A Life with Karol: My Forty-Year Friendship with the Man Who Became Pope

by Stanisław Dziwisz and Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz

Book Overview

This intimate, affectionate portrait of Pope John Paul II by his longtime secretary and confidant reveals fascinating new details about the opinions, hopes, fears, and dramatic life of this public... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385523742
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Image
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.6" x 1.0" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Pope John Paul II in the Context of Travels and World Events

Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz excerpts several main features of the life and ministry of Pope John Paul 11. He also provides eyewitness accounts of such things as the shooting of the Pope in 1981 and the death of this Pope in 2005. This book centers on the travels of Pope John Paul II. Dziwisz attributed the anti-clericalism of Mexico to the fact that many Mexican political and business officials are Masons. (p. 74). Much has been said about how Poland's Communist government had blamed Jews for Poland's problems, leading to many of them leaving Poland in 1968, and notwithstanding the fact that Gomulka's wife was Jewish. (pp. 31-32). What is often forgotten is the fact that the Communist government also frequently blamed the Church for Poland's problems; even accusing it of lack of patriotism for forgiving the Germans. (pp. 22-23). At times, Pope John Paul II had been accused of being soft on non-Communist authoritarian governments. This is untrue, as proved, for example, by the Papal visit with Augusto Pinochet of Chile. The Pope urged this leader to return power to the civil authorities, and later met with dissident Chilean politicians. (p. 104). After the fall of Communism, Pope John Paul II identified secularism as the main danger to Christianity and Poland. (pp. 200-205). Four years after his death, his warning is timelier than ever.

The Truth

I loved this book. Cardinal Dziwisz writes a poignant and beautiful memoir about his life in the service of Pope John Paul II. Many myths are dispelled and we learn the truth about the fall of Russia and the wall in Germany. Behind the scenes truths are revealed for the first time and if you like history this is must read!

A story about a wonderful coragous man who became pope

Pope John Paul II was one of the longest living and most dedicated pontiffs of our time. This book is truly the book to read to see what it was like to be in the Pontiffs shoes. It tells of his battles with communism and with war. With the everyday struggles he went through up until his dying day. It is truly a book that will give you the full feeling of what a wonderful and gifted Pontiff John Paul 2 was. One can only hope and pray that we who remember him as pope will one day get to remember him and honor him as a The People's saint.

A life with Karol

This book is an intimate look at Pope John Paul 11 through the eyes of his close friend Cardinal Dziwisz. The author was a personal friend of the Pope for about 40 years and he tells little interesting facts about the Pope that only a friend would know. The most interesting and touching part for me was the time the Pope was dying and the things he said and did before he died. Only someone who was at his dying bedside would know and share with us and this is done in this deep and loving book.The Pope's love of God and the church and the people of the world is so evident. When you finish the book you will have a lot to quietly ponder about this man who we called Pope John Paul 11.

Totus tuus

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.