For more than a quarter century, Karol Wojtyla was the world's spiritual superpower. As Pope John Paul II, his decisions shaped the lives of more than 1 billion Catholics around the world - by far, the largest organized religious group on Earth.
He used his personal charisma in a tireless campaign for a Catholic vision of human rights that helped to topple communism, defend the poor and build bridges to other faiths, especially Judaism.
His followers did not always agree with him, but their affection and respect were obvious in more than 100 tours, when vast crowds around the world were drawn to his outdoor Masses.
"He brought the human face of the Vatican to people of every culture in every part of the world," said Detroit Cardinal Adam Maida. "He showed that the pope is not someone who is locked up in the Vatican, but is truly a man whose mission is bringing the gospel message to the people of the world."
In more than 25 years of travels and Vatican public events, John Paul spoke in person to more people than any other human in history.
"This is the greatest Christian witness of our time," said papal biographer George Weigel.
Historians ranked John Paul as either the third or fourth longest-serving pope, depending on how many years they credited to St. Peter 2,000 years ago. John Paul's impact on the church will be felt for many years to come. He appointed nearly all of the church's top leaders, modernized and clarified the entire code of church laws and supervised a complete revision of the catechism, the official summary of Catholic doctrine.
Though raised in an era of horse-drawn carts, he ended his life recording messages on CD-ROM, hosting a vast Web site, www.vatican.va, and joining passionately in scientific debates on genetic engineering and cloning.
Elected at the relatively young age of 58, he was admired for his courage and vigor. It seemed that nothing could stop him. In his youth, he survived the Nazi invasion of his native Poland and, as a young priest and bishop, survived the communist oppression that settled over his homeland.
Against the odds, in 1978, he became the first non-Italian pontiff since 1523.
When Mehmet Ali Agca shot him in St. Peter's Square on May 13, 1981, he survived and then turned the near-fatal incident into a moral lesson by visiting his attacker in prison and forgiving him.
As he aged, he was admired for his iron-willed stamina. He kept traveling and celebrating masses despite an abdominal tumor, removed by surgeons in 1992, followed by falls that dislocated an arm and broke a leg. Even when Parkinson's disease made speaking difficult and walking nearly impossible, he persevered.
Over the decades, John Paul devoted much of his energy to challenging the world's political power brokers with his vision of morality and social justice. Presidents and premiers often tried to ignore or take advantage of him, but he was resolutely clear about his vision of human rights even when that vision collided with secular regimes.
In the spring of 2003 in the United States, the combined influence of 36 Protestant and Orthodox denominations at the National Council of Churches couldn't get access to President George W. Bush to deliver an antiwar warning. But, when the pope wanted to weigh in, Bush welcomed Cardinal Pio Laghi at the White House, though Bush knew he was providing a stage for the Vatican's message.
"The president could not turn away the pope's emissary," said Robert Edgar, head of the council in New York. "The pope understood that in this day and age, war is obsolete, and he took a leadership role in speaking out."
The pope could not prevent a war in Iraq, but he is widely credited with playing a catalytic role in toppling the communist regimes in Eastern Europe.
John Paul argued that the communist system collapsed on its own flaws. But former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev acknowledged the crucial influence of John Paul's public support for the Solidarity labor movement in Poland - and his behind-the-scenes negotiations with communist bosses.
John Paul's spiritual legacy stretches far beyond the Catholic Church, said Rabbi James Rudin, coordinator of inter-religious affairs for the American Jewish Committee in New York. That's because John Paul was a pioneer in improving Catholic relationships with the world's other faiths.
In 1986, he became the first pope to visit a synagogue. He embraced Jews as "our elder brothers" and bluntly condemned all forms of anti-Semitism.
Then, in 2001 in Damascus, Syria, he made the first pontifical visit to a mosque and tried to improve relations with Islam.
"He was able to put Catholic-Jewish relations into the mainstream of church life, precisely because he was born in Poland in 1920 and was 19 years old when the Germans occupied his village," Rudin said. "It's precisely because he lived through the Holocaust on the ground in Poland."
A passionate concern for the protection of human life led John Paul to speak out against policies that he believed were threats to life. Through the years, he opposed abortion, capital punishment, nuclear weapons, assisted suicide and the oppression of workers both by communism and uncontrolled capitalism.
Sometimes, his audiences listened; sometimes, they did not. Despite his staunch opposition to artificial birth control, for example, many polls of American Catholics have shown that couples almost unanimously ignored his teaching on that issue. And, though he forbade any discussion of the ordination of female priests, a majority of American Catholics tell pollsters that they think it's not a bad idea.
Richard McBrien, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, said, "Catholics have learned to make up their own minds and consciences. They know that some of the pope's teaching has been too narrowly crafted. They know that some of his pronouncements are an Old-World vision that goes back to his history in Poland."
Wojtyla was born May 18, 1920, in Wadowice, Poland, a village 20 miles south of Krakow, and was given his father's first name, Karol. A month later, he was baptized in the 600-year-old, onion-domed St. Mary's Church, across the street from the family's small apartment.
His mother, Emilia, had been a schoolteacher and his father was a retired army officer who approached his faith with the same strict discipline he had employed in military life.
While Emilia dreamed of seeing Karol enter the priesthood - and the boy certainly was successful at school - young Karol had visions of becoming an actor. He joined theatrical troupes at his school and in his community. Soon, he was acting and directing.
A handsome, athletic young man, he also loved sports: skiing, swimming, hiking, soccer and canoeing.
But there also was a somber side to his youth. Death haunted his family. Six years before he was born, his parents had a daughter who died at birth. When Karol was 8, his mother died. When he was 12, his brother Edmund, a doctor, died. When Karol was 20, his father died.
That was 1941, and Wojtyla also was chafing under the loss of his homeland to the Nazis. He continued participating in underground theater, but he saw Jewish friends disappearing, and he knew that his clandestine theatrics could lead to his arrest.
To avoid deportation, Wojtyla worked first in a limestone quarry and, later, in a chemical factory where his strength was taxed with heavy labor.
In the midst of this despair, he discovered the writings of St. John of the Cross, the 16th-century poet who wrote "The Dark Night of the Soul." The spiritual classic describes faith as the only safe guide through the suffering and emptiness of human life. Wojtyla devoured the works of this saint, and the experience led him to enter an underground seminary in 1942.
One famous example of his hard-edged pragmatism came in the early 1960s, long before he became pontiff. At the time, Pope Paul VI asked Wojtyla to join a special group of advisers to study the morality of artificial birth control. Eventually, a majority of the group voted to urge Paul to approve the practice. Wojtyla found himself in the minority, so he privately sent Paul a long paper arguing against artificial contraception. Not only did Wojtyla's paper convince Paul to reject the majority report, the words were so eloquent that Paul excerpted sections of Wojtyla's text in the encyclical "Humanae Vitae" ("Of Human Life"). Wojtyla had won, and artificial birth control was officially condemned.
Ultimately, John Paul's religious vision was so broad that he invited leaders of non-Christian faiths to help him break down barriers and discuss shared moral teachings.
He was most successful with Jewish groups, Rudin said. "John Paul will be remembered as the pope who permanently put improved Catholic-Jewish relations into the mainstream of the church's teaching. He has declared that anti-Semitism is a sin against God."
He also was warmly received by many Muslim leaders.
"People pay attention to him because of his personal charisma and his long record of consistently upholding the dignity of every human being," Martin Marty, the nation's leading historian of religion, said "People aren't moved by moralism anymore, they're moved by stories. And John Paul is a dramatic story: the story of a young actor who lived through World War II, of a priest and bishop under communism, of the first Polish pope, of a man who almost was assassinated."
"The Holy Father has touched the heart of the world," Detroit's Maida said. "People may not always agree with his message, but people respect him because, for so many years, he has been the rock of Gibraltar."
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