[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5762]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 HONORING THE LIFE OF POPE JOHN PAUL II

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay homage to the life of 
Pope John Paul II. Although I am deeply saddened by his passing on 
Saturday, April 2, I join my colleagues in honoring the extraordinary 
life that he led.
  Born in Poland in 1920, Karol Wojtyla secretly studied theology 
during the Nazi occupation, and then became a leader in the opposition 
to communism as a young priest and bishop. His elevation to the papacy 
in September of 1978 was full of symbolism and significance. Pope John 
Paul II was the first Slavic Pope and the first non-Italian Pope in 455 
years. During his 26-year papacy, he led the Catholic Church and its 
members with dignity and conviction. He traveled more miles, gave more 
speeches and published more material than any of his predecessors, and 
ushered the papacy into the modern era.
  In the insightful words of his biographer, George Weigel, his life 
was a witness to hope. He was a large influence in the collapse of 
communism in Eastern Europe and the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. His 
trip to his native Poland in 1979, just a year after his investiture as 
Pope, set the country spiritually afire against the communists and 
inspired the Solidarity movement on every level.
  His unique relationship with President Ronald Reagan, what Time 
Magazine called ``the Holy Alliance,'' enabled a bloodless end to the 
Cold War. President Reagan sent his top envoy, General Dick Walters, to 
the Vatican many times to take intelligence on the Communists to the 
Pope. In December of 1980, the Pope, the Reagan White House, the 
Solidarity movement and many other players were able to stop a planned 
Soviet invasion of Poland.
  Pope John Paul II also made friends of the progressive Russian 
President Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s who would later tell an 
Italian newspaper that what happened in Eastern Europe over these last 
few years would have been impossible without the Pope's presence.
  Pope John Paul II held a deep desire for the unity of the Christian 
churches, in particularly that of the Western Roman Catholic and the 
Eastern Orthodox Churches. He preached understanding between religions, 
and in his later years in the papacy, he astounded the world by 
visiting synagogues, mosques and Protestant churches. He sought 
reconciliation with the Jews, asking God's forgiveness for the sins of 
the Church against Christianity's ``elder brother'' by placing a 
memorable prayer on the Western Wall during a pilgrimage to the Holy 
Land in March 2000.
  As a Catholic who served as an altar boy and attended parochial 
school in my youth, I recall the pride I felt when, after an 
assassination attempt in 1981, Pope John Paul II sought out his 
assailant to offer him forgiveness rather than condemnation. He leaves 
behind a legacy of grace and compassion.
  Pope John Paul II spoke directly to the concerns of the family, 
understanding the family to be the foundation of a society rooted in 
relationships of love. He spoke frequently about human rights, 
especially the right to life. As a prolife obstetrician, I was inspired 
by his strong stance against what he referred to as a disturbing 
phenomenon of widespread destruction of so many human lives and the 
blunting of the moral sensitivity of people's consciousness because of 
it. He stood against this culture of death as a violation against the 
human person and against God, the Creator and Father. Without his 
tireless voice, these rights would be even further threatened.
  He shows us a great example of how to live, and then how to die. With 
his death, the world has lost one of the great figures of our lifetime, 
and his leadership will be sorely missed. My prayers today are of 
thanksgiving for his life and service to all humankind, and that we 
will continue on his sacred legacy.

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