Saint John Paul II
Be not afraid
The life of Karol Wojtyła — the young Pole who lived through the war, became a priest in secret, and grew into the pope who embraced the world.
16 episodes · Narrated in English, Portuguese, Spanish, French and German
Episode 1 is free
Episodes
- 01
Shots in the Square
Rome, late afternoon: a white jeep, a crowd, gunshots. And a Polish boy who lost his mother far too soon.
- 02
Lolek
A widowed father, a doctor brother, a school stage — and another death. What sustains a boy who is left more and more alone?
- 03
The Quarry
War closes the university. A poet breaks stone to avoid deportation — and loses his father, the last of his immediate family.
- 04
The Hidden Seminary
Laborer by day, clandestine actor by night, seminarian in secret: in occupied Krakow, Karol chooses between the stage and the altar.
- 05
The Kayaking Uncle
A priest who takes young people to the mountains and the lakes — and the police do not know what to call him.
- 06
The Cross of Nowa Huta
A council in Rome, a cross in an open field, twenty years of patience before a regime that planned a city without a church.
- 07
From a Far Country
Three popes in a single year, and a name no one in Rome knows how to pronounce.
- 08
Nine Days in June
A pope with no army comes home. An entire country takes to the streets and discovers how many they are.
- 09
Solidarity
A portrait on a shipyard gate. And a young Turkish man who crosses Europe with a pistol.
- 10
A Mother's Hand
A bullet that passes within millimeters of death. A pardon given before anyone asked for it. And a question with no answer: who gave the order?
- 11
The World Is His Parish
One hundred and four journeys. Favelas, stadiums, airports — and a wagging finger in Managua.
- 12
The Wall
A murdered priest, a round table, a Soviet leader in the Vatican. And historians still arguing to this day.
- 13
The Teacher and His Critics
A professor on the throne of Peter: lectures, encyclicals, a failed bank, two women friends — and critics who raise their hands.
- 14
Asking Forgiveness
A synagogue, a hillside in Assisi, a note in a crack of the Wall. Can so ancient an institution say “we were wrong”?
- 15
Let Me Go
The athlete becomes an old man before the cameras. And a whole square prays for a lighted window.
- 16
Sainthood Now?
Two miracles, less than a decade, an altar. And the questions that came afterward, asked by those who suffered abuse inside the Church.
How this series was researched
The narration and the place and date labels were broken down into factual claims and checked against sources: 656 claims in this series were checked against a cited source. Where the sources did not support a claim, the text was corrected or reduced to what the sources actually say.
A second, independent check then went through the whole series again.
The text was reviewed separately in each of the five languages it is narrated in.
Main sources
- Gift and Mystery (Dar i tajemnica) — John Paul II (1996)
- Biography of Karol Wojtyła before the pontificate — Holy See Press Office
- Homily at the inauguration of the pontificate — John Paul II (1978)
- Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II — George Weigel (1999)
- A Life with Karol — Stanisław Dziwisz (2008)
- Report on Theodore Edgar McCarrick — Secretariat of State, Holy See (2020)
Tradition and debate
Where the sources are thin or disagree, the series says so. For example:
- It is said that, as Karol was being born in Wadowice, a litany to the Virgin drifted in from the church through the open window.
- It is said that, when he was operated on after the 1981 attack, he asked the doctors not to remove the brown scapular he had worn since boyhood.
- His last words, “Let me go to the house of the Father,” come from those at his bedside; his secretary said a Polish nun heard them.
Read more on the Journal
John Paul II and the Fall of Communism: The Pope and the Year 1989
How a Polish pope's words — 'Be not afraid' — and his 1979 pilgrimage home helped ignite Solidarity and the peaceful collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.
Why John Paul II Was Shot: The 1981 Attack and the Forgiveness
On 13 May 1981, a gunman shot Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square. He survived, credited Our Lady of Fátima, and later visited his attacker in prison to forgive him.
