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39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Totus tuus, March 28, 2008
This review is from: A Life with Karol: My Forty-Year Friendship with the Man Who Became Pope (Hardcover)
There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that John Paul II was the greatest man of my lifetime. I say this, by the way, as a non-Roman Catholic. No other world leader touched so many people or exerted such moral influence on the contours of the late 20th century. I didn't always agree with him--I thought his negative views of Latin American liberation theology too harsh, for example--but I never for a moment doubted either his integrity or his deep, deep spirituality. I look forward to the day when he's canonized.
Stanislaw Cardinal Dziwisz's A Life with Karol is a loving portrait of his forty years as John Paul's secretary. Dziwisz was in a perfect position to be John Paul's chronicler: an ever-present but unobstrusive spectator of the daily activities, private spiritual life, and public persona of first Karol Wojtyla, bishop, archbishop, and cardinal, and then John Paul II, Pope.
Dziwisz's memoir sheds interesting light on Wojtyla's embrace of Gandhian tactics of resistance to the Polish communist authorities--a fidelity to nonviolence that led him to speak out strongly against warfare in the closing years of his pontificate; Wojtyla's great reservations about accepting the College of Cardinals' election to the papacy; his deeply-engrained conciliar temperament, a spirit of collaboration and cooperation that endeared him to both clergy and laity alike; his firm resolve to continue the work of Vatican II; his emphasis on the "new evangelization," which sought to reinvigorate a West increasingly indifferent to religion, and the ardent Christian humanism that became its centerpiece; and his efforts toward interfaith dialogue. Along the way, Dziwisz also provides a look at the daily routine of the pontiff, his devotion to prayer and worship, funny accounts of sneaking the pope out of the Vatican so that he could go skiing, and a somber description of John Paul's final illness and suffering.
John Paul's total devotion to God--his personal motto was "totus tuus"--is the key to appreciating both life, theology, and accomplishments. Deeply grounded in scripture, an ardent defender of the Church's best moral and spiritual traditions but a courageous progressive when it came to human rights, labor and capitalism, and war and nonviolence, John Paul ultimately grounded everything he did in his love of God and his conviction that Christ is manifest in human beings. If there's a single overriding impression given in Dziwisz's memoir, it's that his entire life, lived in radical openness to God, was also radically open to his fellow humans.
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18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not About Forty Years of their Friendship, March 22, 2008
This review is from: A Life with Karol: My Forty-Year Friendship with the Man Who Became Pope (Hardcover)
Many biographies have been written about Pope John Paul II, and these have been both good and thorough (e.g. Witness to Hope by Weigel, His Holiness by Bernstein & Politi). Thus, the main reason for buying this book written by his personal secretary, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwsz, has to be the personal, behind-the-scenes stories he can tell of the human being who happened to be Pope John Paul II. As much is promised by the title of the book: A Life with Karol: My Forty-Year Friendship with the Man Who Became Pope.
The book does not deliver on its promise, however. By my count, there were maybe four instances where we get an eyewitness view from the cardinal: when he was called to be secretary, when they evaded security to go skiing soon after John Paul became pope, the attempted assassination, and the pope's last moments.
Other than those, the book seems to be written entirely in support of the cause for the sainthood of the pope. This is unfortunate, as the pope is turned from human being into something like a statue. For instance, the cardinal writes that "Once... I did see him get really angry," and as he tells the story, he writes that the pope "replied with something like ire in his voice." The pope is apparently incapable of real anger, only of something like ire. Even Jesus was capable of real anger!
In places, Cardinal Dziwisz speaks like an omniscient narrator, able to get into the thoughts of people, and making realizations on their behalf. Quite a few times, it made me stop and ask: how did he know that?
Perhaps it is to be expected, that having been so close to a great man, that there is that simultaneous desire to share and to not share, to tell the world all he knows but also to keep for oneself the best tidbits, and to make sure that nothing stands in the sainthood. Perhaps in the future, when sainthood is settled and years has passed, he will write another book and we will learn more about the human being that is Karol Wojtyla. But for now, to read about John Paul, go for the other biographies.
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13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
KAROL WHO?, May 12, 2008
This review is from: A Life with Karol: My Forty-Year Friendship with the Man Who Became Pope (Hardcover)
This book is one more fine tome praising the life and work of Karol Wojtyla, known to the whole world as John Paul II. It is a pleasant and defensive biography of the pope told by his friend of many years. Also, it stands as a nice promotion piece for his possible beatification or canonization.
But, the book is a huge disappointment in terms of revealing anything really personal about the man who elevated so many as Blessed or Saint for the homage of the universal church. The icon is preserved, but the real man called by the Spirit to be a saint and prophet among us remains hidden.
Did Karol Wojtyla: smoke, enjoy mystery or science fiction writing, watch favorite t.v. programs, have favorite films, explore the myriad halls and hidden doors within the Vatican, ever don a disguise and roam the streets of Rome, love chocolates, doff his cassock in favor of mufti, sing in the shower, have pets, shudder at the thought of a forthcoming visitor, get sick from a meal overseas, continue to swim in the famous papal pool, stop and chat with the Swiss Guards or play cards or table games with household workers, have hobbies, prepare a meal himself, and so forth?
So many years we watched him, admired him, were upliftred by him in good times and times of sorrow and sickness, and read his works. When will we know this man who loved to tease, had a playful side, and became a saint?
That is the book which is awaited. I wish Cardinal Dziwisz had shared more of this kind of thing, the insight of a friend.
THOMAS PATRICK HULL,
CHICAGO
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