Word: polishers
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...early 20th century world about as intensely as it was imaginable to do and still survive it. Born in 1920, as Poland, a once great power, was moving toward its postwar sovereignty after more than a century of bitter subjugation, the army officer's son planned to study the Polish language at Krakow's Jagiellonian University. That aspiration--along with Poland's short-lived autonomy--was dashed when Germany invaded in 1939 and Wojtyla was plunged into a firsthand study of successive totalitarianisms. Forced to work at a limestone quarry, he risked his life by studying at a clandestine seminary...
Then John Paul's personal history, his duties as Pontiff and the late 20th century's greatest drama merged in a breathtaking manner. The election of a Polish Pope posed an implicit challenge to Poland's Soviet-backed regime, a challenge John Paul quickly made immediate with two visits home. His first, in 1979, drew enormous, bloc-shaking crowds. On the next trip, after he told the restive populace to "be not afraid" and declared in the holy town of Czestochowa that "man cannot remain with no way out," the new Solidarity free-trade-union movement made him its virtual...
...next decade, John Paul, in secret contact with Polish leader Wojciech Jaruzelski and Soviet and U.S. leaders, adroitly balanced his role as the union's champion with his resolve that no Polish blood be spilled. When Jaruzelski, fearing a Soviet invasion, declared martial law in 1981, the Pope mystified the West by disagreeing with U.S. sanctions. But his forbearance allowed him to attain a position of near partnership with the communist regime. Poland rolled back martial law in 1983 and--with the acquiescence of Mikhail Gorbachev--communism itself in April 1989. The largely peaceful transition seems to have influenced Gorbachev...
Edmund Cardinal Szoka, a Polish-American who heads the government of Vatican City, was one of just four Cardinals called to the bedside of Pope John Paul II in the papal apartment on Friday. TIME?s Jeff Israely spoke at length Saturday with Szoka, 77, the former Archbishop of Detroit, as he sat in his office inside Vatican city...
...Szoka: Archbishop Dziwisz met me at the door and took me in the room. The Holy Father was lying in his bed, but they had his head propped up with pillows. There were three doctors alongside the bed and his five Polish nuns standing along the wall. [The pope] was having real trouble breathing. But he was perfectly alert. When he saw me I could tell he recognized me, it was like his eyes lit up and then he sort of bowed his head. I went and kneeled at his bedside and kissed his hand. I told him that...