"Karol: A Man Who Became Pope"

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Did anyone see the film about Pope John Paul II?

“Karol: A Man Who Became Pope,” which aired on the Hallmark channel in August, is a beautiful film about the pre-papal life of the man the world knew as John Paul II.
Piotr Adamczyk does a marvelous job as Karol Wojtyla; the brutalities of the Nazi occupation of Poland and the skullduggeries of Poland’s communists are powerfully conveyed. At the end, when Karol becomes pope, viewers can only conclude that this was a life in which grace built on remarkable natural gifts to produce a compelling witness to the power of truth and love in human affairs.

Which is precisely the conclusion one should draw from the early life of Karol Wojtyla. The problem is that “Karol” fictionalizes — and in some cases falsifies — the late pope’s pre-papal life I counted five historical errors or falsifications in the first four minutes of the film. There is no room here to list, in numbing detail, the dozens of things the filmmakers got wrong. It is important, however, to flag several major distortions and falsifications, before the mythologists completely take over the late pope’s story.
 
Saw it in August - LOVED IT!

Now, what I want to know is if it’s on DVD or coming out on DVD?
 
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Fitz:
Did anyone see the film about Pope John Paul II?

“Karol: A Man Who Became Pope,” which aired on the Hallmark channel in August, is a beautiful film about the pre-papal life of the man the world knew as John Paul II.
Piotr Adamczyk does a marvelous job as Karol Wojtyla; the brutalities of the Nazi occupation of Poland and the skullduggeries of Poland’s communists are powerfully conveyed. At the end, when Karol becomes pope, viewers can only conclude that this was a life in which grace built on remarkable natural gifts to produce a compelling witness to the power of truth and love in human affairs.

Which is precisely the conclusion one should draw from the early life of Karol Wojtyla. The problem is that “Karol” fictionalizes — and in some cases falsifies — the late pope’s pre-papal life I counted five historical errors or falsifications in the first four minutes of the film. There is no room here to list, in numbing detail, the dozens of things the filmmakers got wrong. It is important, however, to flag several major distortions and falsifications, before the mythologists completely take over the late pope’s story.
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Fitz - you need to give credit or a link to the article you are quoting from. I read George Weigel’s column in our diocesan paper yesterday… It amounts to plagiarism if you use his words and make them appear as your own. Thanks.
 
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Regi:
Fitz - you need to give credit or a link to the article you are quoting from. I read George Weigel’s column in our diocesan paper yesterday… It amounts to plagiarism if you use his words and make them appear as your own. Thanks.
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Thought I did include the link, sorry. My mind is playing tricks on me… I will look for the link.
eppc.org
When I copied it I thought the authors name was under the title and for some reason it did not come along like the beginning of the article. Hope you all find it.
 
Sorry, I sounded a little crabby earlier - that is what happens when I can’t sleep and get up at 5:00 in the morning…

I don’t understand why they could not just tell the true story in the movie, without embellishing it with fabrications and lies. The story of JPII’s life is interesting and wonderful enough without adding these things.

Thank you for adding the link - it is an interesting article from someone who knew JPII very well.

God bless! 🙂
 
I saw the movie when it aired, I thought it was wonderful. Actually, I taped it the next time it was on and I’ve been meaning to watch it again. I sniffled through most of it!

It’s disappointing to hear about the inaccuracies though. I figured the producers would take some poetic license, but not that much.
 
Very nice film. I looked to see if it was available anywhere on the net but no luck. Of course, any docu-drama is going to be a stretch.

I would be interested in knowing if there is a source where one could buy the actual presentations of the various papal trips that aired on TV at the time - Boston, Central Park… His sermons were really extraordinary in very many instances. I like’d to watch the real thing again. EWTN archieves is an amazing resource but none of these papal trips are included in their listing.
 
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Regi:
Sorry, I sounded a little crabby earlier - that is what happens when I can’t sleep and get up at 5:00 in the morning…

I don’t understand why they could not just tell the true story in the movie, without embellishing it with fabrications and lies. The story of JPII’s life is interesting and wonderful enough without adding these things.

Thank you for adding the link - it is an interesting article from someone who knew JPII very well.

God bless! 🙂
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No problem. I always add what I write in red so people can tell what I say and that it is not the author. However this time I left off the link by mistake. I know at 5am I would not be myself either.

I don’t like Hollywood embelishing on Pope John Paul II’s personal life to make it more secular. I think that is upsetting. Other than that is sounds good. I would like to see it.
 
We get the CBC network where I live, and I saw the movie. I liked it too. I really enjoyed seeing how he dealt with the nazi persecution and never waivered in his faith.

I hear a sequal to the film is being made to detail his Papacy. (spelling?)
 
Our local Catholic Paper, Catholic review, had this article from the author of the Pope’s bio, George Weigel. It has all the specifics if you are interested:

Karol: A Man Who Became Pope,” which aired on the Hallmark channel in August, is a beautiful film about the pre- papal life of the man the world knew as John Paul II. Piotr Adamczyk does a marvelous job as Karol Wojtyla; the brutalities of the Nazi occupation of Poland and the skullduggeries of Poland’s communists are powerfully conveyed.

At the end, when Karol becomes pope, viewers can only conclude that this was a life in which grace built on remarkable natural gifts to produce a compelling witness to the power of truth and love in human affairs.

Which is precisely the conclusion one should draw from the early life of Karol Wojtyla. The problem is that “ Karol” fictionalizes, and in some cases falsifies, the late pope’s pre- papal life.

There is no room here to list, in numbing detail, the dozens of things the filmmakers got wrong. It is important, however, to flag several major distortions and falsifications, before the mythologists completely take over the late pope’s story.

The personal drama of the first half of “ Karol” includes the resolution of the young man’s relationship with “ Hania,” in real life the Polish actress Halina Krolikiewicz Kwiatkowska. Karol is portrayed as torn between the priesthood and his love for Hania. There is a wrenching moment when, during World War II, Hania blunders into a church and finds Karol in a cassock. “ Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks; “ I’m sorry,” he answers, in what is clearly intended to be the film’s emotional hinge.

None of this is true. Karol Wojtyla and Halina Krolikiewicz were good friends, but there is no indication that they were planning marriage. Moreover, the real- world Halina was very much part of Karol Wojtyla’s discussions with his friends about his vocation.

The filmmakers want viewers to think that Hania, who doesn’t marry for seven years, was virtually crushed by Karol’s decision; in fact, the real- world Halina married shortly after the war and Father Karol Wojtyla baptized her first child in November 1946.

It gets worse. “ Hania” moves to America where she is miraculously cured from a lethal disease through the intercession of Padre Pio, to whom her former boyfriend, now a bishop, had spoken of her illness. But this incident, in reality, involved someone else entirely – Dr. Wanda Poltowska, whom Bishop Wojtyla met in the late 1950s, not during the war.

And still worse: “ Father Tomasz Zaleski,” who, before he’s shot by the Nazis, is portrayed as Karol’s close boyhood friend and, later, spiritual adviser, is a complete invention. Young Karol Wojtyla did have a spiritual director, Father Kazimierz Figliewicz, but he was not his contemporary and was not shot by the Germans.

The film does manage to credit the lay mystic Jan Tyranowski as an important influence on Wojtyla. The portrait of Tyranowski is all wrong, though, and his meeting with Wojtyla is re- created as a kind of divine accident. Karol runs into a house to avoid the Gestapo and bumps into … the man who introduces him to St. John of the Cross! In fact, the pastor of Karol’s Kraków parish asked Tyranowski to take charge of the local youth ministry, and Tyranowski deliberately recruited Wojtyla.

The filmmakers also invent a member of a Wojtyla youth group who is really working for the SB, the secret police. This is not only a total fabrication; it’s an insult to the men and women who were, in fact, Karol Wojtyla’s closest lay friends, and whose networks were certainly not penetrated by Polish intelligence.

Legitimate artistic license cannot mean fiction that distorts the truth about a person.
Karol Wojtyla’s story is dramatic enough without fictional add- ons. The makers of “ Karol” didn’t understand that. Others pondering similar films should do better.

George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D. C.
 
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