John Paul II, the pope who defeated communism

One hundred years ago, on May 18, 1920, Karol Wojtyla was born. A man who, by his courage, was going to contribute to the disappearance of the iron curtain. In this new episode of "At the heart of history", produced by Europe 1 Studio, Jean des Cars paints a portrait of the man who will become Pope John Paul II.

We are in Rome, Saint Peter's Square, on October 16, 1978, in the early evening. White smoke escapes from the Sistine Chapel. It is 6:43 p.m. when the silhouette of Cardinal Felici appears in the loggia. This prelate announces to the world, of course in Latin, the name of the new pope: "Habemus papam ... Cardinalem Wojtyla ..." The crowd does not understand the name of the one who was elected by the conclave. What country is he from? He's a Pole, the cardinal-archbishop of Krakow! 

Among the thousands of people in front of the Vatican, a little jubilant man, tears in his eyes. His name is Jerzy Turowicz. He is undoubtedly the oldest friend of the successor of Saint Pierre. He confirms that, for the first time, the Pope is a Pole. He would later add: "Moscow immediately saw an enemy in John Paul II. Such an event was unthinkable for the Kremlin ..." The following day, the Italian daily La Stampa confirmed that "The Russians would have preferred to see Solzhenitsyn become Secretary General of the UN rather than a Pole becomes Pope! ". This is also the opinion of the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal König: he sees in this election "a psychological earthquake for the whole of the East". 

In fact, Cardinal Wojtyla, if he is very well known in his diocese of Krakow, is far from being a star in his own country. Even the Prime Minister does not know much about him. As for the Primate of Poland, the famous cardinal Wyszynski, long black beast and victim of Stalin, but who ended up accommodating the communist regime in Poland, he participated in the conclave. Asked by his counterpart in Vienna about the possibility of the election of a Polish pope, he replied:

"A Polish pope? Impossible! I have to go back to Warsaw!" 

He had never thought for a second that the young and very active archbishop of Krakow could be the successor of St. Peter! And the Poles, what do they think? Bernard Lecomte, a biographer of John Paul II, tells us: "On the Rynek Glowny, the main square in Krakow, the young people started dancing, drunk with joy and hope, in front of the statue of their poet Mickiewicz Already, a few meters away, the faithful are many to give thanks, kneeling in the Notre-Dame basilica where a fortnight before, on the eve of his departure for Rome, Cardinal Wojtyla said his last mass as Archbishop of Krakow. These jubilant young people understood that the important thing is not the nomination of the "first non-Italian pope for 455 years", which is underlined by press agencies, radio and television stations around the world. elsewhere: the new sovereign pontiff is mainly Polish, Slavic, and comes from the communist world. "

These young people are right. The communist world has a concern. But who is this new Polish pope, who chose to be called John Paul II?

Youth under the Nazi boot 

Karol Wojtyla was born on May 18, 1920, in a recently unified and independent Poland since the Treaty of Versailles. His father was an officer in the 12th Infantry Regiment. He served during the war in the Austrian army of Emperor Habsburg Charles the 1st. Indeed, his hometown, Wadowice, near Krakow, was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This will allow Pope John Paul II, much later, when he receives, with great respect, in Rome, the Empress Zita, widow of Charles I, to say to her: "I wish to greet the sovereign of my dad..."

He was baptized on June 20, 1920. His family is very Catholic. She will experience a great misfortune with the death of the mother in 1929. Karol is 9 years old. It is the year of his first communion. Three years later, he lost his older brother, Edmund. Another tragedy ... The young boy is doing his secondary studies at the Marcin Wadowita school in Wadowice. Then enrolled at the famous Jagiellonian University in Krakow, while taking acting lessons. He is 19 years old. He is an intellectual, a poet, a philosopher, a linguist but also a sports lover of skiing and football. But he is also a devout Catholic.

Unfortunately, his destiny and that of his country changed abruptly: on September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland. German planes fly over Krakow and spread panic by throwing leaflets and then bombs. The inhabitants take refuge in the cellars. The young Karol serves mass in the cathedral of Wawel Castle which dominates the city. He does not stop in his priesthood. A few days later, the XIV German army invaded Krakow. The first decision of the invaders is to close Jagiellonian University. The intellectuals are punished: 300 academics are arrested and deported. To get a job card and escape the worst, Karol Wojtyla manages to find a place in a stone quarry in Zakrzowek. He'll smash blocks of pebbles by hand. The student became a worker.

In 1941 it was transferred to the Solvay chemical factory near Krakow. There he will purify the boilers. During the day, he is a force worker. After work, he attended the clandestine seminary of the Archbishop of Krakow, Mgr Sapieha, whose courage and firmness would mark Karol for life. In fact, in 1942, the year of the death of his father, he was sure of his priestly vocation. But that does not prevent this impassioned dramatic art and this gifted actor from continuing to play. At night, he rehearsals for the Rhapsody Theater, directed by his friends. They are represented clandestinely, in private apartments. 

A third secret activity is added to the two others, even more risky: he is part of a circle of resistant Christian Democrats. Karol manages to hide threatened Jewish families. He provides them with false documents. Remember that Auschwitz is only 50 km from Krakow ...

Karol quickly finds himself on a list of opponents wanted by the Gestapo. He narrowly escaped the big roundup of "Black Sunday" on April 6, 1944. The terrible period of war formed the character of Karol Wojtyla. First, he was a manual worker, which would make him say later, in front of a crowd of steelmakers: "The Pope is not afraid of workers!"

He also convinced himself that culture was a way of resisting oppression. He experiences it through theater and poetry. In addition, he learns to live in hiding. This will be useful to him in the communist period, when the government will prohibit all pastoral activity. He will turn the difficulty by taking his flock in mountain races, kayak trips, on football fields, where he will never fail to talk to them about religion. 

A career in the church during communism 

At the end of the war, Poland will be integrated into the Eastern bloc. And in December 1948, became a Stalinist. In this unfavorable context for the Catholic religion, however dominant in Poland, Karol Wojtyla will succeed in an exemplary journey. Karol resumes his studies at the major seminary in Krakow as soon as it reopens. At the same time, he continued his theological studies at Jagiellonian University. He was ordained a priest on November 1, 1946 in Krakow by Cardinal Sapieha, his mentor. He sent him to Rome in 1947. He worked there with a French Dominican and defended his thesis in theology devoted to faith in the work of Saint John of the Cross.

During his Roman stay, he devoted his free time to exercise his ministry with Polish emigrants who came to Rome. Upon his return to Poland, he was vicar in several parishes in Krakow before becoming chaplain to students until 1951. He resumed his studies once again. He is supporting a new thesis at the Catholic University of Lublin which this time deals with Catholic ethics. Then teaches moral theology and social ethics at the major seminary in Krakow and at the Faculty of Theology in Lublin. 

It was then that Karol found himself confronted with the great challenge of the communist dictatorship. In fact, in the heart of this Poland now under the thumb of Stalin, two islands of resistance appear. The center of workers' resistance is located in the Gdansk shipyard on the Baltic, while the center of intellectual resistance is in Krakow. The communist government does not like Krakow. He installed chemical complexes and blast furnaces to the east of the city. This set is called Huta Lenina and to the west is Huta Katovice, giant steelworks. 

To house workers, the Communist Party invented a new city, Nowa Huta in 1949. It is the architectural and social emblem of Communist Poland. Huge concrete HLM bars. And of course, Nowa Huta will not have a church. Karol Wojtyla will take up this challenge to Catholic Poland.

It will be a long fight. In the meantime, he continued his ascent in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. In 1958, Pope Pius XII appointed him auxiliary bishop of Krakow. In 1964 Paul VI appointed him Archbishop of Krakow and then Cardinal in June 1967. 

During all this period when he received the support of the Holy See, he managed to allow the inhabitants of Nowa Huta to hear masses. A large wooden cross is mounted in the middle of a vacant lot. Every Sunday, for years, he would say masses in the open air, in all weathers for 5 to 6,000 worshipers. On Christmas night 1971, to the fury of the regional authorities, Archbishop Wojtyla celebrated a midnight mass by candlelight in front of an immense crowd, who sang hymns despite the cold. 

It took seventeen years of fighting and open-air masses for Cardinal Wojtyla to finally obtain the construction of a church in Nowa Huta. He consecrated it on May 15, 1977 and then launched this sentence: "Nowa Huta was conceived as a city without God. But the will of God prevailed. Let this serve as a lesson!" We now understand why, the following year, it was he who the conclave chose in 1978 to be the 262nd pope, successor to the apostle Peter.

A missionary pope 

At the beginning of his pontificate, we did not know him well. It has been said that he was "a Polish dogmatic and provincial priest". Let Norman Davies, a historian from Poland, prove the contrary to us: "But the less well informed were quick to note that the former cardinal archbishop of Krakow was one of the most accomplished and charismatic successors than Saint Pierre would never have had it, even his enemies were forced - well with regret - to agree: Karol Wojtyla, of Wadowice, poet, playwright, philosopher, linguist, actor, skier, goalkeeper, worker, student and priest, a universal man, admirably in his place as head of the universal Church. "

The least that can be said is that its record is impressive: in twenty-six years of pontificate, Pope John Paul II made 104 apostolic journeys outside Italy and 146 visits to Italy. It granted 1,166 general audiences on Wednesday, not counting special audiences and religious ceremonies. During the great jubilee of the year 2000, it brought together eight million pilgrims. His love for young people led him to launch the World Youth Days in 1985 and the 19 WYD of his pontificate brought together millions of young people from various parts of the world. 

He paid particular attention to the family and organized world meetings for families in 1994. He promoted the spiritual renewal of the Church with the year of Redemption, the Marian Year and the Year of the 'Eucharist. He gave an extraordinary impulse to the canonizations and the beatifications. He was certainly the most publicized pope the Church has ever known. But, without a doubt, the most amazing thing he has accomplished is his encouragement and participation in the fall of communism.

John Paul II and the collapse of communism 

During his inaugural homily, a true enthronement ceremony, on Sunday October 22, 1978, Place Saint-Pierre, the new pope launched a cry of welcome to the world: "Do not be afraid! Open, open wide the doors to Christ"".

The pope is indeed not afraid and he turns out to be an excellent diplomat. During his triumphant first official visit to Poland, in 1979, he showed great courtesy to the highest authorities of the People's Republic. There is no frontal attack on the Communist bloc. 

Nevertheless, this Polish pope, fortified by his experiences as a citizen of a communist regime, breathed new energy and new confidence into the action of Catholics throughout the Soviet world. This is true for Poland but also for Hungary, for Czechoslovakia, for Lithuania and even for the isolated Catholic communities in the USSR: they are discreetly contacted and encouraged.

The path that the pope traces will turn into the Stations of the Cross on May 13, 1981. At the end of the afternoon, like every Wednesday in spring, the crowd invaded Saint Peter's Square to attend the general audience of the pope . John Paul II enjoys this weekly meeting with pilgrims from all over the world, contact with others. And it will cost him dear ...

At 5 p.m., the pope's white jeep slowly crosses the crowd. Standing, the pope, hanging with his left hand on the railing of his "papamobile", as he completes the tour of the square, blesses the crowd with his right hand. At 5:17 p.m., a killer, Ali Agça, who is 3 meters from him, raises his pistol and shoots the Pope twice. An accomplice, who was a little further away, shoots once. John Paul II collapses. He is hit in the stomach. His condition is worrying. 

The killer was arrested. A little nun dressed in black, sister Laëtitia, clung to him so furiously, screaming that he dropped her weapon. A plainclothes policeman immediately tackled him to the ground. The accomplice will be arrested later. The pope is operated. We know he will be saved. But this attack will leave him with after-effects until the end of his life. He will suffer from abdominal pain and fatigue. 

Who was Ali Agça? He was a Turk from a very poor region of Anatolia. He was recovered by a nationalist organization "gray wolves", funded by mafias. He was enrolled at Istanbul University and used as a henchman after being trained in shooting. And we provided him with weapons. 

Ali Agça's interrogations will be laborious. It was not until 1982 that a small Italian judge managed to make him speak. Ali Agça is said to have been charged with assassinating the Pope by the Bulgarian secret services. Everyone is aware that they are one of the armed arms of the KGB. We can never prove it. Even after the fall of communism and the opening of the archives, there will be no trace of sponsors. 

However, it seems obvious that the death of the pope would have arranged the eastern bloc well. Because this pope who galvanized their churches, gave them courage and hope, could only hinder them. Whoever the sponsors of the attack, its failure will only strengthen the aura and power of John Paul II. Henceforth, this pope is almost a martyr of the faith. His word will be heard even more than before.

It will take another nine years for the first crackles to be felt in the Soviet bloc. Admittedly, this pope is not the only cause of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. US President Reagan and his Star Wars had greatly weakened the USSR. But John Paul II was also a catalyst by supporting, for example, in Poland, the Solidarnosc movement and Lech Walesa. We know the rest. On February 21, 1990, thousands of pilgrims listened to John Paul II during his general audience. He begins his speech with: "It is God who won in the East!"

Five days earlier, John Paul II analyzed the succession of events which, in a few months, had redrawn the political map of Europe. Before the ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, he said: "Warsaw, Moscow, Budapest, Berlin, Prague, Sofia and Bucharest have become the stages of a long pilgrimage to freedom". The pope, victim of the attack, had paid the price for his courage. But he had also reaped the benefits.

Want to listen to the other episodes of this podcast?

>> Find them on our Europe1.fr site and on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Dailymotion and YouTube, or your usual listening platforms.

>> Find here the user manual to listen to all the podcasts of Europe 1

"At the heart of history" is a Europe 1 Studio podcast

Author and presentation: Jean des Cars 

Project manager: Adèle Ponticelli

Realization: Guillaume Vasseau

Diffusion and edition: Clémence Olivier

Graphics: Europe 1 Studio