Pope John Paul II (1920-2005)

  

For me, it is always interesting to see the accomplishments of great people. In spite of his many physical struggles, the Pope always put the world before himself. How beautiful to visit so many wonderful places and to write books up until the last couple of months before his death.

I am so blessed to have lived in an era of such great examples of leadership as Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa, and Princess Diana. They traveled a journey of faith and hope, demonstrating to the world the value of brotherly love and world peace. How beautiful for them to get to know each other here on earth. How much more beautiful for them to meet again in heaven. We had them but for a little while, but now, these leaders, who were once part of our world, have joined forces as three great angels in the Army of God.

10/16/1978: First non-Italian pope elected in 455 years.
06/02-10-1979: Anti-communist pope receives hero's welcome in his native Poland.
06/07/1979: Says mass at Birkenau concentraion camp
09/29-10/08/79: Visits USA for first time. Addresses the United Nations in New York.
05/13/1981: Shot in abdomen and hand @ St Peter's Square, seriously wounded. Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turk, is arrested. Pope spends 22 days @ hospital.
05/12/1982: Spanish priest lunges at the pope with a bayonet during the first day of his trip to Fatima, Portugal. Pope is unhurt.
05/13/1982: Pope continues visit to Fatima. His visit comes on the anniversary of the first attempt on his life and the first of the Fatima visions. He credits the Virgin Mary with sparing his life in the 1981 shooting.
05/28/-06/02/1982: Bullet-proof car debuts on pope's trip to Great Britian.
09-15/1982: Pope holds the first of many meetings with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, angering many Jews.
12/27/1983: Pope meets with and forgives his would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca, in prison in Rome.
01/10/1984: USA and Vatican establish full diplomatic relations
01/13/1986: Pope prays @ Rome's main synagogue, the first ever recorded visit of a pope to a synagogue.
06/25/1987: Jews are angered when the pope receives Austrian President Kurt Waldheim at the Vatican. Waldheim served in a German army unit in the Balkans during WW-II that was involved in the deportation of tens of thousands of Jews and the mass killings of civilians. Waldheim was denied any wrongdoing.
12/01/1989: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev meets with pope at the Vatican and promises to allow religious freedom.
01/15/1991: Pope writes letters to President Bush and Iraqui leader Saddam Hussein in an attempt to avert the Gulf War.
04/13/1991: Pope appoints Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz the first Roman Catholic bishop of Moscow in six decades.
06/01/1991: Pope makes first trip to Poland since th country threw off its communist shackles. He visits again in August.
07/15/1992: Pope has surgery to remove a benign intestional tumor; spends 11 days in the hospital.
08/15/1993: Attends World Youth Day in Denver.
11/11/1993: Dislocates his shoulder in a fall and spends a day in the hospital.
12/30/1993: Israel and the Vatican sign an agreement to establish diplomatic relations.
04/29/1994: Breaks his right leg in a fall and undergoes hip replacement surgery. He is released from the hospital on May 27.
05/30/1994: Reaffirms the church's opposition to female priests in a letter to bishops, writing that the church "has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the church's faithful."
10/20/1994: Publishes "Crossing the Threshold of Hope"
03/25/1995: Issues his strongest denunciation yet of abortion, decrying what he calls a "culture of death" that he says includes euthanasia. The statement comes in the 11th encydical - a special letter reserved for matters of extreme importance to the church.
06/27/1995: Hosts a 4-day meeting with the leader of the Orthodox church, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, as part of the pope's efforts to unite the faiths.
10/08/1996: Undergoes appendectomy.
11/15/1996: Publishes "Gift and Mystery"
11/19/1996: Cuban President Fidel Castro has an audience with the pope
01/21-26/1998: Pope travels to Cuba and meets with Fidel Castro.
02/24-26/2000: Pope visits Mount Sinai in Egypt, revered as the place where Moses received the Ten Commandments.
03/20-26/2000: Travels to the Holy Land, saying mass at Manger Square in Bethelem and visiting Israel's Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. He prays at the Western Wall, where he places a written note asking God's forgiveness for Christian persecution of Jews.
05/13/2000: Third trip to Fatima, Portugal. Beautifies two of the shepherd children who reported seeing visions of the Virgin Mary in 1917.
08/1-19-2002: Ninth trip to Poland where he lived as a young man and served as archbishop.
03/2003: Publishes his first book of poetry, "Roman Triptych"
05/17/2003: Publicly announced that pope suffers from Parkinson's disease.
06/05/2003: Takes a five-day visit to Croatia, his 100-th foreign trip.
05/18/2004: Publishes "Get Up, Let Us Go", a book that recalls his years as bishop and archbishop, published on his 84th birthday.
08/15/2004: Breathes heavily and gasps during an open mass in Lourdes, France.
02/01/2005: Rushed to Rome hospital with breathing trouble. Released in 9 days.
02/22/2005: Publishes "Memory and Identity" based on moments after he was shot in 1981.
02/24/2005: Has surgery to insert a tube in his throat to aid respiration. Remains in hospital until March 13.
03/27/2005: Unable to celebrate Easter mass. He delivers a blessing to the people in St Peter's Square but is unable to speak.
03/30/2005: Getting nutrition from a feeding tube inserted through the nose.
04/02/2005: Pope dies with dignity at his Vatican apartment.