John Paul II: A Tribute in Words
and Pictures
by Monsignor Virgilio Levi
and Christine Allison
Completed July 2000
I knew little about the life of Karol Wytolja (who became John Paul II). The vastness of experiences struck me so powerfully. Here is a man who was an actor, saw many of his childhood Jewish friends killed by the Nazis, went to seminary during Nazi occupation under constant threat of death, ran a smuggling operation to get religious articles into Eastern Bloc countries, ministered to blue collar and intellectual parishes, speaks 7 or more languages and has theologized on the connection between the most mystic of Catholic thinkers (St. John of the Cross) as well as the most intellectual. For one man to have such wide experiences and reconcile them so humbly and so well is itself a wonderful testament to the breadth of the Catholic Church and of the vastness of God's love.
I would very much recommend the book to both Catholics and non-Catholics. The book does a marvelous job weaving together John Paul's biography, a history of the Catholic Church from Vatican II to today and the theological underpinning of some of today's more controversial Catholic teachings into a single unified work. I found that it provided inspiration to me as a Catholic, and would guess that a non-Catholic would find it provided good insight into Catholicism, its beliefs and the significance of the Pope (so often misunderstood by non-Catholics).