Writer/Director: John Kent Harrison. Actors: Jon Voight, Cary Elwes. 186 minutes.
Pope John Paul ii (Karol Wojtyla) had only just returned from his native Poland on a politically charged visit when he survived the assassination attempt of May 13, 1981, in St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City. This, the opening scene of the movie Pope John Paul ii, harks to advice given the 58 year-old Wojtyla upon his election as Pope: Quo Vadis. Whither thou goest? When Peter, fleeing Rome, asks Christ, where are you going? Christ says, I am returning to Rome to be crucified again. Peter, too, returns to Rome then, choosing martyrdom. Thus is foretold the suffering the Pope will endure. And his life will be a chain of struggles to keep and foster faith and goodness in a world drenched in evil, manifested in violations ranging from the Nazi atrocities of his youth to the felling of the World Trade Center in the new millenium, and many, many crimes between and after against humanity the world over.
My memory of Pope John Paul ii's death is personal though and linked to that of my father’s only sister, my aunt, who held the Pope, in fond and high esteem even though she was not a practicing Catholic. My aunt, born in 1913, a midwestern farm girl, was in my own estimation a true modern woman, not because she never married, but because she pursued education and training and then served as a professional teaching social worker all her life. She also avidly loved the outdoors, and as a 60 year-old single woman became a backpacker. She was very near the end of her own life when Pope John Paul ii died, and I remember her expression of sadness when she learned it. Now, I like to imagine her hiking among the hills of her father's ancestral land, in what is now Poland, at the Pope’s side, talking and laughing in the presence of his larger than life beneficent spirit. So it is, that on New Year's Day, 2012, I am prompted after viewing this feature film about the events surrounding and in Pope John Paul ii's life to remember and write.
This is an engaging film, well written, produced, and acted, and anyone interested in Pope John Paul ii and the historical backdrop of his life and work, might find it rewarding viewing.
Excerpt from John Paul ii's 1999 Letter to the Elderly:
“And, when the moment of our definitive ‘passage’ comes, [Lord] grant that we may face it with serenity, without regret for what we shall leave behind. For in meeting you [Lord], after having sought you for so long, we shall find once more every authentic good which we have known here on earth, in the company of all who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith and hope."
