[271] Mining mostly East German and Polish secret police archives, Koehler claimed the assassination attempts were "KGB-backed". Struck with two bullets, [24] He has been credited with fighting against dictatorships for democracy and with helping to end Communist rule in his native Poland and the rest of Europe. It was the first-ever Vatican event dedicated to the memory of the six million Jews murdered in World War II. Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio, SJ, the future Pope Francis, was also praying during those hours. [359], On 10 October 2019, the Archdiocese of Krakow and the Polish Bishops' Conference approved nihil obstat the opening of the beatification cause of the parents of its patron saint John Paul II, Karol Wojtya Sr. and Emilia Kaczorowska. [338][339] Some speculated that he would be beatified sometime during (or soon after) the month of the 32nd anniversary of his 1978 election, in October 2010. Otto von Habsburg (the last Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary), a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Germany, snatched Paisley's banner, tore it up, and along with other MEPs helped eject him from the chamber. The Polish Communist authorities abolished the Faculty of Theology at the Jagiellonian University, thereby preventing him from receiving the degree until 1957. Following 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, John Paul II believed that it was, in every instance, profaned by contraception, abortion, divorce followed by a 'second' marriage, and by homosexual acts. Subscriber Service CenterAlready a subscriber? [128], Keenly aware of the rhythms of time and the importance of anniversaries in the Catholic Church's life, John Paul II led nine "dedicated years" during the twenty-six and a half years of his pontificate: the Holy Year of the Redemption in 198384, the Marian Year in 198788, the Year of the Family in 199394, the three Trinitarian years of preparation for the Great Jubilee of 2000, the Great Jubilee itself, the Year of the Rosary in 20023, and the Year of the Eucharist, which began on 17 October 2004, and concluded six months after the Pope's death.[128]. [415] In 1998, when a certain German gathered various statements that were supposedly made by the pope and Cardinal Ratzinger, and then forwarded them to the Vatican in the form of a memorandum, Ratzinger responded in writing on 22 July 1998: "The only thing I can say regarding statements on Meugorje ascribed to the Holy Father and myself is that they are [frei erfunden] complete invention". Wojtya asked his younger companions to call him "Wujek" (Polish for "Uncle") to prevent outsiders from deducing he was a priest. [49] In that same year he had two major accidents, suffering a fractured skull after being struck by a tram and sustaining injuries which left him with one shoulder higher than the other and a permanent stoop after being hit by a lorry in a quarry. He attempted to solve the problems that had arisen over centuries between the Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches, and in 2004 gave them a 1730 copy of the lost icon of Our Lady of Kazan. Instead, the Pope simply led the Polish people to desert their rulers by affirming solidarity with one another.