final credits - john paul II

his life and times | web resources | electing a new pope | Pope Benedict XVI
the conclaves of 1978 | john paul I | the popemobile | assassination attempts
movies | recordings | exorcisms


John Paul II

For an entire generation, there has only been one pope.


The charisma of John Paul II's personality outshone all those of his predecessors, so much so that living memory is challenged to recall anyone else holding the pontificate.


The impact of his role as head of the Catholic Church and a figure in world politics will likely take another generation to measure.


Karol Józef Wojtyla died April 2, 2005 at approximately 9:37 pm Vatican time.


John Paul II held the papacy since October 16, 1978 when he was the surprise choice of the College of Cardinals. He succeeded John Paul I, Albino Luciani, who died after only 33 days in office. He was the 264th pope and ranks among the three who have served longest. St. Peter served from 32 to 67, and Blessed Pius IX held the post from 1846 to 1878. On October 16, 2003 John Paul II celebrated the 25th anniversary of his pontificate, and he became the third longest-reigning pope on March 14, 2004.


John Paul II holds numerous entries in the Vatican Book of Records. He was the first Slavic pope, the first non-Italian since Adrian VI (a Dutchman from Utrecht who died in 1523) and the youngest pope of the 20th century. He has declared 483 new saints, named 232 cardinals and beatified 1,345 people. He visited 130 countries and logged more miles than all other popes combined, earning him the nickname "the Pilgrim Pope." His combined travel distance would circle the globe 31 times. He met with over 800 heads of state and prime ministers. He was also known as the “Polish Pope” and the “People’s Pope.”


John Paul II spoke 11 languages, and could read many more. He was the first head of the Vatican to ride in a Popemobile. In May of 2001 he became the first pope to enter a mosque in an Islamic country, and during 1995's World Youth Day he spoke to a crowd of four million, the largest gathering before a pontificate. Two of John Paul II's plays were turned into movies, Marvel Comics produced his life story in comic book form in the early 1980s, and the most recent of his many recordings was released just a few years ago.


Karol Józef Wojtyla was born in Wadowice, Poland on May 18, 1920. He had a sister who died in infancy before he was born. In 1929, his mother died of heart failure. In 1932, he lost his older brother Edmund, a doctor, to scarlet fever. In 1941 he lost his father, the last of his family.


Wojtyla was one-fifth Jewish. He grew up in a mixed Christian/Jewish neighbourhood and his best friend was a young Jew named Jerzy Kluger. Karol learned to speak Yiddish, becoming the first pope to do so. Often when he and his school chums would divide themselves to play sports, Karol played for the Jews to help balance the numbers. Karol later said that as kids they felt united against the communists as they all prayed to the same God.


Karol Wojtyla was witness to the Nazi assault against his country. The invading occupiers sought to remove all trace of Polish culture and religion. Karol joined the underground and participated in a secret theatre company called 'The Rhapsodic Theatre' and directed by Tadeusz Kudlinski. In 1940 he became a stonecutter and later found a labourer's job at the Solvay Chemical Works. The factory job provided him with a work card that protected him from deportation to a labour camp.


During this time, Karol had two serious injuries. Knocked down by a streetcar, he suffered a fractured skull. Doctors said he had an improved memory as a result. Later, he was almost crushed by a runaway truck in a quarry, an accident that left him stoop-shouldered.


A year after his father's death, Karol secretly entered studies for the priesthood in Krakow's underground seminary. He became a priest in 1946 at the age of 26, became the youngest bishop in modern Polish history at age 38 and a cardinal at age 47. He became Pope at age 58.


John Paul II figured strongly in the headlines of the world press throughout his reign. He has even been credited with aiding the fall of communism in Europe.


Seven months later after being named Pope, John Paul II returned to Poland for a nine-day pilgrimage. Roughly a quarter of the nation's population heard him speak in 36 open-air meetings. The government had first rejected the visit. Trying to limit the impact, it muzzled advance publicity and refused to let workers take time off. He spoke of Poland's Christian roots and about the falsity of the communist regime. Those words were a direct challenge to the country's communist leaders.


Two years later, seeing the rise of popular movements such as Lech Walesa's Solidarity Party, Poland declared martial law. Walesa was an unemployed electrician who once scaled a wall to sneak into a ship-building facility he had been banned from for his labour union activities (a portion of that wall is now a historic monument). John Paul II's 1983 visit saw him defy Poland's martial law, openly supporting the Solidarity movement.


John Paul II's actions in his home country were done in secret consort with the Carter and Reagan administrations. Washington and the Vatican were in frequent contact at the time, and numerous behind-the-scenes were held between U.S. National Security Advisers and the pontiff. By 1989, Poland held the Soviet Bloc's first free election. Lech Walesa became President and was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.


Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev reflected years later, "It would have been impossible without the Pope." An Oxford University historian put it this way: "Without the Pope, no Solidarity. Without Solidarity, no Gorbachev. Without Gorbachev, no fall of communism." In 1989, Gorbachev visited the Vatican, a first for a Soviet leader.


May 13, 1981

On May 13, 1981, John Paul II survived an assassination attempt in St. Peter's Square when a 23-year-old Turk, Mehmed Ali Agca, fired three shots at close range, wounding the Pope in the abdomen, the left hand and right arm. John Paul II underwent five hours of surgery, and part of his intestine was removed.


Moments before the shooting, a handgun can seen pointed at the Pope.


He believes he survived the assassination attempt by the intercession of the Virgin Mary. He later visited his would-be assassin to forgive him in his prison cell. He also visited the shrine at Fatima to thank Mary for sparing his life when, incredibly, a priest with a knife lunged at him but was stopped before any harm was done. The last of the three shepherd children who claimed to have seen visions of the Virgin Mary at Fatima, Sister Lucia Marto, died February 13th, 2005. Lucia and her two cousins claimed the Virgin Mary foretold them of the assassination attempt.


In 1982, John Paul II performed the first of three exorcisms of his papacy. The details of these rituals were not reported for two decades. That same year he became the first pope to meet with a British monarch.


BB, the Pope and Lucille

John Paul II visited Canada in 1984, the first pope ever to do so. His 12-day visit was to have included a stop at Fort Simpson in the Northwest Territories, but it had to be cancelled because the airport was fogged in. He returned to Canada in 1987 to fulfill his promise to visit the town. The Pope's 2002 visit marked his third when he attended World Youth Day festivities in Toronto.


At left, the Pope, blues guitarist BB King and Lucille.


John Paul II will be remembered for trying to reconcile relations between Christians and Jews, and the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. In April, 1986 he made an unexpected visit to Rome's main synagogue, the first ever by a pope, praying with Rabbi Elio Toaff. In 1993 he signed a deal that established diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Israel.


In 2000 he made an unprecedented public statement seeking forgiveness for the sins and faults committed or condoned by the church in the 2,000 years of its history. Later that year he made his first visit to Israel, 36 years after Pope Paul VI, as part of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, following the footsteps of Moses and Christ. At a ceremony at the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem, and again at the Western Wall, he repeated his plea for forgiveness by the Jews for sins committed by the church.


In 1992, after 359 years, the Pope rehabilitated Galileo, condemned by the Church for saying Earth turns around the sun.


John Paul II had been a conservative and rather orthodox pope in terms of doctrine, rejecting the ordination of women, forbidding priests from marrying, backing an international campaign against same-sex unions and opposing birth control and abortion. His 1993 papal encyclical branded contraception, and sex before marriage as intrinsically evil. He broadened the scale of mortal sins to include abortion, euthanasia, drug dealing and drug taking, and he openly denounced the Mafia during a visit to Sicily.


For centuries, the Vatican regarded a pope's health as if it were a Soviet secret. During John Paul II's reign, the church has become much more transparent -- and in the last fifteen years they had much to deal with.


John Paul II had a benign bowel tumour removed in 1992. It was the size of an orange. His gallbladder was also removed at that time. In November, 1993 he fractured and dislocated his right shoulder during a fall. The Pope tripped on the hem of his robe and fell as he descended three steps from his throne to greet visitors at the Vatican. He was immobilised for a month with his shoulder encased in a soft cast.


In April, 1994 he fractured his right femur in a fall in his bathroom and had a hip joint replaced. Surgeons replaced part of the bone near the hip socket with metal alloys. In October, 1996 he underwent an emergency appendectomy. During a trip to Poland that same year, he fell again, suffering a head cut that required three stitches.


By 2001, John Paul II had visibly grown frail and had difficulty walking, even with a cane. He had trembling in his left hand and slurred speech that made it hard to understand his words. During his eighth visit as pope to Poland in August, 2002 John Paul II made a promise to remain in office until death. Austrian Cardinal Christof Schoenborn shattered traditional church silence on papal health, when he said in a September, 2003 interview that the Pope is "dying." Only four popes have resigned the office, the last being St. Celestine V in 1294.


On February 1st, 2005 John Paul II was rushed to hospital with severe respiratory problems linked to the flu. At the age of 84, he suffered from Parkinson's disease, an arthritic knee, an aching hip and the lingering effects of the 1981 assassination attempt. After a relapse three weeks later, doctors performed a tracheotomy to open the Pope's breathing passages. After losing 40 pounds, a feeding tube was inserted on March 30th.


The last two months saw John Paul II try to maintain the public visibility and accessibility that was a hallmark of his papacy. The world was witness to an ever increasingly frail Pope making appearances at his Vatican window. At times 70,000 people would gather on Saint Peter's Square near the Pope's residence, and public concern soon became a vigil shared by hundreds of millions around the world.


In John Paul II's final days, the Vatican issued regular and frequent bulletins to the media with specific details of his health, medical treatment and rites administered.


On April 1st, as the Pope's condition worsened, he had asked his aides to read biblical passages describing the 14 stations of the Way of the Cross, as well as the "Third Hour" scripture (according to Christian tradition, Christ died at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.). He also received the sacrament known as the Anointing of the Sick, commonly called Last Rites. Still attending to his duties, he appointed a dozen bishops and archbishops that same day. The Pope's last communique, written with the help of his private secretary, said, "I am happy, and you should be as well. Let us pray together with joy."


The Vatican then reported that the Pope's breathing had become shallow, that his kidneys had stopped functioning and that his blood pressure plummeted because of septic shock linked to a urinary tract infection.


On April 2, 2005 at 9:37 pm Vatican time, it was announced that Karol Józef Wojtyla, the 264th pope of the Catholic Church was dead. His funeral was held Friday, April 8th.


Pope John Paul II was buried with a white silk veil covering his face in three coffins: cypress, hermetically sealed zinc and oak. He is interred under a marble slab in St. Peter's Basilica in a grotto made vacant when the body of John XXIII's body was exhumed in 2001. John XXIII was moved to the main floor following his beatification 38 years after his death.


Pope John Paul II was not embalmed but only "prepared" for viewing by hundreds of thousands of mourners following his death. Massimo Signoracci, whose family embalmed the three previous popes, said he could not be certain what had been done without examining the body, but he suggested it appeared John Paul II's remains were touched up with cosmetics and that a light embalming would have been necessary for a body that is exposed for several days.


Asked if there had been an autopsy, a Vatican spokesman said: "No, the body was only prepared." He would not elaborate. Pope Pius X, who reigned from 1903 to 1914, abolished the custom of removing organs. Signoracci said his family had embalmed the remains of John XXIII in 1963, and of Paul VI and John Paul I, who both died in 1978.



The process of selecting a new pope was outlined by John Paul II himself in his 1996 Universi Dominici Gregis, outlined here. Roman Catholic cardinals chose April 18th as the start of the 2005 Conclave.



Web Resources




Additional information


The Conclaves of 1978


After the death of Pope John Paul I, on September 28, 1978, 111 members of the College of Cardinals met in a secret conclave in the Vatican to elect the 263rd successor to St. Peter as Bishop of Rome, with three cardinals acting as scrutineers. The conclave was divided between two candidates: Giuseppe Cardinal Siri, the Archbishop of Genoa, and Giovanni Cardinal Benelli, the Archbishop of Florence (and close associate of Pope John Paul I). Early ballots had Benelli come within as few as nine votes of being elected, the result of a rift that had developed among the Italian cardinals, the largest national group in the college.


Finally, in the eighth round of voting on October 16, the cardinals chose Karol Wojtyla as a compromise candidate, in part through the support of cardinals Franz Cardinal König and others who had previously supported Siri. Concerned with the plight of Catholics behind the Iron Curtain, the cardinals felt Wojtyla, a non-Italian, would best help 'internationalise' the church. Elected with with 99 of the 108 votes cast, Wojtyla accepted their decision and chose the name John Paul II.


Wojtyla had considered taking the name 'Stanislaus,' presumably to pay homage to the 11th century Polish saint. However Cardinal Franz König convinced him otherwise, suggesting blending the names of both the new Pope's short-lived immediate predecessor, and the popes just before, Paul VI and John XXIII, the two architects of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. The new Pope placated the shocked crowd of Italians who gathered in St. Peter's Square to greet this "man from far away" -- by speaking to them in Italian.



John Paul I


John Paul I’s quick death, only 33 days after election, caused worldwide shock. The official cause of death specified by the Vatican was a myocardial infarction, or heart attack. No autopsy was performed.


The veracity of the Vatican's reporting of events came into question when certain falsehoods came to light. There were questions about the identity of the person who found the body. The Vatican announced that the Pope's body was discovered by his Irish private secretary, Father John Magee. Years later it was revealed that a female servant had entered the Pope's bedroom when she noticed his breakfast tray had not been picked up. The Church said that it was unthinkable that a woman was in the Pope's bedroom, even if he was dead.


There were discrepancies about the time of the Pope's death, the book he had been reading and the disappearance of personal property. It was reported that his ill health was due to heavy smoking when in fact he never smoked.


The pope's body was embalmed within one day of his death. Rumours spread. One story claimed that a visiting prelate had inadvertently died from drinking "poisoned coffee" originally prepared for the pope. Another rumour described the pope's plans to dismiss senior Vatican officials over allegations of corruption. The sudden embalming suggested that it had been done to prevent a post-mortem. While the Vatican said papal post-mortems was prohibited under Vatican law, in 1830 a post-mortem was carried out on the remains of Pope Pius VIII, yielding evidence that suggested he had been poisoned.


John Paul I's death was featured in the movie "The Godfather, Part III" which speculates that he was murdered after discovering discrepancies in Church funds. The movie mistakenly uses 1979 as the year of his death, which actually took place in 1978. Sources: Wikipedia and CBC News.



The Popemobile


Pope to go

On May 13, 1981, the Pope was shot while riding in an open car in St. Peter's Square by Mehmet Ali Agca. This incident required security around the Pope be heightened during his travels.


For his 1984 visit to Canada, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops paid $260,000 to build two Popemobiles. They were basically GMC Sierra pickup trucks with a plastic shield and special fittings, a red velvet interior that came from Italy, air conditioning, AM-FM radio, a security communication device and a swivel chair. The vehcles were assembled at a plant in Pierreville, Quebec. The Pope was so impressed with the vehicle that he took one back with him to the Vatican. The other Popemobile was put on display at the National Museum of Science and Technology in Ottawa in the spring of 2005.


For his 2002 visit to World Youth Day celebrations in Toronto, Daimler Chrysler provided him with a mother-of-pearl coloured M430 Mercedes-Benz. That same year the Pope appealed to the media to stop referring to the custom-made vehicles as the "Popemobile" because the title was undignified.


When the Pope travelled to Manila in January, 1995 for World Youth Day celebrations there, a vehicle was made by Italcar Pilipinas (Francisco Motors Corporation). It is now parked at the Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene, also known as Quiapo Church, in Manilla. It became an instant "pilgrimage site" for the country's Pope devotees, but the white van, which sports the official seal of the Vatican, had to be cordoned off to prevent churchgoers from touching it. Some parishioners were rubbing their rosaries on the vehicle.


The locally assembled Popemobile, which featured puncture-proof tires and a Mazda truck engine, exceeded the specifications set out by Vatican security. They required only that the armour and glass should withstand shots from handguns, but the vehicle was been tested with Armalite fire. In 2005, tax evasion charges were filed in the Philippines against two top officials of Italcar.



Movies


Karol Wojtyla was the author of several plays before becoming Pope, one of if not the only Pope to gain notoriety in this field. He was also fan of Anthony Quinn, and he baptised Quinn's twin grandchildren personally. One of Wojtyla’s plays, called "The Goldsmith's Shop" and written under the pen name Andrzej Jawien, was the basis for the 1988 movie “La Bottega Dell'orefice,” directed by Michael Anderson and starring Burt Lancaster and Olivia Hussey. Another play became the 1997 movie “Our God's Brother,” directed by Krzysztof Zanussi.


The Pope’s life was the subject of two made for television movies. Albert Finney starred in 1984's "Pope John Paul II," and Krzysztof Zanussi directed Sam Neill in 1981's "From a Far Country."



Recordings


Numerous recordings of Pope John Paul’s spoken and sung passages have been released over the years. The latest, ”Abbŕ Pater,” combines contemporary instrumental, world music and classical music tracks with the Pope’s words (in Italian, Latin, English, French and Spanish), culled from recordings made by Radio Vatican over the 20 years of his papacy.



Assassination Attempts


Agca was a murderer who had escaped from a Turkish prison in 1979. He had ties to a neo-Nazi group, the Gray Wolves. Agca was tried by the Italian authorities and sentenced to life in prison. The assailant later said the shooting was a Soviet-inspired plot involving Bulgarian and Turkish agents. At the time, John Paul II was seen as an active participant in the destabilisation of communism in Eastern Europe, especially in Poland. Three Bulgarians and three Turks were arrested in the case, but in 1986 an Italian court found the evidence ambiguous and acquitted them. A link between the attack and the Bulgarian government was often asserted, but never proved.


In 1999 the Vatican endorsed Agca's clemency. In 2000, the Italian government pardoned Agca, who was then extradited to Turkey to begin serving a 10-year term there for the murder of a newspaper editor in 1979.


There were also forces within the Vatican, especially the so-called "freemason" faction, who opposed Wojtila. Would-be assassin Agca himself never revealed the truth in so many words, hinting only that he had some help from inside the Vatican. Agca, an excellent marksman, would have killed the pope if he had intended to, and his mission was thought to scare the Pope rather than kill. No definitive evidence has been found to support any of these theories.


On May 13, 2000 -- exactly 19 years after the shooting -- the Vatican disclosed the so-called third secret of Fátima, the last of three prophecies revealed to three Portuguese children by an apparition of the Virgin Mary. The prophecy of an attempt on the pope's life was given on May 13, 1917 at Fátima, Portugal.


Historians say the first secret prophesied the end of World War I and the coming of World War II, and the second supposedly predicted the spread and collapse of Communism and the resurgence of Christianity in Russia. The third secret was kept secret by five popes.


In Manila in January, 1995 a terrorist attack was uncovered involving Al-Qaida members Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheik Mohammed. A fortunate apartment fire led investigators to find Yousef's laptop computer which contained the terrorist’s plans. Clothes and other items were also found that suggested an assassination plot with a suicide bomber dressing up as a priest to get close to the Pope's motorcade. Yousef was arrested in Pakistan a month later, but Khalid Sheik Mohammed was not arrested until 2003.



Exorcisms


According to a New York Post article printed on February 19, 2002, John Paul II personally performed three exorcisms during his reign as pope. In 1982, the first exorcism was performed on a woman who was found writhing on the ground. His second exorcism took place in September, 2000 when he performed the rite on a nineteen-year-old woman who had become enraged in St. Peter's Square. A year later, in September 2001, he performed an exorcism on a twenty-year-old woman.




Electing A New Pope


The selection of the next pope has been outlined by John Paul II himself in a 1996 document called Universi Dominici Gregis. It outlines how his funeral will take place, who is to take over his ordinary duties before a new pope is elected, and how the election will proceed. Universi Dominici Gregis came into effect the moment it was announced that John Paul II had died.


Another document, which outlines instructions should he have become incapacitated, may or may not exist. That document would only have been unsealed if the Pope had fallen into a coma.


Some of the procedures surrounding the death of a pope are tradition rather than law. For example, a pope is declared dead only after his forehead is struck lightly three times with a silver hammer and his name is spoken to see if he responds. A cardinal known as the Camerlengo must then remove the Pescatorio or "Ring of the Fisherman" a symbol of papal authority. The ring is then smashed, along with the dies used to make lead seals for apostolic letters, so that no one else can exercise that authority.


Each pope names the individuals who will take over everyday responsibilities until a new pope is elected. In John Paul II's case, the Camerlengo is Eduardo Martinez Somalo of Spain.


In John Paul II's Universi Dominici Gregis, he specifies that the cardinals who have celebrated their 80th birthday before his death will not take part in the election. Funeral rites, known as "novemdiales," for the deceased Pope are to last nine consecutive days and the burial will take place between the fourth and sixth day. John Paul II left it up to the cardinals to decide when the funeral rites are to begin, and when and how the body will be brought to the Vatican Basilica for the homage of the faithful.


Universi Dominici Gregis demands secrecy and integrity in the period from his death to the election of a new pope. No one is permitted to photograph him on his sickbed or after death. Only the Camerlengo can give permission if photographs are to be taken for documention purposes, and the body must be wearing pontifical vestments.


During a papal election, called a 'conclave' (Latin for "with a key"), there is supposed to be no lobbying for votes. John Paul II warns that any electors who perpetrate the crime of simony -- the buying or selling of a church office -- face excommunication.


117 cardinal electors are to meet in St. Peter's Basilica between the 15th and the 20th day after the Pope's death. The cardinals will stay in a facility called Domus Sanctae Marthae from the beginning of the election until a public announcement is made. Of the 117 electors, 65 are European. North America will send 14, including 3 Canadians. 24 will be from Latin America, 13 from Africa, and 13 from Asia. The remaining five are from Australia and the South Pacific. The identity of a 118th cardinal has been kept secret by the Pope. In 2003, John Paul II named one cardinal "in pectore" -- "in the heart" -- whose identity will be revealed through instructions left by the Pope.


The election will take place exclusively in the Sistine Chapel. The facility will be swept for hidden electronic equipment and outside communication is subject to excommunication.


The voting process is an elaborate procedure with intense scrutiny. Ballots are collected, counted and pierced with a needle, placing them on a thread. The ballots are then placed into a small stove and burned. If the result of the vote is inconclusive, then chemicals to make the smoke black are added. White smoke declares that a new pope has been elected. The chemical additives were introduced in 1963 to more clearly differentiate between the two smoke colours.


For the 2005 Conclave, the Vatican announced the church would maintain the traditional ceremony but also ring the bells of St Peter's when there is a new pope. The system of coloured smoke caused confusion in the 1978 conclave when it appeared to be grey. Confused journalists and the public had to wait until a senior cardinal emerged onto a Vatican balcony to declare the decision.


If a new pope has still not been elected after three days, voting will be suspended for up to a day while prayer and informal discussions are held. Voting then resumes for seven ballots. If a new pope is still not elected, there is another day of prayer and discussion. If after several more rounds of ballots there is still no election, the Camerlengo will express an opinion on the manner of proceeding. The election will proceed based on what the absolute majority decides.


In 1268, a conclave lasted for 33 months. Townspeople removed the papal palace's roof so that without it the Holy Spirit could descend unhindered. The last conclave to last more than five days was in 1831. John Paul II also decreed that if after 28 ballots no one has been elected by the usual two-thirds majority, electors can vote to choose a pope with just an absolute majority, or opt for a majority runoff between the top two vote-getters from the previous ballot.


A pope-elect will then be asked if he wants to be pope. If he accepts the decision, the oldest cardinal appears at a platform overlooking St. Peter's Square and announces "Habemus papam," Latin for "We have a pope." Soon after, the new Pope is to step onto the balcony, blessing Rome and the world.


Pope John Paul II's Universi Dominici Gregis is available online.




Pope Benedict XVI


Pope Benedict XVI

On April 19, 2005, German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected on the fourth ballot on the second day of the 2005 conclave. He chose the name Pope Benedict XVI.


Pope Benedict XV served from September 1914 to January 1922. Ratzinger called his namesake "a simple, humble worker." Benedict XV's papacy was characterised as a pursuit for peace throughout the First World War.


Ratzinger is the first German pope since the 11th century, when Pope Victor II held the position from 1055-1057. The 2005 conclave was the second in a row to elect a non-Italian pope, after Italians had held the papacy for more than 450 years.


In 1980, Pope John Paul II asked Ratzinger to lead the Congregation for Catholic Education. He declined. A year later the Pope named Ratzinger prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, essentially making him John Paul II's right hand man. It was Ratzinger's role to maintain the church's opposition to birth control and to not further a greater role for women in the church. Ratzinger's liberal critics have referred to him as "The Enforcer," "The Hammer," "Cardinal No" and even "God's Rottweiler."


Ratzinger was born April 16, 1927 in Marktl am Inn, Bavaria. At 78, it has been suggested that he is too old, leading some to consider Pope Benedict XVI a "transitional" pope. It will be history that decides if "transitional" will necessarily mean status quo. Contrary to past conclaves, Ratzinger's early lead in popularity did not work against him.


After being introduced by Chilean Cardinal Jorge Arturo Medina Estivez, Pope Benedict XVI said, "Dear brothers and sisters, after the great Pope John Paul II, the cardinals have elected me — a simple, humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord. The fact that the Lord can work and act even with insufficient means consoles me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers."


For more about Pope Benedict XVI, visit the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's extensive indepth coverage. For the latest coverage of the 265th papacy, visit Google News.