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The teachings of Pope John Paul II are contained in a number of documents. It has been said[ who? ] that these teachings will have a long-lasting influence on the Church. [1]
Pope John Paul II's philosophical and theological teachings and writings were characterised by explorations in phenomenology and personalism. [2] He was influenced by Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac, Yves Congar, Karl Rahner, his predecessors as Archbishop of Kraków Eugeniusz Baziak and Adam Stefan Sapieha, and his predecessors as pope – John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul I. His closest theological adviser was Cardinal Ratzinger, who succeeded him as pope. Stanislaw Dziwisz was his personal secretary for forty years and one of his closest friends and advisers, and became Archbishop of Kraków, John Paul's former post, and Cardinal. John Paul met regularly with the cardinal prefects and presidents of curial congregations and councils, and outlived many of them.
John Paul II published the Catechism of the Catholic Church , which became an international best-seller [ citation needed ]. Its purpose, according to the Pope's apostolic constitution Fidei Depositum was to be "a statement of the Church's faith and of Catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium." He declared "it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith" to "serve the renewal" of the Church.
Right after being elected as pope, he told the cardinals who elected him that he saw that his main work was to implement the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, an important centrepiece of which is a universal call to holiness. This is the basis for his canonization of saints from all walks of life, as well as for establishing and supporting the personal prelature of Opus Dei, that teaches that everyone is called to holiness and that ordinary life is a path to sanctity.
His first encyclical letters focused on the Triune God; the very first was on Jesus the Redeemer ("Redemptor hominis"). He maintained this intellectual focus on God throughout his pontificate.
In The Splendor of Truth ("Veritatis Splendor"), a papal encyclical concerning morality, he emphasised the dependence of man on God and his law ("Without the Creator, the creature disappears") and the "dependence of freedom on the truth." He said that man "giving himself over to relativism and scepticism, goes off in search of an illusory freedom apart from truth itself."
In his master plan for the new millennium, the apostolic letter At the beginning of the third millennium, ("Novo Millennio Ineunte") a "program for all times", he emphasised the importance of "starting afresh from Christ": "No, we shall not be saved by a formula but by a Person." Thus, the first priority for the Church is holiness: "All Christian faithful...are called to the fullness of the Christian life." Christians, he writes, contradict this when they "settle for a life of mediocrity, marked by a minimalist ethic and a shallow religiosity." He highlighted "the radical message of the gospels," whose demands should not be watered down. The "training in holiness calls for a Christian life distinguished above all in the art of prayer."
His last encyclical is on the Holy Eucharist, which he says "contains the Church's entire spiritual wealth: Christ himself." Building on his master plan further, he emphasised the need to "rekindle amazement" on the Eucharist and to "contemplate the face of Christ."
John Paul II's strong Marian devotion was highly influenced by the Mariology of Saint Louis de Montfort. According to his apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae , the pontif's personal motto "Totus Tuus" was inspired by St. Louis' doctrine on total consecration to the Virgin Mary, which he quoted:
In an address to the Montfortian Fathers, the pontiff also said that his reading Saint Louis de Montfort's work The True Devotion to Mary was a "decisive turning point" in his life. [4] On September 19, 1996, Pope John-Paul II made a papal trip to Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre to meditate and pray on the adjacent tombs of Saint Louis de Montfort and Blessed Marie Louise Trichet, whom he beatified himself.
His encyclical Redemptoris Mater further emphasizes his focus on Mariology. [5]
John Paul II also wrote extensively about workers and the social doctrine of the Church, which he discussed in three encyclicals and which the Vatican brought to the fore through the recently published Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Through his encyclicals, John Paul also talked about the dignity of women and the importance of the family for the future of humanity.
Other important documents include the encyclicals The Gospel of Life ("Evangelium Vitae") and Faith and Reason ("Fides et Ratio"), and the apostolic letter "Light of the East" (Orientale Lumen).
John Paul II reaffirmed the Church's clear opposition to contraception, abortion and homosexual activity. His book Memory and Identity said that the push for same-sex marriage might be part of a "new ideology of evil... which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man." He refined some of these positions in their theological context in his Theology of the Body lectures.
John Paul II, who was present and very influential at the 1962–65 Second Vatican Council, affirmed the teachings of the council and did much to implement them. John Paul II continued to declare that contraception, abortion, and homosexual acts were gravely sinful, and, with Joseph Ratzinger (future Pope Benedict XVI), opposed Liberation theology.
He believed in the Church's exaltation of the marital act of sexual intercourse between a baptised man and woman within sacramental marriage as proper and exclusive to the sacrament of marriage that was, in every instance, profaned by contraception, abortion, divorce followed by a further marriage, and by homosexual acts. He explained and asserted in 1994 the Church's lack of authority to ordain women to the priesthood. This was deemed a repudiation of calls to ordain women to the priesthood (apostolic letter 'Ordinatio Sacerdotalis'). In addition, John Paul II did not end the discipline of mandatory priestly celibacy, although he allowed a few married clergymen of other Christian traditions who later became Catholic to be ordained as Catholic priests.
John Paul II, as a writer of philosophical and theological thought, was characterized by his explorations in phenomenology and personalism. He is also known for his development of the Theology of the Body.
Philosophers and theologians influenced by him include[ citation needed ] his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, Jürgen Habermas, John Haas, Andrew Greeley, Rocco Buttiglione, Hans Köchler, George Weigel, Scott Hahn, Mary Beth Bonacci, Deirdre McQuade, Antoinette Bosco, Hans Küng, Yves Congar, Avery Dulles, John J. Myers, Raymond Leo Burke, Joseph Bernardin, Francis George, Timothy Dolan, Edward Egan, John O'Connor, Fabian Bruskewitz, Christoph Schönborn, Stanisław Dziwisz, Franciszek Macharski, Józef Glemp, Peter Hans Kolvenbach, Paolo Dezza, Pedro Arrupe, Óscar Romero, Mother Teresa, Walter Kasper, Michael Fitzgerald, Jean-Marie Lustiger, André Vingt-Trois, Jarosław Gowin, Christopher West and Elio Sgreccia.
The Rosary, also known as the Dominican Rosary, refers to a set of prayers used primarily in the Catholic Church, and to the physical string of knots or beads used to count the component prayers. When referring to the prayer, the word is usually capitalized ; when referring to the prayer beads as an object, it is written with a lower-case initial letter.
Kalwaria Zebrzydowska is a town in southern Poland with 4,429 inhabitants. As of 1999, it is situated in Lesser Poland or Małopolska. Previously, the town was administered within the Voivodeship of Bielsko-Biała (1975–1998).
Stanisław Jan Dziwisz is a Polish prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as Metropolitan Archbishop of Kraków from 2005 until 2016. He was created a cardinal in 2006. He was a long-time and influential aide to Pope John Paul II, a friend of Pope Benedict XVI, and an ardent supporter of John Paul II's beatification.
Virginis may refer to :
Catholic Mariology is Mariology in Catholic theology. According to the Immaculate Conception taught by the Catholic Church, she was conceived and born without sin, hence Mary is seen as having a singular dignity above the saints, receiving a higher level of veneration than all angelic spirits and blessed souls in heaven. Catholic Mariology thus studies not only her life but also the veneration of her in daily life, prayer, hymns, art, music, and architecture in modern and ancient Christianity throughout the ages.
The Immaculate Heart of Mary is a Roman Catholic devotion which refers to the view of the interior life of Mary, her joys and sorrows, her virtues and hidden perfections, and, above all, her virginal love for God the Father, her maternal love for her son Jesus Christ, and her motherly and compassionate love for all mankind. Traditionally, the Immaculate Heart is depicted pierced with seven swords or wounds, in homage to the seven dolors of Mary and roses, usually red or white, wrapped around the heart.
Totus tuus is a Latin greeting which was routinely used to sign off letters written in Latin, meaning "all yours", often abbreviated as "t.t.". In recent history Totus tuus was used by Pope John Paul II as his personal motto to express his personal Consecration to Mary based on the spiritual approach of Louis de Montfort and the Mariology in his works. The pontiff explained the meaning further in his 1994 book Crossing the Threshold of Hope where he defines it as not only an expression of piety but also of devotion that is deeply rooted in the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity.
Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre is a commune in the Vendée department in the Pays de la Loire region in western France.
True Devotion to Mary is a 1712 book by Saint Louis de Montfort on the Roman Catholic theme of devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The original manuscript was discovered in 1842. The book was first published in 1843, more than a century following de Montfort's death in 1716.
Rosarium Virginis Mariae is an apostolic letter by Pope John Paul II, issued on October 16, 2002, which declared from October 2002 to October 2003 as the "Year of the Rosary". It was published by Pope John Paul II in 2002 at the beginning of the twenty-fifth year of his pontificate.
Ad Caeli Reginam is an encyclical of Pope Pius XII, given at Rome, from St. Peter's Basilica, on the feast of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the eleventh day of October, 1954, towards the end of the Marian year, in the sixteenth year of his Pontificate. The encyclical is an important element of the Mariology of Pope Pius XII. It established the feast Queenship of Mary.
The theology of Pope Pius XII is reflected in his forty-one encyclicals, as well as speeches and nearly 1000 messages, during his almost 20-year pontificate. The encyclicals Mystici corporis and Mediator Dei advanced the understanding of membership and participation in the Catholic Church. The encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu began opening the door to historical-critical biblical studies. But his magisterium was far larger and is difficult to summarize. In numerous speeches Catholic teaching is related to various aspects of life, education, medicine, politics, war and peace, the life of saints, Mary, the mother of God, things eternal and temporal.
The history of Catholic Mariology traces theological developments and views regarding Mary from the early Church to the 21st century. Mariology is a mainly Catholic ecclesiological study within theology, which centers on the relation of Mary, the Mother of God, and the Church. Theologically, it not only deals with her life but with her veneration in life and prayer, in art, music, and architecture, from ancient Christianity to modern times.
Throughout history, Catholic Mariology has been influenced by a number of saints who have attested to the central role of Mary in God's plan of salvation. The analysis of Early Church Fathers continues to be reflected in modern encyclicals. Irenaeus vigorously defended the title of "Theotokos" or Mother of God. The views of Anthony of Padua, Robert Bellarmine and others supported the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, which was declared a dogma in 1850.
The Mariology of the popes is the theological study of the influence that the popes have had on the development, formulation and transformation of the Roman Catholic Church's doctrines and devotions relating to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Mariological papal documents have been a major force that has shaped Roman Catholic Mariology over the centuries. Mariology is developed by theologians on the basis not only of Scripture and Tradition but also of the sensus fidei of the faithful as a whole, "from the bishops to the last of the faithful", and papal documents have recorded those developments, defining Marian dogmas, spreading doctrines and encouraging devotions within the Catholic Church.
Le pèlerinage de Lourdes is the only encyclical of Pope Pius XII issued in French. It includes warnings against materialism on the centenary of the apparitions at Lourdes. It was given at Rome, from St. Peter's Basilica, on the feast of the Visitation of the Most Holy Virgin, July 2, 1957, the nineteenth year of his pontificate.
The Pope John Paul II bibliography contains a list of works by Pope John Paul II, and works about his life and theology.
The rosary is one of the most notable features of popular Catholic spirituality. According to Pope John Paul II, rosary devotions are "among the finest and most praiseworthy traditions of Christian contemplation." From its origins in the twelfth century the rosary has been seen as a meditation on the life of Christ, and it is as such that many popes have approved of and encouraged its recitation.
Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, TOSD was a French Catholic priest known for his preaching and his influence on Mariology. He was made a missionary apostolic by Pope Clement XI. Montfort wrote a number of books which went on to become classic Catholic titles and influenced several popes. His most notable works regarding Marian devotions are contained in Secret of the Rosary and True Devotion to Mary.