Cartoon honours Pope John Paul II

(Source: www.bbc.co.uk)

The Vatican has approved, and will distribute, a cartoon DVD on the life and death of Pope John Paul II by Cavin Cooper Productions.

The multi-lingual DVD, called Pope John Paul II: The Friend of All Humanity, is the 11th film, and the first cartoon, about the life of the late pontiff. It is primarily aimed at children.

The 60-minute animated movie will show the history of a man who rose from war-torn Poland to become the first non-Italian pope since 1520.

"There are two reasons why this film was so important for me," says filmmaker Jose Luis Lopez-Guardia. "It was a tribute to Pope John Paul, and also for my mother, who adored him."

Two animated doves, named Piccolo and Fiona, will narrate the film. This, according to Lopez-Guardia, was deliberate since the late pope was often photographed surrounded by such birds. There is another reason.

"His life story is so serious, grave and even sad," the filmmaker says, "that I needed some funny characters to appeal to children and to lighten the story."

John Paul II's story is indeed quite dark at times. Born Karol Jozef Wojtyla on May 18, 1920 in Wadowice, Poland, he grew up during the Nazi occupation of World War II, and later became a priest during the post-war Soviet reign of terror. On October 16, 1978, he was elected pope after the sudden death of his predecessor Pope John Paul I. At 58 years of age, he was considered extremely young for the post.

His athleticism quickly earned him the nickname "the keep-fit pope." He also received honorary memberships in both FC Barcelona and FC Schalke 04 professional soccer teams, and the Harlem Globetrotters.

On May 13, 1981, he suffered the first of three assassination attempts when a Turkish gunman named Mehmet Ali Agca shot him as he greeted an enthusiastic crowd in St. Peter's Square. In March 2, 2006, an Italian parliamentary commission determined that that the Soviet Union was behind the attempt, since John Paul II had publicly supported anti-communist organizations like Lech Walesa's Solidarnosc. There were two other attempts on his life: one in 1982 by a bayonet-wielding ultra-conservative priest in Fatima, Portugal, and Al-Qaeda's failed Operation Bojinka in 1995.

Starting in 1992, his health declined due to low blood pressure and complications from Parkinson's Disease. However, this didn't stop him from logging 104 trips around the world, over 1.1 million kilometers.

He was also instrumental in improving relations with other religions. He was a close personal friend of the Dalai Lama, who visited him many times. In 2000, he apologized for Catholic persecution of the Jews while praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. In 2001, he was the first pope to visit an Islamic mosque when he prayed in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria.

In 1992, he apologized for the Catholic Church's trial of philosopher Galileo Galilei. He later apologized for the church's involvement in the African slave trade, the religious wars following the Reformation, the injustices commited against women in the Church, the inactivity of some Catholics during the Holocaust, the Crusader assault on Constantinople, missionary abuses against the indigenous people of the South Pacific, and the atrocities committed against Mesoamericans by the Spanish in the name of the Church.

Upon his death, the Jewish Anti-Defamation league said, "more change for the better took place in his 27 year Papacy than in the nearly 2,000 years before."

Time magazine named John Paul II as one of four people who shaped both the 20th and 21st centuries. He has also been called "the Great" by many people, including his successor Pope Benedict XVI.

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