108TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. CON. RES. 313
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
To urge the President, on behalf of the United
States, to present the Presidential Medal of
Freedom to His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, in
recognition of his significant, enduring, and his-
toric contributions to the causes of freedom,
human dignity, and peace and to commemorate
the Silver Jubilee of His Holiness’ inauguration
of his ministry as Bishop of Rome and Supreme
Pastor of the Catholic Church.
108TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. CON. RES. 313
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Whereas His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, was born Karol
Jozef Wojtyla in Wadowice, Poland, on May 18, 1920,
the youngest of 3 children, born to Karol Wojtyla and
Emilia Kaczorowska;
Whereas Pope John Paul II personally suffered and experi-
enced deprivation from an early age, losing his mother,
eldest brother, and father before turning age 21;
•HCON 313 EH
Whereas Pope John Paul II found comfort and strength in
the example of his father’s faith, who he observed ‘‘after
my mother’s death, his life became one of constant pray-
er. Sometimes I would wake up during the night and find
my father on his knees . . . his example was in a way
my first seminary’’;
Whereas Pope John Paul II was enrolled in Jagiellonian Uni-
versity in Cracow in 1939, which was closed by the Nazis
during their occupation of Poland;
Whereas Pope John Paul II experienced the brutishness of a
godless totalitarian regime, which sought to eradicate the
history and culture of a proud people and sent many of
his professors, friends, and millions of Polish Jews to
camps where they were systematically murdered;
Whereas Pope John Paul II was himself arrested by Nazi oc-
cupation forces in 1942, but his life was spared because
of his employment at a limestone quarry, work deemed
essential to the war effort;
Whereas Pope John Paul II courageously defied the Nazi oc-
cupation forces, risking his own life to protect Polish
Jews from persecution, helping to organize the under-
ground ‘‘Rhapsodic Theatre’’, which he intended to be ‘‘a
theatre . . . where the national spirit will burn’’, writing
two religious plays considered subversive to the Nazi re-
gime, and enrolling in the clandestine seminary of Arch-
bishop Sapieha of Cracow, where he studied religion, the-
ology, and philosophy;
Whereas the Nazi occupation of Poland was ended only by
the imposition of a communist era of occupation that
sought to subjugate Polish citizens, extinguish Polish na-
•HCON 313 EH
tionalism, and subjected the exercise of individual reli-
gious liberty to the control of godless Stalinist rulers;
Whereas Pope John Paul II was ordained in 1946, later be-
coming a Professor of Ethics and Chaplain at the Catho-
lic University of Lublin, the only Catholic university be-
hind the Iron Curtain, where he, again at great personal
risk, initiated activities that helped to preserve the intel-
lectual, cultural, and historical richness of his homeland
and protected the integrity and independence of the
Catholic Church in Poland;
Whereas Pope John Paul II was an articulate and outspoken
advocate for religious freedom and Christian humanism
at Vatican Council II, asserting that the Church could
not claim religious liberty for itself unless it was willing
to concede it to others;
Whereas Pope John Paul II, upon returning to his homeland,
frequently cited the Council’s declaration that religious
freedom was ‘‘the first of human rights’’, a phrase em-
braced by Polish Catholics in their struggle against the
hegemony of the communist regime;
Whereas Pope John Paul II, on October 16, 1978, was elect-
ed the 264th Pope, making history by becoming the first-
ever Slavic Pope and the first non-Italian Pope in more
than 400 years;
Whereas October 22, 2003, marked the Silver Jubilee of His
Holiness’ inauguration of his ministry as Bishop of Rome
and Supreme Pastor of the Catholic Church, signifying
Pope John Paul II’s completion of 25 years as the spir-
itual leader of more than 1,000,000,000 Catholic Chris-
tians around the world, including more than 66,000,000
Catholic Christians in the United States;
•HCON 313 EH
Whereas Pope John Paul II was a unique, substantial, and
historic catalyst in the demise of Soviet communism and
the emancipation of hundreds of millions of people from
totalitarian rule;
Whereas Pope John Paul II, in his inaugural sermon, boldly
offered hope to oppressed peoples around the world while
causing authoritarian rulers to brace by proclaiming
‘‘open the boundaries of states, economic and political
systems, the vast fields of culture, civilization and devel-
opment. Do not be afraid.’’;
Whereas Pope John Paul II returned to his native Poland for
9 days in June 1979, unleashing patriotic and religious
forces that would ultimately lead to the peaceful toppling
of the communist regime in Poland and the dramatic de-
mise of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union;
Whereas Pope John Paul II, before visiting his native Poland
in 1987, met with President Ronald Reagan, who recog-
nized the fruits of His Holiness’ labors by stating ‘‘be as-
sured that the hearts of the American people are with
you. Our prayers will go with you in profound hope that
the terrible burden of brave people everywhere who yearn
for freedom, even as all men and women yearn for the
freedom that God gave us all. . . . We see the power of
the spiritual force in that troubled land, uniting a people
in hope, just as we see the powerful stirrings in the East
of a belief that will not die despite generations of oppres-
sion. . . . For despite all the attempts to extinguish it,
the people’s faith burns with a passionate heat: once al-
lowed to breathe free, that faith will burn so brightly it
will light the world.’’;
Whereas Pope John Paul II was recognized by Lady Mar-
garet Thatcher to have ‘‘provided the main impetus for