What were some of the accomplishments of Pope John Paul II?

Answer:

1. He effectively restored the role of the Pope as an evangelist.

2. He brought back to the office the dynamism it had lost over the centuries.

3. He, through his convictions and faith, brought the revolution of conscience that was the single most important factor in the fall of communism

4. He is considered, through his influence the most effective recruiter of priests of the last 25 years.

5. His most important contribution to the body of knowledge of God was the Theology of the body, which according to some, it is destined to change the way the world views sexuality. For he describes spousal intimacy as an image of God's internal life. (I personally believe that this will earn him the title of Doctor of the Faith)

6. He commissioned the New Catechism and was deeply involved in the process.

7. He created the new canon law for oriental churches.

8. He achieved an unprecedented level of dialogue with the separate Christian brothers and signed several joint theological declarations with some separate oriental churches.

9. He reinstated the interrupted theological dialogue with Judaism, our older brothers in the faith.

10. He gave testimony through pain and insisted that pain is a blessing.

11. He "oiled the wheels" of the arthritic central bureaucracy of the church.

12. He added the luminous mysteries to the Rosary (I personally always wondered why the joyful mysteries address Christ life before his public life, the sorrowful His Passion and the glorious His resurrection and Glory, but there were no mysteries in regards to his public life)

13. He put forward the objectives of Council Vatican II and committed the church irrevocably to the route marked by it, as understood in light of the church tradition and teachings, and away from both the incorrect interpretations of the Marxist filters and the flat rejection of the ultra conservatives.

14. He intervened decisively in the III CELAM (Conference of the Latinoamerican Episcopate) to convince the bishops from Latin America that Liberation Theology, while it had valid points in its demands for power for the suffering, basically reverted as a mirror image of the structures it was criticizing.

15. Through his appointments, he made sure that his succesor would be elected by the most multinational conclave in history.

16. He renovated the process Beatification and Canonization.

17. He performed more Beatifications and Canonizations than all his predecesors together.

18. He brought back the role of the church as intermediary in international disputes, particularly when it involves two catholic adversaries.

19. He wrote an impressive amount of document that touch each and every aspect of Catholic life and the most pressing issues around the world.

20. He has invited The orthodox and the protestant to envision a Papacy that can work for the whole christian communion.

21. He has published several Best Sellers (including the Cathechism).

22. All in all, his papacy has been the most important since the council of Trent at the very least, and experts agree that it will (and has alredy started) define the course of the church for centuries to come.