![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Kindziuk-libro-1-1-862x1024.jpg\")
How did you come up with the idea of \u200b\u200bwriting a book\non the mother and the father of Saint John Paul II, and what sources did you\nuse for it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The book is the result of an extensive study of the\nPope\u2019s family. A few years ago, I published a book on Emilia, Karol\u2019s mom. I\nwas especially interested in understanding who this woman was, mother of the\nfamily in which the future Pope would grow up. I was fascinated by her heroic\nattitude, when, despite a difficult pregnancy that threatened her life and the\nlife of her baby, she refused the abortion recommended by her doctor, giving\nbirth to a completely healthy son who would later become Pope. I agree with Mr.\nRenzo Allegri, the well-known Italian journalist and writer, who in a book by the\nintriguing title The Two Mothers of Pope Wojtyla: Emilia Kaczorowska and\nGianna Beretta Molla<\/em>, paralleled the life of Saint John Paul II\u2019s mother\nwith the fate of the saint who sacrificed her life to say \u201cno\u201d to abortion.\nBoth these women, as Mr. Allegri points out, survived the great drama of\nmotherhood: they had to choose between their own life and the life of the child\nthey carried, and both chose to save the child by sacrificing themselves. Two\nheroic mothers, martyrs and saints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The life of Karol Wojty\u0142a\u2019s mother was very short though…<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s true. Emilia died in 1929, but recently I managed\nto find new oral and archival testimonies about her life and her troubled\npregnancy. I also collected new documents concerning her husband, Karol Wojty\u0142a\nsenior, who after the death of his wife cared for his son, Karol junior, with\ngreat dedication until his death in 1941. Having so much unpublished and\ninteresting material, I wrote a biography of both spouses: a historical\nbiography, but at the same time also a spiritual one. I have also tried to show\nthe context in which their lives took place: the late nineteenth and early\ntwentieth century, when southern Poland, where the Wojty\u0142as lived, was part of\nthe Austro-Hungarian Empire; then the heavy experience of the First World War\n(1914-1918); and finally the time when Poland regained independence in 1918.\nBut I concentrated more on the daily family life of Emilia and Karol, a very\nsimple existence in the midst of which they constantly manifested their faith,\nlove, and Christian values \u200b\u200bin an extraordinary way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What fo we know about Emilia Kaczorowska?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Emilia was born in Krakow in 1884 and grew up in the same\ncity. There in 1906 she married Karol Wojty\u0142a, a military man. Lieutenant\nWojty\u0142a was transferred to Wadowice in 1913, and the life of the Wojty\u0142as became\nintimately linked to that city\u2014although during the First World War they had to escape\n(spending a whole year in Moravia, now in the Czech Republic). Emilia and Karol\nhad three children, one of whom, a girl, died a few hours after birth. The\neldest son, Edmund, became a doctor and died at the age of 26, struck by\nscarlet fever contracted while saving a patient. When Emilia gave birth to her second\nson, Karol junior, in 1920, her own health condition was profoundly undermined.\nThe future Saint John Paul II always remembered her as a suffering person, but\nextremely tenacious, loving, and courageous. Karol probably learned from her his\ngreat sensitivity to human suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The beatification process will concern both spouses, but\nobviously also evaluate them separately…<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, there will be two separate canonical trials,\nconducted by two independent tribunals, although the subject of their married\nlife will be important. In fact, only one miracle obtained by the intercession\nof both will be enough to decree them Blessed. It is interesting to note that,\nthanks to the declarations left by Saint John Paul II on his parents, the Pope\nindirectly will be considered one of the witnesses of the double beatification\nprocess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What testimonies did St. John Paul II leave about his\nparents?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Saint spoke a lot about his father, with whom he\nspent many important years of his life. He said of him: <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy father has been admirable and almost all my\nmemories of my childhood and adolescence refer to him. The violence of the\nvicissitudes of life that affected him opened up his immense spiritual depths;\nhis pain became prayer. The mere fact of seeing him kneeling had a decisive\ninfluence on my young years. He was so demanding of himself that he had no need\nto show himself as being demanding with his son: his example was enough to\nteach discipline and the meaning of suffering. He was an exceptional being. He\ndied rather suddenly during the war, under the Nazi occupation. I was not yet\ntwenty-one years old.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the future Pope was 12 years old, he heard his\nfather saying memorable words: \u201cYou are not a good altar boy! You don\u2019t pray to\nthe Holy Spirit enough. You must pray to Him.\u201d Karol taught his son to pray in this\nway; the Pontiff himself recalled it years later: \u201cIt was a great spiritual\nlesson for me, longer-lasting and stronger than all that I received through my many\nreadings and studies. In a certain sense, I owe him my encyclical on the Holy\nSpirit.\u201d St. John Paul II was aware of the impact exerted on him by the great\nfaith of his father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Pope also left memories of his mother, saying that\nshe was the person who taught him the sign of the Cross as his first prayer. \u201cThis\nmystery was taught to me by the hands of my mother, who, by folding my little\nhands, showed me how to draw the Cross, the sign of Christ, who is the Son of\nthe living God.\u201d Emilia dreamed that one of her children would become a priest\nand the other a doctor. Saint John Paul II recalled this speaking to the French\nwriter Andr\u00e9 Frossard: \u201cMy mother wanted two children: one a doctor, the other a\npriest; and my brother was a doctor and, despite everything, I became a priest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Can we say that the sanctity of the future Pope was\nborn in his family?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There is no doubt that the Pope\u2019s spirituality was formed\nin his family, mainly thanks to the behavior and faith of his parents. Cardinal\nDziwisz, who has been close to Saint John Paul II for over forty years, is also\nconvinced of this, from having listened to the Saint\u2019s memories of his mom and\ndad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An interview with Milena Kindziuk, author of the first biography of Emilia and Karol Wojty\u0142a.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":15808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"An interview with Milena Kindziuk, author of the first biography of Emilia and Karol Wojty\u0142a.","format":"standard","video":"","gallery":"","source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override":[{"single_blog_custom":"","sidebar":"","second_sidebar":"","share_position":"","share_float_style":"","post_date_format":"","post_date_format_custom":"","post_reading_time_wpm":"","zoom_button_out_step":"1","zoom_button_in_step":"1","number_popup_post":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"","single_post_gallery_size":""}],"trending_post_position":"","trending_post_label":""},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"510"},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[510,805],"tags":[3390,3389,720,7104,911,3388,3387,3391],"class_list":["post-16146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family","category-foreground","tag-beatification","tag-biography","tag-catholic-church","tag-famiglia-3","tag-family","tag-karol-wojtyla-2","tag-pope-saint-john-paul-ii","tag-roman-catholicism"],"yoast_head":"\n