Because of his position as the figurehead of the Catholic Church, the pope has often elicited extremist reactions. In particular, on May 13, 1981, before a crowd in Vatican Square, the pope survived an assassination attempt that left him seriously wounded. He eventually made a full recovery, and he even publicly forgave the man who shot and tried to kill him—a Turkish national named Mehmet Ali Agca—although Agca’s motives were never revealed. Among the numerous accomplishments during his papacy, John Paul II has opened up discussions of interfaith between the Catholic Church and other religions. His desire to accurately reflect the growing diversity of Catholics worldwide has led to the unprecedented appointments of African-Americans to prominent positions in the Vatican. He is the most widely traveled pope in history, having visited over 116 countries on missions of goodwill, promoting human rights, and condemning the decline of spiritual values brought about by the rising materialism of the twentieth century. Among his travels, in 1998 he made a highly publicized visit to Cuba, during which he helped to negotiate the release of 300 political prisoners. On March 20, 2000, the frail but determined John Paul II embarked on a much-anticipated pilgrimage to the Holy Land. While touring some of the most sacred areas of the Middle East—including the mountain where Moses is supposed to have died, as well as from the heights of Mt. Nebo (where, according to the Old Testament, God revealed to Moses the Promised Land that lay across the Jordan River)—the Pope extended a message to the Middle East to end centuries of violence. The Jordan’s King Abdullah II hailed the pope’s visit to the area as a “unique and emotional moment that brings closer the meaning of tolerance and coexistence from a distant land of dreams.”

Included in his ambitious six-day tour were a visit to Bethlehem, Mass at Galilee—the site of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount—and the first official papal visit to Israel. He spoke at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, telling a crowd that included Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, “I have come to Yad Vashem to pay homage to the millions of Jewish people who—stripped of everything, especially of human dignity—were murdered in the Holocaust.” In his speech, he did not remark upon the inaction of the Roman Catholic Church or Pope Pius XII during the Holocaust—for which, in 1998, the Vatican had already formally apologized.