John Paul Stevens
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
In office December 19, 1975 – June 29, 2010
Nominated by	Gerald Ford
Preceded by	William Douglas
Succeeded by	Elena Kagan
Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
In office November 2, 1970 – December 19, 1975
Nominated by	Richard Nixon
Preceded by	Elmer Schnackenberg
Succeeded by	Harlington Wood
Personal details
Born	(1920-04-20) April 20, 1920 (age 92) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Spouse(s)	Elizabeth Jane Sheeren (1942–1979) Maryan Mulholland Simon (1979–present)
Children	4
Alma mater	University of Chicago Northwestern University School of Law
Religion	Protestantism
Signature
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	United States Navy
Years of service	1942–1945
Rank	Lieutenant Commander
Battles/wars	World War II
Awards	Bronze Star World War II Victory Medal, Presidential Medal of Freedom

John Paul Stevens (born April 20, 1920) served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from December 19, 1975 until his retirement on June 29, 2010. At the time of his retirement, he was the oldest member of the Court and the third-longest serving justice in the Court's history. He was nominated by President Gerald Ford to replace the Court's longest-serving justice, William O. Douglas. Stevens is widely considered to have been on the liberal side of the Court.^[1][2] Stevens served with three Chief Justices (Warren E. Burger, William Rehnquist, and John G. Roberts).

Life and career[link]

Early life, 1920–1947[link]

Stevens was born on April 20, 1920, in Hyde Park,^[3] Chicago, Illinois, to a wealthy family.^[1] His paternal grandfather had formed an insurance company and held real estate in Chicago, while his great-uncle owned the Chas A. Stevens department store. His father, Ernest James Stevens, was a lawyer who later became a hotelier, owning two hotels, the La Salle and the Stevens Hotel. He lost ownership of the hotels during the Great Depression and was convicted of embezzlement (the conviction was later overturned).^[1] (The Stevens Hotel was subsequently bought by Hilton Hotels and is today the Chicago Hilton and Towers.) His mother, Elizabeth Maude (Street) Stevens, was a high school English teacher. Two of his three older brothers also became lawyers.

As a boy, Stevens attended the 1932 World Series baseball game in Chicago's Wrigley Field, where he saw Babe Ruth call his shot. He later recalled: "Ruth did point to the center-field scoreboard. And he did hit the ball out of the park after he pointed with his bat. So it really happened."^[4] He also had the opportunity to meet several notable people of the era, including the famed aviators Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh, the latter of whom gave him a caged dove as a gift.^[5]

The family lived in Hyde Park, and John Paul Stevens attended the University of Chicago Laboratory School. He subsequently obtained a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Chicago in 1941; while in college, Stevens also became a member of the Omega chapter of Psi Upsilon.

He began work on his master's degree in English at the university in 1941, but soon decided to join the United States Navy, He enlisted on December 6, 1941, one day before the attack on Pearl Harbor, and served as an intelligence officer in the Pacific Theater from 1942 to 1945. Stevens was awarded a Bronze Star for his service in the codebreaking team whose work led to the downing of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's plane in 1943.^[1]

Stevens married Elizabeth Jane Shereen in June 1942. Divorcing her in 1979, he married Maryan Mulholland Simon that December. He has four children: John Joseph (who died of cancer in 1996), Kathryn, Elizabeth and Susan.

With the end of World War II, Stevens returned to Illinois intending to return to his studies in English, but was persuaded by his brother Richard, who was a lawyer, to attend law school. Stevens enrolled in the Northwestern University School of Law in 1945 (the G.I. Bill mostly paying his way). He was a brilliant student, earning the highest GPA in the history of the law school.^[1] He received his J.D. in 1947, graduating magna cum laude.^[6]

Legal career, 1947–1970[link]

Given his stellar academic performance in law school, several prominent Northwestern faculty members recommended Stevens for a Supreme Court clerkship: he served as a clerk to Justice Wiley Rutledge during the 1947–48 term^[1] (This service, Stevens has said, deeply inspired him, as evident from his Rutledgean focus on the careful interpretation of the facts in a case present in his opinions).

Following his clerkship, Stevens returned to Chicago and joined the law firm of Poppenhusen, Johnston, Thompson & Raymond (which, in the 1960s, would become Jenner & Block). Stevens was admitted to the bar in 1949. He determined that he would not stay long at the Poppenhusen firm after he was docked a day's pay for taking the day off to travel to Springfield to swear his oath of admission. During his time at the Poppenhusen firm, Stevens began his practice in antitrust law.

In 1951, he returned to Washington, D.C. to serve as Associate Counsel to the Subcommittee on the Study of Monopoly Power of the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. During this time, the subcommittee worked on several highly publicized investigation concerns in many industries, most notably Major League Baseball.

In 1952, Stevens returned to Chicago and, together with two other young lawyers he had worked with at the Poppenhusen firm, formed his own law firm, Rothschild, Stevens, Barry & Myers. They soon developed a successful practice, with Stevens continuing to focus on antitrust cases. His growing expertise in antitrust law led to an invitation to teach the "Competition and Monopoly" course at the University of Chicago Law School, and from 1953 to 1955, he was a member of the Attorney General's National Committee to Study Antitrust Law. At the same time, Stevens was making a name for himself as a first-rate antitrust litigator and was involved in a number of trials. He was widely regarded by colleagues as an extraordinarily capable and impressive lawyer with a fantastic memory and analytical ability, and authored a number of influential works on antitrust law.^[7]

In 1969, the Greenberg Commission, appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court to investigate Sherman Skolnick's corruption allegations leveled at former Chief Justice Ray Klingbiel and current Chief Justice Roy J. Solfisburg, Jr., named Stevens as their counsel, meaning that he essentially served as the commission's special prosecutor.^[1] The Commission was widely thought to be a whitewash, but Stevens proved them wrong by vigorously prosecuting the justices, forcing them from office in the end.^[8] As a result of the prominence he gained during the Greenberg Commission, Stevens became Second Vice President of the Chicago Bar Association in 1970.

Judicial career, 1970–2010[link]

Stevens's role in the Greenberg Commission catapulted him to prominence and was largely responsible for President Richard Nixon's decision to appoint Stevens as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on November 20, 1970.

President Gerald Ford then nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court in 1975 to replace Justice William O. Douglas, who had recently retired, and he took his seat December 19, 1975, after being confirmed 98–0 by the Senate.

When Harry Blackmun retired in 1994, Stevens became the senior Associate Justice and thus assumed the administrative duties of the Court whenever the post of Chief Justice of the United States was vacant or the Chief Justice was unable to perform his duties. Stevens performed the duties of Chief Justice in September 2005, between the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist and the swearing-in of new Chief Justice John Roberts, and presided over oral arguments on a number of occasions when the Chief Justice was ill or recused. Also in September 2005 Stevens was honored with a Symposium by Fordham Law School for his 30 years on the Supreme Court, and President Ford wrote a letter stating his continued pride in appointing him.^[9][10]

In a 2005 speech, Stevens stressed the importance of "learning on the job"; for example, during his tenure on the Court, Stevens changed his views on affirmative action (initially opposed), as well as on other issues.^[11] President Ford praised Stevens in 2005: "He is serving his nation well, with dignity, intellect and without partisan political concerns."^[12]

As his seniority grew in the closing decade of the Rehnquist court, Stevens was often the senior justice on one side of a split decision and thereby entitled to assign the writing of the opinion. He almost always wrote a dissenting opinion when in dissent and wrote concurring opinions more often than most other justices historically.^{[citation needed]} Additionally, he participated actively in questioning during oral arguments.^[2] Stevens was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008.^[13]

Stevens, right, swears in Chief Justice John Roberts.

On January 20, 2009, Stevens administered the oath of office to Vice President Joe Biden per Biden's request.^[14] It is customary for the Vice President to be inaugurated by the person of their choice; Vice President Al Gore chose to be sworn in by Justice Byron White in 1993 and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1997 while Vice President Dick Cheney was sworn in by Chief Justice William Rehnquist in 2001 and U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert in 2005.

On April 9, 2010, Stevens announced his intention to retire from the Court;^[15] he subsequently retired on June 29 of that year.^[16]

Tenure and age[link]

Stevens retired as the third-longest-serving justice in the history of the Court with 34 years, six months service. The longest-serving is his immediate predecessor, Justice William O. Douglas, who served 36 and a half years. Stevens is also the second-oldest justice, aged 90 years and two months at retirement, in the Court's history behind Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who retired at the age of 90 years and 10 months.

Personal views[link]

This section requires expansion.

Asked in an interview in September 2007 if he still considers himself a Republican, Stevens declined to comment.^[17]

Judicial philosophy[link]

On the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, John Paul Stevens had a moderately conservative record. Early in his tenure on the Supreme Court, Stevens had a relatively moderate voting record. He voted to reinstate capital punishment in the United States and opposed race-based admissions programs such as the program at issue in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978). But on the more conservative Rehnquist Court, Stevens joined the more liberal Justices on issues such as abortion rights, gay rights and federalism. His Segal–Cover score, a measure of the perceived liberalism/conservatism of Court members when they joined the Court, places him squarely in the ideological center of the Court. However, a 2003 statistical analysis of Supreme Court voting patterns found Stevens the most liberal member of the Court.^[18][19]

Stevens's jurisprudence has usually been characterized as idiosyncratic. Stevens, unlike most justices, usually writes the first drafts of his opinions himself and reviews petitions for certiorari within his chambers instead of having his law clerks participate as part of the cert pool. He is not an originalist (such as fellow Justice Antonin Scalia) nor a pragmatist (such as Judge Richard Posner), nor does he pronounce himself a cautious liberal (such as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg). He has been considered part of the liberal bloc of the Court since the mid-1980s and he has been dubbed the "Chief Justice of the Liberal Supreme Court",^[20][21] though he publicly called himself a judicial conservative in 2007.^[22][23]

In 1985's Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, 473 U.S. 432 (1985), Stevens argued against the Supreme Court's famous "strict scrutiny" doctrine for laws involving "suspect classifications," putting forth the view that all classifications should be evaluated on the basis of the "rational basis" test as to whether they could have been enacted by an "impartial legislature". In Burnham v. Superior Court of California, 495 U.S. 604 (1990), Stevens demonstrated his independence with a characteristically pithy concurrence.

Stevens was once an impassioned critic of affirmative action; in addition to the 1978 decision in Bakke, he dissented in the case of Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U.S. 448 (1980), which upheld a minority set-aside program. He shifted his position over the years and voted to uphold the affirmative action program at the University of Michigan Law School challenged in 2003's Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003).

Stevens wrote the majority opinion in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld in 2006, in which he held that certain military commissions had been improperly constituted.

Justice John Paul Stevens's official portrait from 1976.

Freedom of speech[link]

Stevens's views on obscenity under the First Amendment have changed over the years. Initially quite critical of constitutional protection for obscenity, rejecting a challenge to Detroit zoning ordinances that barred adult theaters in designated areas in 1976's Young v. American Mini Theatres, 427 U.S. 50 (1976), ("[E]ven though we recognize that the First Amendment will not tolerate the total suppression of erotic materials that have some arguably artistic value, it is manifest that society's interest in protecting this type of expression is of a wholly different, and lesser, magnitude than the interest in untrammeled political debate"), Stevens now adheres firmly to a libertarian free speech approach on obscenity issues, voting to strike down a federal law regulating online obscene content considered "harmful to minors" in 2002's ACLU v. Ashcroft, 535 U.S. 564 (2002), which in a dissenting opinion Stevens argued that while "[a]s a parent, grandparent, and great-grandparent", he endorsed the legislative goal of protecting children from pornography "without reservation": "As a judge, I must confess to a growing sense of unease when the interest in protecting children from prurient materials is invoked as a justification for using criminal regulation of speech as a substitute for, or a simple backup to, adult oversight of children's viewing."^[24]

Perhaps the most personal and unusual feature of his jurisprudence is his continual referencing of World War II in his opinions, which Stevens often cites in an attempt to appeal to shared patriotic, American values. For example, Stevens, a World War II veteran, was visibly angered by William Kunstler's flippant defense of flag-burning in oral argument in 1989's Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989) and voted to uphold a prohibition on flag-burning against a First Amendment argument. Wrote Stevens, "The ideas of liberty and equality have been an irresistible force in motivating leaders like Patrick Henry, Susan B. Anthony, and Abraham Lincoln, schoolteachers like Nathan Hale and Booker T. Washington, the Philippine Scouts who fought at Bataan, and the soldiers who scaled the bluff at Omaha Beach. If those ideas are worth fighting for – and our history demonstrates that they are – it cannot be true that the flag that uniquely symbolizes their power is not itself worthy of protection from unnecessary desecration."

Stevens generally supports students' right to free speech in public schools. He wrote sharply worded dissents in Bethel v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675 (1986) and Morse v. Frederick, 551 U.S. 393 (2007), two decisions that restricted students' freedom of speech. However, he joined the court's ruling on Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988) that upheld a principal's censorship of a student newspaper.

Establishment Clause[link]

In Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 (1985), striking down an Alabama statute mandating a minute of silence in public schools "for meditation or silent prayer", Stevens wrote the opinion for a majority that included Justices William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun, and Lewis Powell. He affirmed that the Establishment Clause is binding on the States via the Fourteenth Amendment, and that: "Just as the right to speak and the right to refrain from speaking are complementary components of a broader concept of individual freedom of mind, so also the individual's freedom to choose his own creed is the counterpart of his right to refrain from accepting the creed of the majority. At one time, it was thought that this right merely proscribed the preference of one Christian sect over another, but would not require equal respect for the conscience of the infidel, the atheist, or the adherent of a non-Christian faith such as Islam or Judaism. But when the underlying principle has been examined in the crucible of litigation, the Court has unambiguously concluded that the individual freedom of conscience protected by the First Amendment embraces the right to select any religious faith or none at all."

Stevens wrote a dissent in Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U.S. 677 (2005), which was joined by Justice Ginsburg; he argued that the ten commandments displayed in the Texas Capitol grounds transmitted the message: "This State endorses the divine code of the 'Judeo-Christian' God." The Establishment Clause, he wrote, "at the very least [...] has created a strong presumption against the display of religious symbols on public property", and that it "demands religious neutrality – Government may not exercise preference for one religious faith over another." This includes a prohibition against enacting laws or imposing requirements that aid all religions as against unbelievers, or aid religions that are based on a belief in the existence of God against those founded on different principles.

Commerce clause and states' rights[link]

When interpreting the interstate commerce clause, Stevens consistently sided with the federal government. He dissented from United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995) and United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000), two prominent cases in which the Rehnquist court changed direction by holding that Congress had exceeded its constitutional power under the commerce clause. He then authored Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005), which permits the federal government to arrest, prosecute, and imprison patients who use medical marijuana regardless of whether they are using the medicine legally under state law.

Fourth Amendment[link]

Stevens has a generally liberal voting record on the Fourth Amendment, which deals with search and seizure. Stevens authored the majority opinion in Arizona v. Gant, which held that "police may search a vehicle incident to a recent occupant's arrest only if the arrestee is within reaching distance of the compartment at the time of the search or it is reasonable to believe the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of arrest." He dissented in New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325 (1985) and Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646 (1995), both involving searches in schools. He was a dissenter in Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170 (1984), a case relating to the open fields doctrine. However, in United States v. Montoya De Hernandez, 473 U.S. 531 (1985), he sided with the government, and he was the author of United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798 (1982), which permits the police to search closed containers found in the course of searching a vehicle. He also authored the dissent in Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001), which held that the use of thermal imaging requires a warrant.

In a 2009 paper^[25] Ward Farnsworth argues that Stevens's "dissents against type" (in Stevens's case, votes in dissent in favor of the government's position and against the accused, such as the one in Kyllo) suggest that while Stevens "believes strongly in laying out resources for the sake of accuracy and opportunities to protest an unfair trial, [he is] not nearly as concerned about restraining the government at the front end of the process, when it is gathering evidence – for the costs of invaded rights then are to liberty rather than to accuracy."

Death penalty[link]

Stevens joined the majority in Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976), which overruled Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972) and again allowed the use of the death penalty in the United States. In later cases such as Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815 (1988) and Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), Stevens held that the Constitution forbids the use of the death penalty in certain circumstances. Stevens opposed using the death penalty on juvenile offenders; he dissented in Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989) and joined the Court's majority in Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005), overturning Stanford. In Baze v. Rees, 553 U.S. 35 (2008), Stevens voted with the majority in upholding Kentucky's method of lethal injection because he felt bound by stare decisis. However, he opined that "state-sanctioned killing is...becoming more and more anachronistic" and agreed with former Justice Byron White's assertion that "the needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes...would be patently excessive" in violation of the Eighth Amendment (quoting from White's concurrence in Furman).^[26][27] Soon after his vote in Baze, Stevens told a Sixth Circuit conference that one of the drugs (pancuronium bromide) in the three-drug cocktail used by Kentucky to execute death row inmates is prohibited in Kentucky for euthanizing animals. He questioned whether Kentucky Derby second-place finisher Eight Belles died more humanely than those on death row.^[28] He explained that his death penalty decisions were influenced, in part, by an increasing awareness through DNA testing of the fallibility of death sentences, and the fact that death-qualified juries come with a set of biases.^[29] Stevens, at the time of his opinion in Baze, was one of four Justices (the others being Brennan, Marshall and Blackmun) who had concluded that post-Gregg capital punishment is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment.^[30] After his retirement, Stevens stated that his vote in Gregg was the only vote he regretted.^[31]

[edit] Chevron

In 1984, Stevens authored the majority opinion in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984), the most cited opinion in the history of the United States Supreme Court.^[32] The opinion stands for how courts review administrative agencies' interpretations of their organic statutes. If the organic statute unambiguously expresses the will of Congress, the court enforces the legislature's intent. If the statute is unclear (and is thus thought to reflect a Congressional delegation of power to the agency to interpret the statute), and the agency interpretation has the force of law, courts defer to an agency's interpretation of the statute unless that interpretation is deemed to be "arbitrary, capricious, or manifestly contrary to the statute." This doctrine is now generally referred to as "Chevron deference" among legal practitioners.^[33]

Unlike some other members of the court, Stevens has been consistently willing to find organic statutes unambiguous and thus overturn agency interpretations of those statutes. (See his majority opinion in Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421 (1987), and his dissent in Young v. Community Nutrition Institute, 476 U.S. 974 (1986).) Although Chevron has come to stand for the proposition of deference to agency interpretations, Stevens, the author of the opinion, has been less willing to defer to agencies than the rest of his colleagues on the Court.

[edit] Crawford v. Marion County Election Board

Stevens wrote the lead opinion in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, a case where the Court upheld the right of states to require an official photo identification card to help ensure that only citizens vote. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy joined this opinion, and Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito agreed with them on the outcome. Edward B. Foley, an election law expert at Ohio State University, said the Stevens opinion might represent an effort to "depoliticize election law cases."^[34] Stevens's vote in Crawford and his agreement with the Court's conservative majority in two other cases during the 2007–2008 term (Medellin v. Texas, 552 U.S. 491 (2008) and Baze v. Rees) has led University of Oklahoma law professor and former Stevens clerk Joseph Thai to wonder if Stevens is "tacking back a little bit toward the center."

[edit] Bush v. Gore

In Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), Stevens wrote a scathing dissent on the Court's ruling to stay the recount of votes in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. He believed that the holding displayed "an unstated lack of confidence in the impartiality and capacity of the state judges who would make the critical decisions if the vote count were to proceed." He continued, "[t]he endorsement of that position by the majority of this Court can only lend credence to the most cynical appraisal of the work of judges throughout the land. It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law. Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today's decision. One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law."

Popular culture[link]

Stevens was portrayed by the actor William Schallert in the film Recount. He was portrayed by David Grant Wright in two episodes of Boston Legal in which Alan Shore and Denny Crane appear before the Supreme Court.

According to an April 2009 article in the Wall Street Journal, Stevens "rendered an opinion on who wrote Shakespeare's plays", proclaiming himself an Oxfordian, "that is, he believes the works ascribed to William Shakespeare actually were written by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford."^[35] As a result, he was appointed Oxfordian of the Year by the Shakespeare Oxford Society.^[36] According to the article, Justices Scalia and Blackmun shared Stevens's belief.^[35]

See also[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Abraham, Henry J. (1992), Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court (3rd ed.), New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-506557-3 
• Barnhart, Bill; Schlickman, Gene (2010), John Paul Stevens: An Independent Life, DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, ISBN 978-0-87580-419-4 
• Cushman, Clare (2001), The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies, 1789–1995 (2nd ed.), (Supreme Court Historical Society, Congressional Quarterly Books), ISBN 1-56802-126-7 
• Frank, John P. (1995), Friedman, Leon; Israel, Fred L., eds., The Justices of the United States Supreme Court: Their Lives and Major Opinions, Chelsea House Publishers, ISBN 0-7910-1377-4 
• Hall, Kermit L., ed. (1992), The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States, New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-505835-6 
• Manaster, Kenneth A. (2001), Illinois Justice: The Scandal of 1969 and the Rise of John Paul Stevens, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0-226-50243-0 
• Martin, Fenton S.; Goehlert, Robert U. (1990), The U.S. Supreme Court: A Bibliography, Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Books, ISBN 0-87187-554-3 
• Stevens, John Paul (2011). Five Chiefs. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0-316-19980-3. 
• Urofsky, Melvin I. (1994), The Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary, New York: Garland Publishing, ISBN 0-8153-1176-1 

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: John Paul Stevens

Wikisource has original works written by or about: John Paul Stevens

• Supreme Court official site with biographies
• Profile at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center
• Legal resources at the Law Library of Congress
• Biography and writings at the Legal Information Institute
• Profile at the Oyez Project
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Profile at the Internet Movie Database
• Financial information at OpenSecrets.org
• Collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Works by or about John Paul Stevens in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Profile at Notable Names Database
• John Paul Stevens, encyclopedia article by Prof. Joseph Thai
• John Paul Stevens, Human Rights Judge, by Prof. Diane Marie Amann
• "Justice Weighs Desire v. Duty (Duty Prevails)", by Linda Greenhouse, The New York Times, August 25, 2005
• After Stevens, Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker, March 22, 2010
• Stevens High School, named after Stevens
• "A Justice for All", Northwestern Magazine
• John Paul Stevens in pictures – slideshow by Salon magazine
• John Paul Stevens's Legacy in Five Cases by Newsweek magazine
• Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens to Retire, PBS NewsHour
• Justice Stevens a "Champion of the Constitution" – video report by Democracy Now!
• Justice Stevens: An Open Mind On A Changed Court – audio report by NPR
• C-SPAN Q&A interview with Stevens, October 9, 2011

Supreme Court of the United States

The Burger Court Chief Justice: Warren Earl Burger (1969–1986) 1975–1981: Wm. J. Brennan | P. Stewart | B. White | T. Marshall | H. Blackmun | L.F. Powell, Jr. | Wm. Rehnquist | J.P. Stevens 1981–1986: Wm. J. Brennan | B. White | T. Marshall | H. Blackmun | L.F. Powell, Jr. | Wm. Rehnquist | J.P. Stevens | S.D. O'Connor The Rehnquist Court Chief Justice: William Hubbs Rehnquist (1986–2005) 1986–1987: Wm. J. Brennan | B. White | T. Marshall | H. Blackmun | L.F. Powell, Jr. | J.P. Stevens | S.D. O'Connor | A. Scalia 1988–1990: Wm. J. Brennan | B. White | T. Marshall | H. Blackmun | J.P. Stevens | S.D. O'Connor | A. Scalia | A. Kennedy 1990–1991: B. White | T. Marshall | H. Blackmun | J.P. Stevens | S.D. O'Connor | A. Scalia | A. Kennedy | D. Souter 1991–1993: B. White | H. Blackmun | J.P. Stevens | S.D. O'Connor | A. Scalia | A. Kennedy | D. Souter | C. Thomas 1993–1994: H. Blackmun | J.P. Stevens | S.D. O'Connor | A. Scalia | A. Kennedy | D. Souter | C. Thomas | R.B. Ginsburg 1994–2005: J.P. Stevens | S.D. O'Connor | A. Scalia | A. Kennedy | D. Souter | C. Thomas | R.B. Ginsburg | S. Breyer The Roberts Court Chief Justice: John Glover Roberts, Jr. (2005–present) 2005–2006: J.P. Stevens S.D. O'Connor A. Scalia A. Kennedy D. Souter C. Thomas R.B. Ginsburg S. Breyer 2006–2009: J.P. Stevens A. Scalia A. Kennedy D. Souter C. Thomas R.B. Ginsburg S. Breyer S. Alito 2009–2010: J.P. Stevens A. Scalia A. Kennedy C. Thomas R.B. Ginsburg S. Breyer S. Alito S. Sotomayor

Paul Stevens is the name of:

• Paul Stevens (cricketer) (born 1973), English cricketer
• Paul Stevens (bobsleigh) (1889–1949), American bobsledder
• Paul Stevens (actor) (1921–1986), American actor
• Paul Stevens (Friends), a fictional character

This disambiguation page lists articles about people with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

John Paul II
John Paul II in 1993
Papacy began	16 October 1978
Papacy ended	2 April 2005
Predecessor	John Paul I
Successor	Benedict XVI
Orders
Ordination	1 November 1946 by Adam Stefan Sapieha
Consecration	28 September 1958 by Eugeniusz Baziak
Created Cardinal	26 June 1967
Personal details
Birth name	Karol Józef Wojtyła
Born	(1920-05-18)18 May 1920 Wadowice, Republic of Poland
Died	2 April 2005(2005-04-02) (aged 84) Apostolic Palace, Vatican City
Nationality	Polish
Previous post	Auxiliary Bishop of Kraków, Poland (1958–1964) Titular Bishop of Ombi (1958–1964) Archbishop of Kraków, Poland (1964–1978) Cardinal-Priest of San Cesareo in Palatio (1967–1978)
Motto	Totus Tuus meaning "totally yours"
Signature
Coat of arms
Sainthood
Feast day	22 October
Beatified	1 May 2011 Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City by Pope Benedict XVI
Patronage	World Youth Day (Co- Patron)
Other Popes named John Paul

Blessed Pope John Paul II (Latin: Ioannes Paulus PP. II, Italian: Giovanni Paolo II, Polish: Jan Paweł II), born Karol Józef Wojtyła (Polish: [�?karɔl �?juzɛf vɔj�?tɨwa]; 18 May 1920, Wadowice, Republic of Poland – 2 April 2005, Apostolic Palace, Vatican City), reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church from 1978 until his death in 2005. He was the second-longest serving Pope in history and the first non-Italian since 1523.

John Paul II was acclaimed as one of the most influential leaders of the 20th century. He was instrumental in ending communism in his native Poland and eventually all of Europe.^[1] John Paul II significantly improved the Catholic Church's relations with Judaism, Islam, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion. Though criticised by progressives for upholding the Church's teachings against artificial contraception and the ordination of women, and by traditionalists for his support of the Church's Second Vatican Council and its reform, he was also widely praised for his firm, orthodox Catholic stances.

He was one of the most-travelled world leaders in history, visiting 129 countries during his pontificate. As part of his special emphasis on the universal call to holiness, he beatified 1,340 people and canonised 483 saints, more than the combined tally of his predecessors during the preceding five centuries. He named most of the present College of Cardinals, consecrated or co-consecrated a large number of the world's past and current bishops, and ordained many priests.^[2] A key goal of his papacy was to transform and reposition the Catholic Church. His wish was "to place his Church at the heart of a new religious alliance that would bring together Jews, Muslims and Christians in a great [religious] armada".^[3][4] 19 December 2009, John Paul II was proclaimed venerable by his successor Pope Benedict XVI and was beatified on 1 May 2011.

Early life[link]

Emilia and Karol Wojtyła Sr. wedding portrait

Courtyard within the family home of the Wojtyłas

Karol Józef Wojtyła (Anglicised: Charles Joseph Wojtyla) was born in the Polish town of Wadowice^[5][6] and was the youngest of three children of Karol Wojtyła, an ethnic Pole,^[7] and Emilia Kaczorowska, who is described as being of Lithuanian^[7] and possibly Ukrainian ancestry.^[8] Emilia died on 13 April 1929,^[9] when Wojtyła was eight years old.^[10] His elder sister Olga had died before his birth, but he was close to his brother Edmund, nicknamed Mundek, who was 14 years his senior. Edmund's work as a physician eventually led to his death from scarlet fever, which affected Wojtyła.^[7][10]

As a boy, Wojtyła was athletic, often playing football as goalkeeper.^[11] During his childhood, Wojtyła had contact with Wadowice's large Jewish community. School football games were often organised between teams of Jews and Catholics, and Wojtyła often played on the Jewish side.^[7][11] "I remember that at least a third of my classmates at elementary school in Wadowice were Jews. At elementary school there were fewer. With some I was on very friendly terms. And what struck me about some of them was their Polish patriotism." ^[12] Wojtyła’s first, and possibly only, love affair was with a Jewish girl, Ginka Beer, who was described as "slender", "a superb actress" and "having stupendous dark eyes and jet black hair".^[4] On 13 April 1929, Wojtyla's mother died in childbirth.^[8]

In mid-1938, Wojtyła and his father left Wadowice and moved to Kraków, where he enrolled at Jagiellonian University. While studying such topics as philology and various languages, he worked as a volunteer librarian and was required to participate in compulsory military training in the Academic Legion, but he refused to fire a weapon. He performed with various theatrical groups and worked as a playwright.^[13] During this time, his talent for language blossomed, and he learned as many as 12 foreign languages, nine of which he used extensively as Pope.^[5]

In 1939, Nazi German occupation forces closed the university after invading Poland.^[5] Able-bodied males were required to work, so from 1940 to 1944 Wojtyła variously worked as a messenger for a restaurant, a manual labourer in a limestone quarry and for the Solvay chemical factory, to avoid deportation to Germany.^[6][13] His father, a non-commissioned officer in the Polish Army, died of a heart attack in 1941,^[8] leaving Wojtyła as the immediate family's only surviving member.^[7][9][14] "I was not at my mother's death, I was not at my brother's death, I was not at my father's death," he said, reflecting on these times of his life, nearly forty years later, "At twenty, I had already lost all the people I loved."^[14]

After his father's death, he started thinking seriously about the priesthood.^[15] In October 1942, while the war continued, he knocked on the door of the Archbishop's Palace in Kraków and asked to study for the priesthood.^[15] Soon after, he began courses in the clandestine underground seminary run by the Archbishop of Kraków, Adam Stefan Cardinal Sapieha. On 29 February 1944, Wojtyła was knocked down by a German truck. German Wehrmacht officers tended to him and sent him to a hospital. He spent two weeks there recovering from a severe concussion and a shoulder injury. It seemed to him that this accident and his survival was confirmation of his vocation. On 6 August 1944, �?Black Sunday’,^[16] the Gestapo rounded up young men in Kraków to avoid an uprising similar^[16] to the recent uprising in Warsaw.^[17][18] Wojtyła escaped by hiding in the basement of his uncle's house at 10 Tyniecka Street, while the German troops searched above.^[15][17][18] More than eight thousand men and boys were taken that day, while Wojtyła escaped to the Archbishop's Palace,^[15][16][17] where he remained until after the Germans had left.^[7][15][17]

On the night of 17 January 1945, the Germans fled the city, and the students reclaimed the ruined seminary. Wojtyła and another seminarian volunteered for the task of clearing away piles of frozen excrement from the toilets.^[19] Wojtyła also helped a 14-year-old Jewish refugee girl named Edith Zierer,^[20] who had run away from a Nazi labour camp in Częstochowa.^[20] Edith had collapsed on a railway platform, so Wojtyła carried her to a train and stayed with her throughout the journey to Kraków. Edith credits Wojtyła with saving her life that day.^[21][22][23] B'nai B'rith and other authorities have said that Wojtyła helped protect many other Polish Jews from the Nazis. In Wojtyła's last book Memory and Identity he described the 12 years of the Nazi régime as 'bestiality',^[24] quoting from Polish theologian and philosopher Konstanty Michalski.^[25]

Priesthood[link]

On finishing his studies at the seminary in Kraków, Wojtyła was ordained as a priest on All Saints' Day, 1 November 1946,^[9] by the Archbishop of Kraków, Cardinal Sapieha.^[6][26][27] He then studied theology in Rome, at the Pontifical International Athenaeum Angelicum,^[26][27] where he earned a licentiate and later a doctorate in sacred theology.^[5] This doctorate, the first of two, was based on the Latin dissertation The Doctrine of Faith According to Saint John of the Cross.

He returned to Poland in the summer of 1948 with his first pastoral assignment in the village of Niegowić, fifteen miles from Kraków. He arrived at Niegowić at harvest time, where his first action was to kneel and kiss the ground.^[28] This gesture, which he adapted from French saint Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney,^[28] would become a �?trademark’ action during his Papacy.

Pontifical International Athenaeum Angelicum in Rome

In March 1949, Wojtyła was transferred to the parish of Saint Florian in Kraków. He taught ethics at Jagiellonian University and subsequently at the Catholic University of Lublin. While teaching, he gathered a group of about 20 young people, who began to call themselves Rodzinka, the "little family". They met for prayer, philosophical discussion, and to help the blind and sick. The group eventually grew to approximately 200 participants, and their activities expanded to include annual skiing and kayaking trips.^[29]

In 1954, he earned a second doctorate, in philosophy,^[30] evaluating the feasibility of a Catholic ethic based on the ethical system of phenomenologist Max Scheler, a German philosopher who founded a broad philosophical movement which emphasised the study of conscious experience. However, the Communist authorities intervened to prevent him from receiving the degree until 1957.^[27] Wojtyła developed a theological approach which combined traditional Catholic Thomism with the ideas of personalism, a philosophical approach deriving from phenomenology, which was popular amongst Catholic intellectuals in Kraków during Wojtyła's intellectual development. He translated Scheler's Formalism and the Ethics of Substantive Values.^[31]

During this period, Wojtyła wrote a series of articles in Kraków's Catholic newspaper Tygodnik Powszechny ("Universal Weekly") dealing with contemporary church issues.^[32] He focused on creating original literary work during his first dozen years as a priest. War, life under Communism, and his pastoral responsibilities all fed his poetry and plays. Wojtyła published his work under two pseudonyms – Andrzej Jawień and Stanisław Andrzej Gruda^[13][32] – to distinguish his literary from his religious writings, (under his own name) and also so that his literary works would be considered on their merits.^[13][32] In 1960, Wojtyła published the influential theological book Love and Responsibility, a defence of traditional Church teachings on marriage from a new philosophical standpoint.^[13][33]

Bishop and cardinal[link]

On 4 July 1958,^[27] while Wojtyła was on a kayaking holiday in the lakes region of northern Poland, Pope Pius XII appointed him as the auxiliary bishop of Kraków. He was then summoned to Warsaw to meet the Primate of Poland, Stefan Cardinal Wyszyński, who informed him of his appointment.^[34][35] He agreed to serve as Auxiliary Bishop to Kraków's Archbishop Eugeniusz Baziak, and he was ordained to the Episcopate (as Titular Bishop of Ombi) on 28 September 1958. Baziak was the principal consecrator. Then-Auxiliary Bishop Boleslaw Kominek (Titular Bishop of Sophene and Vaga; of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Wroclaw and future Cardinal Archbishop of Wroclaw) and then-Auxiliary Bishop Franciszek Jop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sandomierz (Titular Bishop of Daulia; later Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Wroclaw and then Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Opole) were the principal co-consecrators.^[27] At the age of 38, Wojtyła became the youngest bishop in Poland. Baziak died in June 1962 and on 16 July Wojtyła was selected as Vicar Capitular (temporary administrator) of the Archdiocese until an Archbishop could be appointed.^[5][6]

In October 1962, Wojtyła took part in the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965),^[5][27] where he made contributions to two of its most historic and influential products, the Decree on Religious Freedom (in Latin, Dignitatis Humanae) and the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes).^[27] Wojtyła and the Polish bishops contributed a draft text to the Council for Gaudium et Spes. According to the historian John W. O'Malley, the draft text Gaudium et Spes which Wojtyła and the Polish delegation sent "had some influence on the version that was sent to the council fathers that summer but was not accepted as the base text".^[36] According to John F. Crosby, as Pope, John Paul II used the words of Gaudium et Spes later to introduce his own views on the nature of the human person in relation to God: man is "the only creature on earth that God has wanted for its own sake", but man "can fully discover his true self only in a sincere giving of himself".^[37]

He also participated in the assemblies of the Synod of Bishops.^[5][6] On 13 January 1964, Pope Paul VI appointed him Archbishop of Kraków.^[38] On 26 June 1967, Paul VI announced Archbishop Karol Wojtyła's promotion to the Sacred College of Cardinals.^[27][38] Wojtyła was named Cardinal-Priest of the titulus of San Cesareo in Palatio.

In 1967, he was instrumental in formulating the encyclical Humanae Vitae, which dealt with the same issues that forbid abortion and artificial birth control.^[27][39][40]

Election to the papacy[link]

The newly elected Pope John Paul II stands on the balcony

In August 1978, following the death of Pope Paul VI, Cardinal Wojtyła voted in the Papal conclave which elected Pope John Paul I, who at 65 was considered young by papal standards. John Paul I died after only 33 days as Pope, triggering another conclave.^[6][27][41]

The second conclave of 1978 started on 14 October, ten days after the funeral. It was split between two strong candidates for the papacy: Giuseppe Cardinal Siri, the conservative Archbishop of Genoa, and the liberal Archbishop of Florence, Giovanni Cardinal Benelli, a close friend of John Paul I.^[42]

Supporters of Benelli were confident that he would be elected, and in early ballots, Benelli came within nine votes of success.^[42] However, both men faced sufficient opposition that neither was likely to prevail. Franz Cardinal König, Archbishop of Vienna suggested to his fellow electors a compromise candidate: the Polish Cardinal, Karol Józef Wojtyła.^[42] Wojtyła won on the eighth ballot on the second day with, according to the Italian press, 99 votes from the 111 participating electors. He subsequently chose the name John Paul II^[27][42] in honour of his immediate predecessor, and the traditional white smoke informed the crowd gathered in St. Peter's Square that a pope had been chosen.^[41] He accepted his election with these words: �?With obedience in faith to Christ, my Lord, and with trust in the Mother of Christ and the Church, in spite of great difficulties, I accept.’^[43][44] When the new pontiff appeared on the balcony, he broke tradition by addressing the gathered crowd:^[43]

Dear brothers and sisters, we are saddened at the death of our beloved Pope John Paul I, and so the cardinals have called for a new bishop of Rome. They called him from a faraway land – far and yet always close because of our communion in faith and Christian traditions. I was afraid to accept that responsibility, yet I do so in a spirit of obedience to the Lord and total faithfulness to Mary, our most Holy Mother. I am speaking to you in your – no, our Italian language. If I make a mistake, please �?kirrect’ [sic] me...^[43][45]

Wojtyła became the 264th Pope according to the chronological list of popes, the first non-Italian in 455 years.^[46] At only 58 years of age, he was the youngest pope since Pope Pius IX in 1846, who was 54.^[27] Like his predecessor, Pope John Paul II dispensed with the traditional Papal coronation and instead received ecclesiastical investiture with the simplified Papal inauguration on 22 October 1978. During his inauguration, when the cardinals were to kneel before him to take their vows and kiss his ring, he stood up as the Polish prelate Stefan Cardinal Wyszyński knelt down, stopped him from kissing the ring, and simply hugged him.^[47]

Pastoral trips[link]

A statute of John Paul II made entirely with keys donated by the Mexican people to symbolise that they had given him the keys to their hearts.^[48]

During his pontificate, Pope John Paul II made trips to 129 countries,^[49] travelling more than 1,100,000 kilometres (680,000 mi) whilst doing so. He consistently attracted large crowds, some amongst the largest ever assembled in human history, such as the Manila World Youth Day, which gathered up to 4 million people, the largest Papal gathering ever, according to the Vatican.^[50][51]John Paul II's earliest official visits were to the Dominican Republic and Mexico in January 1979.^[52] While some of his trips (such as to the United States and the Holy Land) were to places previously visited by Pope Paul VI, John Paul II became the first pope to visit the White House in October 1979, where he was greeted warmly by then-President Jimmy Carter. He was the first Pope ever to visit several countries, starting in 1979 with Mexico^[53] and Ireland.^[54] He was the first reigning pope to travel to the United Kingdom, in 1982, where he met Queen Elizabeth II, the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. He travelled to Haiti in 1983, where he spoke in Creole to thousands of impoverished Catholics gathered to greet him at the airport. His message, "things must change in Haiti", referring to the disparity between the wealthy and the poor, was met with thunderous applause.^[55] In 2000, he was the first modern pope to visit Egypt,^[56] where he met with the Coptic pope, Pope Shenouda III^[56] and the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria.^[56] He was the first Catholic pope to visit and pray in an Islamic mosque, in Damascus, Syria, in 2001. He visited the Umayyad Mosque, a former Christian church where John the Baptist is believed to be interred,^[57] where he made a speech calling for Muslims, Christians and Jews to live together.^[57]

On 15 January 1995, during the X World Youth Day, he offered mass to an estimated crowd of between five and seven million in Luneta Park,^[51] Manila, Philippines, which was considered to be the largest single gathering in Christian history.^[51] In March 2000, while visiting Jerusalem, John Paul became the first pope in history to visit and pray at the Western Wall.^[58][59] In September 2001, amid post-11 September concerns, he travelled to Kazakhstan, with an audience largely consisting of Muslims, and to Armenia, to participate in the celebration of 1,700 years of Armenian Christianity.^[60]

Trip to Poland[link]

In June 1979, Pope John Paul II travelled to Poland where ecstatic crowds constantly surrounded him.^[61] This first trip to Poland uplifted the nation's spirit and sparked the formation of the Solidarity movement in 1980, which later brought freedom and human rights to his troubled homeland.^[39] While Poland's Communist leaders intended to use the Pope's visit to show the people that even though the Pope was Polish it did not alter their capacity to govern, oppress, and distribute the goods of society. They also hoped that if the Pope abided by the rules they set, that the Polish people would see his example and follow them as well. If the Pope's visit inspired a riot, the Communist leaders of Poland were prepared to crush the uprising and blame the suffering on the Pope.^[62]

"The Pope won that struggle by transcending politics. His was what Joseph Nye calls �?soft power’– the power of attraction and repulsion. He began with an enormous advantage, and exploited it to the utmost: He headed the one institution that stood for the polar opposite of the Communist way of life that the Polish people hated. He was a Pole, but beyond the regime’s reach. By identifying with him, Poles would have the chance to cleanse themselves of the compromises they had to make to live under the regime. And so they came to him by the millions. They listened. He told them to be good, not to compromise themselves, to stick by one another, to be fearless, and that God is the only source of goodness, the only standard of conduct. �?Be not afraid,’ he said. Millions shouted in response, �?We want God! We want God! We want God!’ The regime cowered. Had the Pope chosen to turn his soft power into the hard variety, the regime might have been drowned in blood. Instead, the Pope simply led the Polish people to desert their rulers by affirming solidarity with one another. The Communists managed to hold on as despots a decade longer. But as political leaders, they were finished. Visiting his native Poland in 1979, Pope John Paul II struck what turned out to be a mortal blow to its Communist regime, to the Soviet Empire, [and] ultimately to Communism.”^[63]

On later trips to Poland, he gave tacit support to the organisation.^[39] Successive Polish trips reinforced this message and contributed to the collapse of East European Communism that took place between 1989/1990 with the reintroduction of democracy in Poland, and which then spread through Eastern Europe (1990–1991) and South-Eastern Europe (1990–1992).^{[45][49][61][64][65]}

Teachings[link]

As pope, John Paul II wrote 14 papal encyclicals and taught about "The Theology of the Body". Some key elements of his strategy to "reposition the Catholic Church" were encyclicals such as Ecclesia de Eucharistia, Reconciliatio et Paenitentia and Redemptoris Mater. In his At the beginning of the new millennium (Novo Millennio Ineunte), he emphasised the importance of "starting afresh from Christ": "No, we shall not be saved by a formula but by a Person." In The Splendour of the Truth (Veritatis Splendor), he emphasised the dependence of man on God and His Law ("Without the Creator, the creature disappears") and the "dependence of freedom on the truth". He warned that man "giving himself over to relativism and scepticism, goes off in search of an illusory freedom apart from truth itself". In Fides et Ratio (On the Relationship between Faith and Reason) John Paul promoted a renewed interest in philosophy and an autonomous pursuit of truth in theological matters. Drawing on many different sources (such as Thomism), he described the mutually supporting relationship between faith and reason, and emphasised that theologians should focus on that relationship. John Paul II wrote extensively about workers and the social doctrine of the Church, which he discussed in three encyclicals: Laborem Exercens, Solicitudo Rei Socialis, and Centesimus Annus. Through his encyclicals and many Apostolic Letters and Exhortations, John Paul II talked about the dignity of women and the importance of the family for the future of humanity.^[39] Other encyclicals include The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae) and Ut Unum Sint (That They May Be One). Though critics accused him of inflexibility, he explicitly re-asserted Catholic moral teachings against capital punishment, euthanasia and abortion that have been in place for well over a thousand years.^[39]

Social and political stances[link]

John Paul II was considered a conservative on doctrine, and issues relating to sexual reproduction and the ordination of women.^[66]

While the Pope was visiting the United States of America he said, "All human life, from the moments of conception and through all subsequent stages, is sacred."^[67]

A series of 129 lectures given by John Paul II during his Wednesday audiences in Rome between September 1979 and November 1984 were later compiled and published as a single work entitled �?Theology of the Body’, an extended meditation on human sexuality. He extended it to the condemnation of abortion, euthanasia and virtually all capital punishment,^[68] calling them all a part of the "culture of death" that is pervasive in the modern world. He campaigned for world debt forgiveness and social justice.^[39][66] He coined the term "social mortgage", which related that all private property had a social dimension, namely, that "the goods of this are originally meant for all."^[69]In 2000, he publicly endorsed the Jubilee 2000 campaign on African debt relief fronted by Irish rock stars Bob Geldof and Bono, once famously interrupting a U2 recording session by telephoning the studio and asking to speak to Bono.^[70]

Pope John Paul II, who was present and very influential at the Vatican II (1962–65), affirmed the teachings of that Council and did much to implement them. Nevertheless, his critics often wished that he would embrace the so-called "progressive" agenda that some hoped would evolve as a result of the Council. In fact, the Council did not advocate "progressive" changes in these areas; for example, they still condemned abortion as an unspeakable crime. Pope John Paul II continued to declare that contraception, abortion, and homosexual acts were gravely sinful, and, with Joseph Ratzinger (future Pope Benedict XVI), opposed Liberation theology.

Following the Church's exaltation of the marital act of sexual intercourse between a baptised man and woman within sacramental marriage as proper and exclusive to the sacrament of marriage, John Paul II believed that it was, in every instance, profaned by contraception, abortion, divorce followed by a 'second' marriage, and by homosexual acts. His beliefs were often assumed to be a rejection of women. In 1994 John Paul II asserted the Church's lack of authority to ordain women to the priesthood, claiming that without such authority ordination is not legitimately compatible with fidelity to Christ. This was also deemed a repudiation of calls to break with the constant tradition of the Church by ordaining women to the priesthood.^[71] In addition, John Paul II chose not to end the discipline of mandatory priestly celibacy, although in a small number of unusual circumstances, he did allow certain married clergymen of other Christian traditions who later became Catholic to be ordained as Catholic priests.

Evolution[link]

On 22 October 1996, in a speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences plenary session at the Vatican, Pope John Paul II said of evolution that "this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favour of this theory." The Pope qualified this by noting that, "rather than the theory of evolution, we should speak of several theories of evolution." Some of these theories, he noted, have a purely materialistic philosophical underpinning which is not compatible with the Catholic faith: "Consequently, theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man".^{[72][73][74][75]}

Although generally accepting the theory of evolution, John Paul II made one major exception – the human soul. "If the human body has its origin in living material which pre-exists it, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God".^[72][74][75]

Liberation theology[link]

In 1984 and 1986, through Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), then-leader of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, John Paul II officially condemned aspects of Liberation theology, which had many followers in South America. Visiting Europe, Óscar Romero unsuccessfully attempted to obtain a Vatican condemnation of El Salvador's regime, for violations of human rights and its support of death squads. In his travel to Managua, Nicaragua in 1983, John Paul II harshly condemned what he dubbed the "popular Church"^[76] (i.e. "ecclesial base communities" supported by the CELAM), and the Nicaraguan clergy's tendencies to support the leftist Sandinistas, reminding the clergy of their duties of obedience to the Holy See.^[76] During that visit Ernesto Cardenal, a priest and minister in the Sandinista government, knelt to kiss his hand. John Paul withdrew it, wagged his finger in Cardenal's face, and told him, "You must straighten out your position with the church."^[77]

Views on sexuality[link]

While taking a traditional position on sexuality, defending the Church's moral opposition to marriage for same-sex couples, Pope John Paul II asserted that persons with homosexual inclinations possess the same inherent dignity and rights as everybody else.^[78] In his book, Memory and Identity, he referred to the "strong pressures" by the European Parliament to recognise homosexual unions as an alternative type of family, with the right to adopt children. In the book, as quoted by Reuters, he wrote: "It is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if this is not perhaps part of a new ideology of evil, more subtle and hidden, perhaps, intent upon exploiting human rights themselves against man and against the family [sic]."^[39][79] A 1997 study determined that 3% of the pope's statements were about the issue of sexual morality.^[80]

Relations with other faiths[link]

Pope John Paul II travelled extensively and met with believers from many divergent faiths. At the World Day of Prayer for Peace, held in Assisi on 27 October 1986, more than 120 representatives of different religions and Christian denominations spent a day together with fasting and praying.^[81]

Anglicanism[link]

Pope John Paul II had good relations with the Church of England, referred to by his predecessor Pope Paul VI, as "our beloved Sister Church".^[82] He preached in Canterbury Cathedral during his visit to London, and received the Archbishop of Canterbury with friendship and courtesy. However, John Paul II was disappointed by the Church of England's decision to offer the Sacrament of Holy Orders to women and saw it as a step in the opposite direction from unity between the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church.^[82]

In 1980 John Paul II issued a Pastoral Provision allowing married former Episcopal priests to become Catholic priests, and for the acceptance of former Episcopal Church parishes into the Catholic Church. He allowed the creation of the Anglican Use form of the Latin Rite, which incorporates the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. John Paul II helped establish 'Our Lady of the Atonement Catholic Church', together with Archbishop Patrick Flores of San Antonio, Texas, as a place where Anglicans and Catholics could worship together.^[83]

Buddhism[link]

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, visited Pope John Paul II eight times, more than any other single dignitary. The Pope and the Dalai Lama held many similar views and understood similar plights, both coming from nations damaged by communism and both serving as heads of major religious bodies.^[84][85]

Eastern Orthodox Church[link]

In May 1999, John Paul II visited Romania on the invitation from Patriarch Teoctist Ar�?paşu of the Romanian Orthodox Church. This was the first time a Pope had visited a predominantly Eastern Orthodox country since the Great Schism in 1054.^[86] On his arrival, the Patriarch and the President of Romania, Emil Constantinescu, greeted the Pope.^[86] The Patriarch stated, "The second millennium of Christian history began with a painful wounding of the unity of the Church; the end of this millennium has seen a real commitment to restoring Christian unity."^[86]

On 23–27 June 2001 John Paul II visited Ukraine, another heavily Orthodox nation, at the invitation of the President of Ukraine and bishops of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.^[87] The Pope spoke to leaders of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organisations, pleading for "open, tolerant and honest dialogue".^[87] About 200 thousand people attended the liturgies celebrated by the Pope in Kiev, and the liturgy in Lviv gathered nearly one and a half million faithful.^[87] John Paul II stated that an end to the Great Schism was one of his fondest wishes.^[87] Healing divisions between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches regarding Latin and Byzantine traditions was clearly of great personal interest. For many years, John Paul II sought to facilitate dialogue and unity stating as early as 1988 in Euntes in mundum that "Europe has two lungs, it will never breathe easily until it uses both of them".

During his 2001 travels, John Paul II became the first Pope to visit Greece in 1291 years.^[88][89] In Athens, the Pope met with Archbishop Christodoulos, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church.^[88] After a private 30 minute meeting, the two spoke publicly. Christodoulos read a list of "13 offences" of the Roman Catholic Church against the Eastern Orthodox Church since the Great Schism,^[88] including the pillaging of Constantinople by crusaders in 1204, and bemoaned the lack of apology from the Roman Catholic Church, saying "Until now, there has not been heard a single request for pardon" for the "maniacal crusaders of the 13th century."^[88]

The Pope responded by saying "For the occasions past and present, when sons and daughters of the Catholic Church have sinned by action or omission against their Orthodox brothers and sisters, may the Lord grant us forgiveness," to which Christodoulos immediately applauded. John Paul II said that the sacking of Constantinople was a source of "profound regret" for Catholics.^[88] Later John Paul II and Christodoulos met on a spot where Saint Paul had once preached to Athenian Christians. They issued a �?common declaration’, saying "We shall do everything in our power, so that the Christian roots of Europe and its Christian soul may be preserved. … We condemn all recourse to violence, proselytism and fanaticism, in the name of religion".^[88] The two leaders then said the Lord's Prayer together, breaking an Orthodox taboo against praying with Catholics.^[88]

The Pope had said throughout his pontificate that one of his greatest dreams was to visit Russia, but this never occurred. He attempted to solve the problems that had arisen over centuries between the Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches, and in 2004 gave them a 1730 copy of the lost icon of Our Lady of Kazan.

Islam[link]

Pope John Paul II made considerable efforts to improve relations between Catholicism and Islam.^[90]

On 6 May 2001, Pope John Paul II became the first Catholic pope to enter and pray in a mosque. Respectfully removing his shoes, he entered the Umayyad Mosque, a former Byzantine era Christian church dedicated to John the Baptist (who was believed to be interred there) in Damascus, Syria, and gave a speech including the statement: "For all the times that Muslims and Christians have offended one another, we need to seek forgiveness from the Almighty and to offer each other forgiveness."^[57] He kissed the Qur’an in Syria,^[91] an act which made him popular amongst Muslims but which disturbed many Catholics.^[91]

In 2004, Pope John Paul II hosted the "Papal Concert of Reconciliation", which brought together leaders of Islam with leaders of the Jewish community and of the Catholic Church at the Vatican for a concert by the Kraków Philharmonic Choir from Poland, the London Philharmonic Choir from the United Kingdom, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra from the United States, and the Ankara State Polyphonic Choir of Turkey.^{[92][93][94][95]} The event was conceived and conducted by Sir Gilbert Levine, KCSG and was broadcast throughout the world.^{[92][93][94][95]}

John Paul II oversaw the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church which makes a special provision^{[clarification needed]} for Muslims; therein, it is written, "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in 'the first place amongst whom are the Muslims'; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day."^[96]

Judaism[link]

Relations between Catholicism and Judaism improved during the pontificate of John Paul II.^[39][59] He spoke frequently about the Church's relationship with the Jewish faith.^[39]

In 1979, John Paul II became the first pope to visit the German Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, where many of his compatriots (mostly Polish Jews) had perished during the Nazi occupation in World War II. In 1998 he issued "We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah" which outlined his thinking on the Holocaust.^[97] He became the first pope known to have made an official papal visit to a synagogue, when he visited the Great Synagogue of Rome on 13 April 1986.^[98][99]

In 1994, John Paul II established formal diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the State of Israel, acknowledging its centrality in Jewish life and faith.^[98] In honour of this event, Pope John Paul II hosted �?The Papal Concert to Commemorate the Holocaust’. This concert, which was conceived and conducted by American Maestro Gilbert Levine, was attended by the Chief Rabbi of Rome, the President of Italy, and survivors of the Holocaust from around the world.^[100][101]

In March 2000, John Paul II visited Yad Vashem, the national Holocaust memorial in Israel, and later made history by touching one of the holiest sites in Judaism, the Western Wall in Jerusalem,^[59] placing a letter inside it (in which he prayed for forgiveness for the actions against Jews).^[58][59][98] In part of his address he said: "I assure the Jewish people the Catholic Church... is deeply saddened by the hatred, acts of persecution and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews by Christians at any time and in any place", he added that there were "no words strong enough to deplore the terrible tragedy of the Holocaust".^[58][59] Israeli cabinet minister Rabbi Michael Melchior, who hosted the Pope's visit, said he was "very moved" by the Pope's gesture.^[58][59]

It was beyond history, beyond memory.^[58]

We are deeply saddened by the behaviour of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer, and asking your forgiveness we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the Covenant.^[102]

In October 2003, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued a statement congratulating John Paul II on entering the 25th year of his papacy. In January 2005, John Paul II became the first Pope in history known to receive a priestly blessing from a rabbi, when Rabbis Benjamin Blech, Barry Dov Schwartz, and Jack Bemporad visited the Pontiff at Clementine Hall in the Apostolic Palace.^[103]

Immediately after John Paul II's death, the ADL issued a statement that Pope John Paul II had revolutionised Catholic-Jewish relations, saying that "more change for the better took place in his 27 year Papacy than in the nearly 2,000 years before."^[104] In another statement issued by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, Director Dr Colin Rubenstein said, "The Pope will be remembered for his inspiring spiritual leadership in the cause of freedom and humanity. He achieved far more in terms of transforming relations with both the Jewish people and the State of Israel than any other figure in the history of the Catholic Church".^[98]

With Judaism, therefore, we have a relationship which we do not have with any other religion. You are our dearly beloved brothers, and in a certain way, it could be said that you are our elder brothers.^[105]

Lutheranism[link]

On 15–19 November 1980 John Paul II visited the Federal Republic of Germany^[106] on his first trip to a country with a large Lutheran population. In Mainz he met with leaders of the Lutheran and other Protestant Churches, and with representatives of other Christian denominations.

On 11 December 1983 John Paul II participated in an ecumenical service in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Rome,^[107] the first papal visit ever to a Lutheran church. The visit took place 500 years after the birth of Martin Luther, the German Augustinian monk who initiated the Lutheran reformation.

In his apostolic pilgrimage to Norway, Iceland, Finland, Denmark and Sweden of June 1989,^[108] John Paul II became the first pope to visit countries with Lutheran majorities. In addition to celebrating Mass with Catholic believers, he participated in ecumenical services at places that had been Catholic shrines before the 16th century Lutheran reformation: Nidaros Cathedral in Norway; near St. Olav's Church at Thingvellir in Iceland; Turku Cathedral in Finland; Roskilde Cathedral in Denmark; and Uppsala Cathedral in Sweden.

On 31 October 1999 (the 482nd anniversary of Reformation Day, Martin Luther's posting of the 95 Theses), representatives of the Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) signed a Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, as a gesture of unity. The signing was a fruit of a theological dialogue that had been going on between the LWF and the Vatican since 1965.

Role in the fall of Communism[link]

Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting Pope John Paul II

John Paul II has been credited with being instrumental in bringing down communism in Central and Eastern Europe,^{[39][45][49][64][65][109]} by being the spiritual inspiration behind its downfall and catalyst for "a peaceful revolution" in Poland. Lech Wałęsa, the founder of �?Solidarity’, credited John Paul II with giving Poles the courage to demand change.^[39] According to Wałęsa, "Before his pontificate, the world was divided into blocs. Nobody knew how to get rid of communism. In Warsaw, in 1979, he simply said: 'Do not be afraid', and later prayed: 'Let your Spirit descend and change the image of the land... this land'."^[109] It has also been widely alleged that the Vatican Bank covertly funded Solidarity.^[110][111]

President Ronald Reagan's correspondence with the pope reveals "a continuous scurrying to shore up Vatican support for U.S. policies. Perhaps most surprisingly, the papers show that, as late as 1984, the pope did not believe the Communist Polish government could be changed."^[112]

In December 1989, John Paul II met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at the Vatican and each expressed his respect and admiration for the other. Gorbachev once said "The collapse of the Iron Curtain would have been impossible without John Paul II".^[45][64] On John Paul's death, Mikhail Gorbachev said: "Pope John Paul II's devotion to his followers is a remarkable example to all of us."^[65][109]

US President George W. Bush presents the Medal of Freedom to Pope John Paul II, in June 2004

In February 2004, Pope John Paul II was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize honouring his life's work in opposing Communist oppression and helping to reshape the world.^[113]

President George W. Bush presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honour, to Pope John Paul II during a ceremony at the Vatican 4 June 2004. The president read the citation that accompanied the medal, which recognised "this son of Poland" whose "principled stand for peace and freedom has inspired millions and helped to topple communism and tyranny."^[114] After receiving the award, John Paul II said, "May the desire for freedom, peace, a more humane world symbolised by this medal inspire men and women of goodwill in every time and place."^[115]

Warsaw, Moscow, Budapest, Berlin, Prague, Sofia and Bucharest have become stages in a long pilgrimage toward liberty. It is admirable that in these events, entire peoples spoke out – women, young people, men, overcoming fears, their irrepressible thirst for liberty speeded up developments, made walls tumble down and opened gates.^[116]

Assassination attempts[link]

As he entered St. Peter's Square to address an audience on 13 May 1981,^[117] Pope John Paul II was shot and critically wounded by Mehmet Ali Ağca,^[5][49][118] an expert Turkish gunman who was a member of the militant fascist group Grey Wolves.^[119] The assassin used a Browning 9 mm semi-automatic pistol,^[120] shooting the pope in the abdomen and perforating his colon and small intestine multiple times.^[45] John Paul II was rushed into the Vatican complex and then to the Gemelli Hospital. En route to the hospital, he lost consciousness. Even though the two bullets missed his mesenteric artery and abdominal aorta, he lost nearly three-quarters of his blood. He underwent five hours of surgery to treat his wounds.^[121] Surgeons performed a colostomy, temporarily rerouting the upper part of the large intestine to let the damaged lower part heal.^[121] When he briefly gained consciousness before being operated on, he instructed the doctors not to remove his Brown Scapular during the operation.^[122] The pope stated that Our Lady of Fátima helped keep him alive throughout his ordeal.^{[49][118][123]}

The site of the shooting is marked by a small marble tablet bearing John Paul's papal coat of arms and the date in Roman numerals.

Could I forget that the event in St. Peter’s Square took place on the day and at the hour when the first appearance of the Mother of Christ to the poor little peasants has been remembered for over sixty years at Fátima, Portugal? For in everything that happened to me on that very day, I felt that extraordinary motherly protection and care, which turned out to be stronger than the deadly bullet.^[124]

Ağca was caught and restrained by a nun and other bystanders until police arrived. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. Two days after Christmas in 1983, John Paul II visited Ağca in prison. John Paul II and Ağca spoke privately for about twenty minutes.^[49][118] John Paul II said, "What we talked about will have to remain a secret between him and me. I spoke to him as a brother whom I have pardoned and who has my complete trust.″

On 2 March 2006 the Italian parliament's Mitrokhin Commission, set up by Silvio Berlusconi and headed by Forza Italia senator Paolo Guzzanti, concluded that the Soviet Union was behind the attempt on John Paul II's life,^[119][125] in retaliation for the pope's support of Solidarity, the Catholic, pro-democratic Polish workers' movement, a theory which had already been supported by Michael Ledeen and the United States Central Intelligence Agency at the time.^[119][125] The Italian report stated that Communist Bulgarian security departments were utilised to prevent the Soviet Union's role from being uncovered.^[125] The report stated that Soviet military intelligence (Glavnoje Razvedyvatel'noje Upravlenije), not the KGB, were responsible.^[125] Russian Foreign Intelligence Service spokesman Boris Labusov called the accusation �?absurd’.^[125] The Pope declared during a May 2002 visit to Bulgaria that the country's Soviet bloc-era leadership had nothing to do with the assassination attempt.^[119][125] However, his secretary, Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, alleged in his book A Life with Karol, that the pope was convinced privately that the former Soviet Union was behind the attack.^[126] It was later discovered that many of John Paul II's aides had foreign government attachments;^[127] Bulgaria and Russia disputed the Italian commission's conclusions, pointing out that the Pope had publicly denied the Bulgarian connection.^[125] A second assassination attempt took place on 12 May 1982, just a day before the anniversary of the first attempt on his life, in Fátima, Portugal when a man tried to stab John Paul II with a bayonet.^{[128][129][130]} He was stopped by security guards, although Stanisław Dziwisz later claimed that John Paul II had been injured during the attempt but managed to hide a non-life threatening wound.^{[128][129][130]} The assailant, a traditionalist Spanish priest named Juan María Fernández y Krohn,^[128] was ordained as a priest by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre of the Society of Saint Pius X and was opposed to the changes caused by the Second Vatican Council, claiming that the pope was an agent of Communist Moscow and of the Marxist Eastern Bloc.^[131] Fernández y Krohn subsequently left the priesthood and served three years of a six-year sentence.^{[129][130][131]} The ex-priest was treated for mental illness and then expelled from Portugal to become a solicitor in Belgium.^[131]

Pope John Paul II was also a target of the Al-Qaeda-funded Bojinka plot during a visit to the Philippines in 1995. The first plan was to kill him in the Philippines during World Youth Day 1995 celebrations. On 15 January 1995, a suicide bomber was planning to dress as a priest, while John Paul II passed in his motorcade on his way to the San Carlos Seminary in Makati City. The would-be-assassin intended to get close and detonate the bomb. The assassination was supposed to divert attention from the next phase of the operation. However, a chemical fire inadvertently started by the cell alerted police to their whereabouts, and all were arrested a week before the Pope's visit, confessing to the plot.^[132]

In 2009 journalist and former army intelligence officer John Koehler published Spies in the Vatican: The Soviet Union's Cold War Against the Catholic Church.^[133] Mining mostly East German and Polish secret police archives, Koehler says the assassination attempts were "KGB-backed" and gives details.^[134] During John Paul II's reign there were many clerics within the Vatican who on nomination, declined to be ordained, and then mysteriously left the church. There is wide speculation that they were, in reality, KGB agents.

Health[link]

The ailing Pope John Paul II riding in the Popemobile on 22 September 2004

When he became pope in 1978, John Paul II was still an avid sportsman. At the time, the 58-year old was extremely healthy and active, jogging in the Vatican gardens, weight training, swimming, and hiking in the mountains. He was fond of football. The media contrasted the new Pope's athleticism and trim figure to the poor health of John Paul I and Paul VI, the portliness of John XXIII and the constant claims of ailments of Pius XII. The only modern pope with a fitness regimen had been Pope Pius XI (1922–1939) who was an avid mountaineer.^[135][136] An Irish Independent article in the 1980s labelled John Paul II the keep-fit pope.

However, after over twenty-five years on the papal throne, two assassination attempts (one of which resulted in severe physical injury to the Pope), and a number of cancer scares, John Paul's physical health declined. In 2001 he was diagnosed as suffering from Parkinson's disease.^[137] International observers had suspected this for some time but it was only publicly acknowledged by the Vatican in 2003. Despite difficulty speaking more than a few sentences at a time, trouble hearing and severe osteoarthrosis, he continued to tour the world, although rarely walking in public.

Death and funeral[link]

(l-r): U.S. President George W. Bush, First Lady Laura Bush, former Presidents Bush and Clinton, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card pay their respects to John Paul II lying in state at St. Peter's Basilica, 6 April 2005.

On 31 March 2005 following a urinary tract infection,^[138] Pope John Paul II developed septic shock, a form of infection with a high fever and low blood pressure, but was not hospitalised. Instead, he was monitored by a team of consultants at his private residence. This was taken as an indication that the pope and those close to him believed that he was nearing death; it would have been in accordance with his wishes to die in the Vatican.^[138] Later that day, Vatican sources announced that John Paul II had been given the Anointing of the Sick by his friend and secretary Stanisław Dziwisz. During the final days of the Pope's life, the lights were kept burning through the night where he lay in the Papal apartment on the top floor of the Apostolic Palace. Tens of thousands of people assembled and held vigil in St. Peter's Square and the surrounding streets for two days. Upon hearing of this, the dying pope was said to have stated: "I have searched for you, and now you have come to me, and I thank you."^[139]

On Saturday 2 April 2005, at about 15:30 CEST, John Paul II spoke his final words, "Pozwólcie mi odejść do domu Ojca", ("Let me depart to the house of the Father"), to his aides, and fell into a coma about four hours later.^[139][140] The mass of the vigil of the Second Sunday of Easter commemorating the canonisation of Saint Maria Faustina on 30 April 2000, had just been celebrated at his bedside, presided over by Stanisław Dziwisz and two Polish associates. Present at the bedside was a cardinal from Ukraine who served as a priest with John Paul in Poland, along with Polish nuns of the Congregation of the Sisters Servants of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, who ran the papal household. He died in his private apartment, at 21:37 CEST^{[140][141][142]} (19:37 UTC) of heart failure from profound hypotension and complete circulatory collapse from septic shock, 46 days short of his 85th birthday. John Paul had no close family by the time he died, and his feelings are reflected in his words, as written in 2000, at the end of his Last Will and Testament.^[143]

The death of the pontiff set in motion rituals and traditions dating back to medieval times. The Rite of Visitation took place from 4 to 7 April at St. Peter's Basilica. The Testament of Pope John Paul II published on 7 April^[144] revealed that the pontiff contemplated being buried in his native Poland but left the final decision to The College of Cardinals, which in passing, preferred burial beneath St. Peter's Basilica, honouring the pontiff's request to be placed "in bare earth". The Mass of Requiem on 8 April was said to have set world records both for attendance and number of heads of state present at a funeral.^{[145][146][147][148]} (See: List of Dignitaries). It was the single largest gathering of heads of state in history, surpassing the funerals of Winston Churchill (1965) and Josip Broz Tito (1980). Four kings, five queens, at least 70 presidents and prime ministers, and more than 14 leaders of other religions attended alongside the faithful.^[146] It is likely to have been the largest single pilgrimage of Christianity ever, with numbers estimated in excess of four million mourners gathering in Rome.^{[145][147][148][149]} Between 250,000 and 300,000 watched the event from within the Vatican walls.^[148] The Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became the next pope, conducted the ceremony. John Paul II was interred in the grottoes under the basilica, the Tomb of the Popes. He was lowered into a tomb created in the same alcove previously occupied by the remains of Pope John XXIII. The alcove had been empty since Pope John's remains had been moved into the main body of the basilica after his beatification.

Posthumous recognition[link]

Title "the Great"[link]

Tomb of John Paul II in The Chapel of St. Sebastian

Upon the death of John Paul II, a number of clergy at the Vatican and laymen throughout the world^{[45][145][150]} began referring to the late pontiff as "John Paul the Great"—only the fourth pope to be so acclaimed, and the first since the first millennium.^{[45][150][151][152]} Scholars of Canon Law say that there is no official process for declaring a pope "Great"; the title simply establishes itself through popular and continued usage,^{[145][153][154]} as was the case with celebrated secular leaders (for example, Alexander III of Macedon became popularly known as Alexander the Great). The three popes who today commonly are known as "Great" are Leo I, who reigned from 440–461 and persuaded Attila the Hun to withdraw from Rome; Gregory I, 590–604, after whom the Gregorian Chant is named; and Pope Nicholas I, 858–867.^[150]

His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, referred to him as "the great Pope John Paul II" in his first address^[155] from the loggia of St. Peter's Church, and Angelo Cardinal Sodano referred to Pope John Paul II as "the Great" in his published written homily for the Mass of Repose.^[156]

Since giving his homily at the funeral of Pope John Paul, Pope Benedict XVI has continued to refer to John Paul II as "the Great." At the 20th World Youth Day in Germany 2005, Pope Benedict XVI, speaking in Polish, John Paul's native language, said, "As the Great Pope John Paul II would say: keep the flame of faith alive in your lives and your people." In May 2006, Pope Benedict XVI visited John Paul's native Poland. During that visit, he repeatedly made references to "the great John Paul" and "my great predecessor".^[157]

In addition to the Vatican calling him "the great," numerous newspapers have done so. For example, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera called him "the Greatest" and the South African Catholic newspaper, The Southern Cross, has called him "John Paul II The Great".^[158] and many Catholic schools worldwide have been named after him using this title, for example recently renamed John Paul the Great Catholic University and John Paul the Great Catholic High School.

Beatification[link]

Beatification of John Paul II, on Divine Mercy Sunday 1 May 2011 for which over a million pilgrims went to Rome.^[159][160]

Inspired by calls of "Santo Subito!" ("[Make him a] Saint Immediately!") from the crowds gathered during the funeral mass which he performed,^{[145][161][162][163][164][165]} Benedict XVI began the beatification process for his predecessor, bypassing the normal restriction that five years must pass after a person's death before beginning the beatification process.^{[162][163][166][167]} In an audience with Pope Benedict XVI, Camillo Ruini, Vicar General of the Diocese of Rome who was responsible for promoting the cause for canonisation of any person who died within that diocese, cited "exceptional circumstances" which suggested that the waiting period could be waived.^{[6][145][168]} This decision was announced on 13 May 2005, the Feast of Our Lady of Fátima and the 24th anniversary of the assassination attempt on John Paul II at St. Peter's Square.^[169]

In early 2006, it was reported that the Vatican was investigating a possible miracle associated with John Paul II. Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, a French nun and a member of the Congregation of Little Sisters of Catholic Maternity Wards, confined to her bed by Parkinson's Disease,^[163][170] was reported to have experienced a "complete and lasting cure after members of her community prayed for the intercession of Pope John Paul II".^{[110][145][161][163][171][172]} As of May 2008^[update], Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre, then 46,^[161][163] was working again at a maternity hospital run by her order.^{[167][170][173][174]}

"I was sick and now I am cured," she told reporter Gerry Shaw. "I am cured, but it is up to the church to say whether it was a miracle or not."^[170][173]