SR0145 94TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

SR0145 LRB094 11932 CSA 44606 r

SENATE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, Pope John Paul II passed away on April 2, 2005; and

WHEREAS, Pope John Paul II was born Karol Jozef Wojtyla on May 18, 1920, in Wadowice, Poland, the second son of Karol Wojtyla Sr., a retired army officer and tailor, and Emilia Kaczorowska Wojtyla, a schoolteacher of Lithuanian descent; and

WHEREAS, He was a brilliant student and athlete, excelling at skiing, swimming, kayaking, and soccer; his earliest passions were religion, poetry, and the theater; and

WHEREAS, After the Germans invaded Poland, he escaped deportation and imprisonment in late 1940 by taking a job as a stone cutter in a quarry and then in a chemical plant, while at the same time studying at an underground seminary in Krakow; and

WHEREAS, He was eventually ordained in 1946, assuming priestly duties in 1949 as Chaplain to university students at Krakow's St. Florian's Church; the Church was located next to Jagiellonian University where he was working on his second doctorate degree in theology, having already earned a doctorate in philosophy; when the University's Theology Department was abolished in 1954 under pressure from the communist government, the entire faculty reconstituted itself at the Seminary of Krakow, where he continued his studies; and

WHEREAS, When the Vatican Council II began the deliberations in 1962 that would revolutionize the Church, Karol Wojtyla was one of its intellectual leaders and took special interest in religious freedom; the same year, he was named the Acting Archbishop of Krakow when the incumbent died; he was officially installed as Archbishop in March 1964; and

WHEREAS, He made a name for himself both as a formidable theologian - he taught at the Krakow Seminary and the Catholic University of Lublin - and as a staunch defender of Catholic interests; and

WHEREAS, He was elevated to Cardinal on June 26, 1967, and was formally installed in a Vatican ceremony two days later; despite his prominence and the respect in which he was held by his fellow Catholics, his election as Pope John Paul II on October 16, 1978, came as a surprise; and

WHEREAS, He was the first-ever Slavic Pope and the first non-Italian to serve in office since the German and Dutch Pope Adrian VI assumed the papacy in 1522; his Polish heritage was a great source of pride for the one million people of Polish ethnic descent living in Illinois; and

WHEREAS, Pope John Paul II revolutionized the papacy that oversees the spiritual lives of over one billion Catholics; a conservative and champion of long-standing Church traditions, he was also the most-traveled Pope in history and very much a man of the world; he first traveled as Holy Father to Chicago in 1979; and

WHEREAS, As Pope, his support of the Solidarity movement was instrumental and ultimately led to the downfall of the communist government; John Paul's role in the fall of communism was a subtle but crucial one; his visit to Poland in 1979, eight months after his elevation to the papal throne, saw the first mass gatherings ever witnessed in the communist state; and

WHEREAS, Pope John Paul II brought a strong focus on human rights to his preaching and his travels gave his teachings a global political impact unknown to previous Popes; in Poland, Eastern Europe, Africa, the Philippines, Haiti, and dozens of other places, the Pope's preaching on human rights and individual liberties helped inspire those who fought for political change; as Pope, he not only spread the gospel, but also transformed the Roman papacy into an authoritative spokesman for human rights; and

WHEREAS, Pope John Paul II was the first to visit a synagogue and the memorial at Auschwitz to victims of the Holocaust; in ending the Catholic-Jewish estrangement, he called Jews "our elder brothers"; the Pope expanded upon that in a March 2000 speech in which he asked forgiveness for many of his Church's past sins, including its treatment of Jews, heretics, women, and native peoples; and

WHEREAS, Pope John Paul II was the third longest-serving pontiff in history, behind St. Peter's 32 years and Pope Pius IX's 31 years and seven months; his humanity, love of children, and ceaseless efforts to bring the Catholic message to as wide an audience as possible marked him as one of the dominant and most-respected figures of the 20th century and early 21st century; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE NINETY-FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we mourn the passing of Pope John Paul II, as he was an extraordinary hero for our times; he was an inspiring leader of the Catholic Church, a wonderful warrior for freedom and democracy, and people will never forget the role he played in giving inspiration and hope to the people of Poland; he truly was a great man of holiness.