

- He is for a man, as I've known him in his eighth decade,

remarkable in that he rarely if ever

lives his life in the rear view mirror.

John Paul II is always living in the future.

- [Narrator] This son of Poland, poet, philosopher,

mystic, Pope, has marked our world forever.

[soft thoughtful music]

At the dawn of a new millennium,

he looks to humanity's future as a witness to hope.

[John Paul speaking in foreign language]

[crowd cheering] [soft thoughtful music]