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Sister Sobodka said: "Several times he (Pope John Paul) would put himself through bodily penance. "We would hear it – we were in the next room at Castel Gandolfo. You could hear the sound of the blows when he flagellate himself. He did it when he was still capable of moving on his own." The flagellation is also confirmed by another bishop who has given testimony. Emery Kabongo was a secretary for Pope John Paul. "He would punish himself and in particular just before he ordained bishops and priests," he said. "I never actually saw it myself but several people...

Once again, the Catholic world has been rocked by yet more allegations of sexual impropriety by Legionnaires of Christ founder, the late Fr. Marcial Maciel. It seems the now-disgraced founder-cum-pervert fathered more children than previously suspected; the latest claimants to his paternity purport to have evidence that the late Pope John Paul II knew of Maciel's sexual dilettantes, and turned a blind eye to them. (If true, it would confirm the prior journalistic scholarship of author Jason Berry.) The allegations highlight what for all too many Catholics is the elephant-in-the-room when discussing the ills which beset the modern Church: the...

The cause for beatification of Pope John Paul II has moved a step forward, according to a report by Andrea Tornielli of the Italian daily newspaper Il Giornale. Tornielli-- who has accurately predicted several recent developments inside the Vatican-- says that theological consultors working with the Congregation for the Causes of Saints have delivered a positive verdict on the positio, the full case in favor of a pronouncement that the life of John Paul II was marked by "heroic virtue." The positio will now be forwarded to the full Congregation for the Causes of Saints for a vote later this...

O Mary Bright Dawn of the New World O Mary! Bright dawn of the new world, Mother of the living, to you do we entrust the cause of life: Look down, O Mother, upon the vast numbers of babies not allowed to be born, of the poor whose lives are made difficult, of men and women who are victims of brutal violence, of the elderly and the sick killed by indifference or out of misguided mercy. Grant that all who believe in your Son may proclaim the Gospel of life with honesty and love to the people of our...

Sex Sermonist's Heroes: Pope John Paul II and Hugh Hefner Devout Catholic Christopher West Lays Out Unexpected Vision of What Sex Can Mean for Christians Christopher West is not your average sex therapist. He's a devout Catholic who believes one of the most important ways we can get closer to God is through great sex.   "As Christians, we are desperately in need of a renewed vision of our sexuality," West has sermonized. "The union of man and woman itself is meant to be here on planet Earth an image, a foretaste, a little glimmer of the eternal ecstasy that...

  Shortly after World War II was over, a young Polish priest who was studying in Rome, Fr. Karol Wojtyla, visited Padre Pio in San Giovanni Rotondo. This encounter took place around 1947 or 1948. At that time in post-war Italy, it was possible to have access to Padre Pio, since travel was difficult and great crowds were not besieging the Friary. The young priest spent almost a week in San Giovanni Rotondo during his visit, and was able to attend Padre Pio’s Mass and make his confession to the saint.   Apparently, this was not just a casual...

As a young boy in Poland before World War II, Karol Jozef Wojtyla possessed an uncommon warmth for an often reviled group of outsiders – Jews.  Like most others in his hometown, Wojtyla was Catholic. But he counted Jewish children among his friends – attending school with them, even playing goalie on their soccer team.  Wojtyla was speechless when one of them, a fellow actor in drama club, informed him that she was leaving to escape looming anti-Semitism.  Decades later, those early experiences and friendships would have a dramatic influence on Wojtyla – the future Pope John Paul II.The Jewish threads of John...

Russian Orthodox-Vatican Thaw May Depend On Vote The late Pope John Paul used to read the Bible in Russian, preparing for a trip he never got to take. Hopes of a further thaw between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox church may depend on the choice of a successor to the late Patriarch Alexiy II in an uncertain procedure that could leave the outcome ultimately to chance. The world's largest church and the biggest of the Orthodox churches have stepped up contacts in recent years and inched towards holding the first summit of their leaders in history. The late Pope...

But Reagan and the Pope spent only a few minutes reviewing events in the Middle East. Instead they remained focused on a subject much closer to their heart: Poland and the Soviet dominance of Eastern Europe. In that meeting, Reagan and the Pope agreed to undertake a clandestine campaign to hasten the dissolution of the communist empire...

When Pope John Paul II proposed a new set of mysteries of the Rosary in 2002, he wished to make the Rosary even more into a compendium of the Gospel. The Pope pointed out that the traditional Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious mysteries, while commemorating signal events in salvation history, tended to ignore Our Lord’s public ministry. Yet it was through His public ministry that Christ primarily revealed both His own identity and His invitation to enter the Kingdom of God. In this sense, Our Lord’s public ministry is truly luminous. The Other Mysteries The Joyful Mysteries, for example, cover the...

The weekly Wprost, (..), shows a politburo document, signed by Mikhail Gorbachev, which appears to warrant a KGB contract killing on John Paul II. So claims Polish journalist John O. Kohler in a book, also released tomorrow, Chodzi o papie¿a. Szpiedzy w watykanie - (About the Pope: Spies in the Vatican). The politburo document says: "Use all available possibilities to prevent a new political trend, initiated by the Polish pope." The document, which dates back to November 1979, - one year after Karol Wojtyla became pope - is signed by eight top Party officials including Konstantin Rusakov, who coordinated action...

Gorbachev signed JP II KGB death warrant Created: 27.04.2008 15:50 The weekly Wprost, out tomorrow, shows a politburo document, signed by Mikhail Gorbachev, which appears to warrant a KGB contract killing on John Paul II. So claims Polish journalist David Dastych in a book, also released tomorrow, Chodzi o papieża szpiedzy w watykanie - (About the Pope: Spies in the Vatican). The politburo document says: "Use all available possibilities to prevent a new political trend, initiated by the Polish pope…" The document, which dates back to November 1979, - one year after Karol Wojtyla became pope - is signed by...

The Third Anniversary of the passing to the Father of the Servant of God John Paul II draws near and the sense of the faithful grows even stronger.

A well-known art group has ruffled the Catholic Church’s feathers by portraying John Paul II as a paedophile. Artist group Surrend has again achieved its goal of provoking the establishment through two displays on a Polish website depicting the late Pope John Paul II as a paedophile, reported public broadcaster DR last week. The webpage, placed on the vaticansex.pl website, shows an image of the late pontiff lifting the gowns of two alter boys while saying: ‘I’m against homosexuality, but all for paedophilia.’ The second image is of the former pope burning in the flames of hell. The webpage was...

Cardinals at the Vatican have chosen the first non-Italian Pope for more than 400 years. Catholics around the world have been astonished by the choice of Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, the Archbishop of Krakow. Few people had suggested him as a possible successor to John Paul I, who died last month after just 33 days in office. He is barely known outside his native Poland. After two days and eight votes, the result of the final, conclusive vote giving a two-thirds majority plus one to the Polish bishop was signalled with a plume of white smoke above the roof of the...

When you add it all up, I’ve spent more than a year and a half of my life in Poland. My Polish adventures began sixteen years ago, when I went to Warsaw, Cracow, and Gdansk in June 1991 to learn how the Church and John Paul II had helped accelerate the demise of European communism. (That first trip taught me an important lesson, occurring as it did during a papal pilgrimage to Poland: Polish cities are dry when the Pope is in town. My pleas to a bartender — “Look, the Pope is my friend; he wants me to have...

"Was John Paul II Euthanized?" - TIME Distorts Catholic Teaching to Give Credence to Outlandish Accusations Story broke a week after Pope declared "food and fluids" morally obligatory to PVS patients like Terri Schiavo By Peter J. Smith ROME, September 27, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "Was John Paul II Euthanized?" The sensationalist story peddled by TIME magazine has grabbed the world's attention with the thought that the great champion of human life, the author of "Evangelium Vitae," and steadfast opponent of abortion and euthanasia, may have rejected his Church's teachings to end his life. However TIME's story warps Catholic teachings in...

Final Prayer Was Lesson for Attending PhysicianVATICAN CITY, SEPT. 20, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The final voiced prayer of Pope John Paul II was an act of profound asceticism, said his personal physician. Dr. Renato Buzzonetti said the Pope's last words were "the prayer of a saint that loved life until the good Lord called him to himself," reported an article Sunday in Italy's La Republica newspaper. The doctor continued: "Pope John Paul II was cared for until the last moment of his life, when at 9:37 p.m. on April 2, 2005, he breathed his last. "It is true that he had...

Vatican City - Doctors assisting Pope John Paul II in his final days never suspended medical treatment and the pontiff did not ask them to do so, his personal physician said. Pro-euthanasia activists in Italy have said the pope refused medical treatment such as artificial respiration and feeding because he wanted to be allowed to die. The Catholic Church forbids euthanasia, which has been at the centre of a heated debate in Italy in recent months. However, the church's Catechism says medical procedures that are "burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary or disproportionate to the expected outcome" can be discontinued with the permission...

Former Head of UN Population Fund Reveals Longstanding Alliance with Catholics for a Free Choice Says Catholic Church Prior to John Paul II was Easier to Work With - "With the passing of Pope Paul VI, everything became much harder" By John-Henry Westen NEW YORK, August 31, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - During her 14 years at the helm of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Nafis Sadik always denied the organization's abortion advocacy even in the face of overwhelming evidence.  She did not directly name her pro-life enemies nor did she reveal her allies in the battle to establish a global...

German newspaper mocks John Paul II, beatification process Apr. 4, 2007 (CWNews.com) - A caustic article about the beatification process for Pope John Paul II (bio - news), published in the German newspaper Die Welt, has drawn a protest from the Polish ambassador to Germany. Die Welt referred to the late Pontiff as "an unsympathetic old man," and included a series of tasteless jokes about the Pope and the cause for his beatification. The newspaper crudely suggested that the late Pope, who suffered from Parkinson's disease, might have won a medal at the Para-Olympics. It joked that he should have...

Poles commemorate death of Pope John Paul II 02/04/2007 - 15:24:17 Poles planned vigils and concerts today to mark the second anniversary of the death of Pope John Paul II. They also prayed for a speedy sainthood for the revered Pontiff. Vigils on the exact hour of John Paul's death, 8.37pm, were planned in the southern town of Wadowice, where the Pope was born Karol Wojtyla in 1920. They were to be held also in Krakow, where he served as priest and bishop for almost 40 years, in Warsaw and in other cities. Special concerts were planned in Warsaw, Krakow...

Close friend of Pope John Paul II a communist spy? 14.02.2007 Fr. Mieczysław Maliński, a well-known priest from Kraków and a close friend of John Paul II from the times before Karol Wojtyła became Pope, was registered as a collaborator of the communist secret services, reveals a book based on the communist archives investigated by the Polish Roman Catholic Church historical commission. Report by Joanna Najfeld According to the documents, Fr. Maliński was to start cooperation with the communist intelligence back in 1960s when he was in Rome. There, he was to provide information on Polish priests taking part in...

  SIMEON IS OPEN TO THE LORD’S ACTION Pope John Paul II He invites us to look at the merciful action of God who pours out the Spirit on his faithful in order to bring his mysterious plan of love to fufilment"In the episode of the Presentation we can glimpse the meeting of Israel's hope with the Messiah. We can also see in it a prophetic sign of man's encounter with Christ", the Holy Father said at the General Audience of Wednesday, 11 December, while reflecting on the mystery of Jesus' Presentation in the temple and the significance of...

Exclusive from Poland: Who Was Spying on Karol Wojtyla By Gigi Riva, Thursday, January 25, 2007 Names, reports, and documents from the network of informants who kept watch over the life of the great churchman, before and after his election as pope. From "L'espresso" no. 3, January 19-25, 2007 "Wojdyla" that's how it's written. In 1949, the future pope was a misspelled name in the reports sent to the secret police by a turncoat priest in the Krakow curia. But they would get to know him very well -- and how to spell his name -- over the next forty...

In this defeatist climate, it's a shock to remember three who changed the world "It feels like August," wrote the National Review's editor, Rich Lowry, about eight months after 9/11. August 2001, that is: he meant America's war on terror seemed to have lost its urgency and the "sleeping giant" appeared to be resuming his slumbers. Five years on, it's worse than that: it feels like the seventies. Now as then, America seems less a sleeping giant than a helpless one, ensnared by Lilliputians and longing for release. Some Republicans distance themselves from the President's "surge" in Iraq, others dutifully...

BOOK REVIEW Faith and risk in the Cold War The President, the Pope and the Prime Minister by John O'Sullivan Reviewed by Spengler John O'Sullivan's account of the Western victory over communism should have a place in the medicine cabinet of every literate family, as an antidote to the stultifying academic drivel and the self-serving bureaucratic memoirs that may cause choking. O'Sullivan's Cold War, spent in part advising British prime minister Margaret Thatcher (now Baroness Thatcher), was strange, even miraculous. Who could have predicted that a broken-down movie star, a grocer's daughter from the English provinces and a Polish priest...

Soviet Union behind John Paul shooting: papal aide By Philip Pullella Reuters Monday, January 22, 2007; 8:55 AM ROME (Reuters) - The late Pope John Paul's closest aide is convinced the former Soviet Union was behind the assassination attempt on the pontiff in 1981 because he was a threat to its power, according to the aide's memoirs. Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the Pope's private secretary for nearly four decades, writes of his life with the former Cardinal Karol Wojtyla in a book called "A Life with Karol" to be released by Italy's Rizzoli publishers on Wednesday. Dziwisz, now the archbishop of...

Is there a JPII generation in Poland? 29.12.2006 - Michal Kubicki As millions of Catholics around the world commemorated the first anniversary of Pope John Paul II's death earlier this month, in his native Poland the atmosphere was very reminiscent of what the country witnessed a year ago, before and after the Pope's death. But is there anything beyond these manifestations of religious fervour? All analysts of the pontificate of John Paul II agree that he was able to establish a special rapport with young people. After the Pope's death a year ago, one could see a sense of unity...

VATICAN CITY, December 21, 2006 (C-Fam.org) - A prominent journalist has argued recently that international political, economic and social breakdown were largely averted during the 1980's due to the personal and political alignments between Pope John Paul II, President Ronald Reagan, and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. In his recently-released book, The Pope, The President, and the Prime Minister: Three Who Changed the World, National Review Editor-at-Large and Hudson Institute Fellow John O’Sullivan offers new research illuminating the three “hopeful” and “confident” personalities, and the way they forged relationships of mutual trust through their alliances and disagreements in a period of...

The 1981 summer English Seminar in Poznan, Poland, had ended, and the twenty-six British and American instructors and the more than two hundred students had gathered for the farewell party. A young woman from one of my classes told me of John Paul II’s first visit to Poland as pope and the pilgrimage she and her classmates made to Czestochowa to worship with him at the shrine of their homeland’s holiest icon, “the Black Madonna,” at Jasna Gora. “There we were with the Holy Father,” she said, “thousands of us, praying silently with him, and you could feel the power...

I should seriously write a book called, The Idiots Guide To Not Thinking Seriously About Islam. It’s hard to find a subject where mushy thinking is more in vogue – where political correctness conquers reality more thoroughly. People actually are afraid to think seriously on the subject, because the logical conclusions are too frightening for many to contemplate. And so, there’s no place where comfortable clichés are more readily deployed. Probably the most glaring illustration of inanity here were recent comments by his Holiness, the Dalai Lama. On leaving a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, the leader of Tibetan Buddhists...

I took the vows of fast and silence for the sake of the role Malgorzata Karnaszewska talks to Piotr Adamczyk, actor playing the main role in the film 'Story of Karol - Pope who remained a man'. Malgorzata Karnaszewska: - How would you summarise the idea of the film about John Paul II? Piotr Adamczyk: - I will repeat what Giacomo Battiato said, 'This film could be entitled 'Story of Karol -Pope of the suffering'. The film shows how the Pope reached out to the victims of conflicts, wars... How close to ordinary people he was. This is not only...

PRIME Minister John Howard has named Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II as the "three towering figures" of the late 20th century. He said their moral clarity "punctured the nonsense" of left-wing apologists for communist dictatorships. In a blistering attack on the left's role in global history, to mark the 50th anniversary of the conservative journal Quadrant, the Prime Minister last night lauded those who resisted the "stultifying orthodoxies and dangerous utopias" of Western intelligentsia. And he linked the great historical battle of ideas between communism and capitalist democracies to the modern-day struggle with Islamist terrorism, arguing...

Doctors who operated on Pope John Paul after a 1981 assassination attempt were convinced he would die under the knife, his ex-secretary says in a new book. Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, now archbishop of Krakow in Poland, also says in a memoir due to be published next year that efforts to save the pope were hampered by a series of glitches. Brief excerpts of "My Life with Karol" were made available on Monday by the Italian publisher Rizzoli ahead of its presentation at the Frankfurt Book Fair this week. In a chapter called "Those Two Bullets", Dziwisz recalls his feelings when...

ANCHORAGE, September 27, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – John Paul II did not like women and spent the entirety of his 26 years as pope working to put them in their “place” according to the new editor of the newspaper for the Catholic diocese of Anchorage, Alaska. On her personal weblog, Maia Nolan published a feminist diatribe replete with accusations that the late Pope was “an unbelievable misogynist.” Maia Nolan began work on the paper September 8th replacing John Roscoe, the founding editor of the Anchorage Catholic Anchor. The comments have since been removed from the 'blog, but have been cached...

Paris mayor renames Notre Dame square after John Paul II, prompting protestsPARIS About 200 demonstrators staged a sit-in near Paris' Notre Dame cathedral Sunday protesting the inauguration of a new John Paul II Square because of the late pope's stance on AIDS and contraception. City legislators and members of the Green Party and the AIDS activist group Act-Up were among the protesters sitting and lying down on the pavement as Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe led a ceremony formally renaming the square. "Delanoe is honoring an assassin," some chanted, saying John Paul's opposition to condoms, along with other forms of contraception,...

by John Paul Shimek Other Articles by John Paul Shimek You Are the Light of the World 08/26/06 Buried in the age-old pages of Judaism’s medieval Talmud, there is a rabbinical tale of particular meaning to Christians. While it has been recounted in innumerable versions, the main action of the tale has remained the same. In This Article...Come Inside!The World’s NightShow People Who They Are! Come Inside! One can imagine the action unfolding along the cobbled streets of Europe. A man is walking along in the darkness of the Slavic night, traveling the road that will lead him home. It is...

Struggling to swallow and breathe, Pope John Paul II mumbled his final words weakly in Polish: "Let me go to the house of the Father." Six hours later, the comatose pontiff died, the Vatican says.The account of John Paul's final hours appears in a meticulously detailed official report on his last weeks just released by the Vatican in what might be an effort to ward off any doubts about how forthcoming it has been about his illness and April 2 death.There was much speculation in past decades over how some pontiffs died and what caused their end.John Paul I's brief...

FOR MORE THAN TWENTY years, Pope John Paul II showed a way to work for the defeat of totalitarianism. It was not by armies, although it relied on the threat of American power to keep the dictators from military adventures. And it was not by appeasement, although it knew how to practice patience when it had to. At its deepest, the pope's vision required simply that we refuse government by the lie, that we name and know things for what they are, and his Catholic call for democratic reform seemed to have effect everywhere, from Para guay to Poland. Everywhere,...

ERUSALEM, July 5, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Israel's Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar has formally written Pope Benedict XVI asking for help in stopping homosexual activists from staging a "World Pride" parade in the holy city of Jerusalem. Last year the coordinated efforts of Jewish, Muslim and Christian religious leaders successfully put off the gay pride event with homosexual activists claiming that they cancelled the event only because of the Gaza pull-out which was scheduled a few days prior to the event. Once again Jewish, Muslim and Christian religious and even political leaders have put aside their differences and have come together...

HONG KONG (AP) - Famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking said Thursday that the late Pope John Paul II once told scientists they should not study the beginning of the universe because it was the work of God. The British author _ who wrote the best-seller "A Brief History of Time" _ said that the pope made the comments at a cosmology conference at the Vatican. Hawking, who didn't say when the meeting was held, quoted the pope as saying, "It's OK to study the universe and where it began. But we should not enquire into the beginning itelf because that was...

Communist Role in Pope's Shooting Probed By MONIKA SCISLOWSKA Associated Press Writer June 13, 2006, 11:43 AM EDT WARSAW, Poland -- A state institute has opened an investigation into whether communist-era security services in Poland and other former East bloc nations had a role in the 1981 assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II, a spokesman said Tuesday. John Paul was shot and seriously wounded on May 13, 1981, in St. Peter's Square by Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turk. But it has been suggested that larger political motives may have been behind the attack, because having a Polish-born pope was...

Post-Communist MP mocks historic words of John Paul II 12.06.2006 The League of Polish Families (LPR) is to file a motion with the Parliamentary Ethics Committee for disciplinary action against MP Joanna Senyszyn from the post-Communist Democratic Left Alliance. On Saturday, during the Gay Pride parade in Warsaw Senyszyn stated to the gathered: ‘May this parade change the face of the land, this land’. In the opinion of the LPR leadership this is clear mockery of the historic words of John Paul II in a homily to his compatriots during the late Pope’s first pilgrimage to then Communist ruled Poland...

WARSAW, Poland — Poland could be Europe's first "red state". "New evangelization"It was the late pope's fervent hope that the intense spirituality of his native Poland would spark a "new evangelization" of Western Europe. During most of his papacy, there was scant sign of that happening. But more recently Poland has emerged at the fore of a fledgling movement to restore Christian values to Europe. Beginning in 2003, the Polish government led the push — ultimately unsuccessful — to include some reference to Christianity in the new EU constitution. Aleksander Kwasniewski, the reformed communist who was Poland's president at the...

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

Papal Address in John Paul II's Hometown His "Love for the Church Was Born Here" VATICAN CITY, MAY 28, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Here is a Vatican translation of the address Benedict XVI delivered Saturday in Rynek Square in Wadowice, after visiting the Wojtyla family home, birthplace of the future Pope John Paul II. * * * Beloved Brothers and Sisters, I am filled with emotion in the birthplace of my great predecessor, the Servant of God John Paul II, in this town of his childhood and young adult life. Indeed, I could not omit Wadowice as I make this pilgrimage in...

Pope calls on Poles to evangelize the world in Wojtyla’s footsteps During Mass on the esplanade of Blonie: "The Krakow of Wojtyla is my Krakow too!" A prayer for the people of Indonesia, victims of the quake. Krakow (AsiaNews) – In the last public gesture of his visit to Poland, Benedict XVI called on all Poles to live the legacy of John Paul II and reassured them that the new pope loves Poland and the Poles just as his predecessor had done. Before an interrupted wall of white and red flowers - the colours of the Polish flag - enveloping...

WARSAW, Poland, MAY 26, 2006 (ZENIT.org).- Here is a Vatican translation of the address Benedict XVI delivered today around 9 p.m. from the window of the archbishop's residence in Krakow, where he is staying. * * * Dear Brothers and Sisters, Following the practice which arose during Pope John Paul II's visits to Krakow, you have gathered in front of the archbishop's residence to greet the Pope. Thank you for being here and for your warm welcome. I know that on the second of every month, at the hour of my beloved predecessor's death, you come together here to commemorate...

Pope visits John Paul II's home By Adam Easton BBC News, in Krakow Pope Benedict has paid homage to his predecessor, John Paul II, by paying a visit to his home town of Wadowice in southern Poland. During his one-hour stop the Pope visited the home where John Paul, then Karol Wojtyla, was born and grew up. Crowds in the market square sang hymns and waved yellow and white Vatican flags as Benedict appeared. The 79-year-old Pope said he wanted to pray with the town's people for the swift beatification of John Paul. Brisk tour Earlier, the German-born Pontiff visited...