Cardinal Bertone: "Wojtyla defended life by showing his illness to the world"

“The whole of Karol Wojtyla’s life was one big testimony of the culture of life, particularly in moments of suffering. It can be said that suffering was another one of his encyclicals.”

The Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone highlighted this in a speech on this topic at a conference in Lotz, Poland. 

“One image that remains deeply imprinted in our minds - the cardinal said - are the slow steps John Paul II took with the help of his walking stick, marked by physical suffering, sharpened by his attack on 13 May 1981 and plagued by an illness that would accompany him until the end.”

 

In relation to this, the Secretary of State recalled That “Pope John Paul II never kept his illness a secret and never tried to hide it.” 

“Through his physical suffering he reminded us of the value of the Gospel of Life to which everyone is bound: individuals, families, associations and institutions.”

In his speech, which was published by Vatican daily broadsheet L’Osservatore Romano, Bertone recalled that as the “Son of the Polish Nation”  the Blessed John Paul II “brought the rich experiences of his country with him to the Holy See.” 

He also said Benedict XVI recognised that “the Pope needed this Polish heritage in order to be able to think within a varied cultural context.” 

“John Paul II lived his entire Episcopate during the communist dictatorship years and his youth during the Nazi occupation, gaining a first hand experience of the “ideologies of evil” - Bertone went on to say.

  

“This - he concluded – remains imprinted in one’s memory and cannot be blotted out, just like the tragedy of Second World War.” 

“In fact, the Pope, who was blessed last year, experienced the culture of death on so many occasions. And when after so many years, he visited Auschwitz as Pope, he remembered how he had begun his first encyclical with the words Redemptor hominis, dedicating the whole thing to the human cause, to human dignity, to the threats against him and finally to his inalienable rights, which can so easily be trampled on and destroyed by his fellow men!”