A Pope for the ages at the Crossroads of History
The election of Karol Wojtyla to the papacy in 1978 was greeted with astonishment and extravagant hope. After the death of two popes within months, John Paul II's youth and vigor were the source of new hope for the church. To the world beyonfd the Vatican, he seemed the most modern of men: a poet, actor, athlete, intellectual, and media wizard. For believers and nonbelievers, he seemed to be a pope for our time.

But in the twenty years he has commanded the world stage, re-invigorating the church in much of the world, he has emerged as a man at war with the twentieth century itself. As pope, he has defined himself by his opposition to many of the dominant secular ideologies and passions of our time. He has excoriated communism, feminism, capitalism, and consumerism. He has challenged our quest to maximize individual freedoms in the marketplace, in our bedrooms, even on our death beds. His insistence on God in our secular age poses the question: Is he lost or are we?

This film is a journey through the twentieth century to the sources of his character and his beliefs, and a journey into our passionate reaction to him. It's a journey that says as much about us as it does about him.