Pope John Paul II’s long and active papacy resulted in many history accomplishments including:

• Visited 129 countries, making him the most traveled pope. Covered 723,723 miles, which is about 30 times around the globe.
• Is believed to have been seen by more people than anyone else in history.
• Beatified 1,338 people and canonized 482 people, more than all his predecessors over the past 500 years combined.
• First Polish pope and the first non-Italian pope in 455 years.
• First pope to visit a synagogue
• In 1998, the Vatican issued an “act of repentance” for the church’s failure to deter the Nazi genocide against Jews in World War II.
• Directed that Galileo, imprisoned by the Inquisition in 1633 for asserting the truth of Copernicus’ theory that the Earth circles the sun, be fully rehabilitated.
• Delivered the most sweeping papal apology ever — in March 2000 — repenting for the errors of the church over the last two millennia, citing wrongs against Jews, women, immigrants, the poor and the unborn.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, April 2nd, 2005 at 11:56 pm and is filed under The Life of Pope John Paul II. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.