188 PIOTR H. KOSICKI
the nature of their involvement in the life of the Church. The cap-
stone event of Wojtyła’s pre-pontifical years was the synod that he
launched in Kraków in 1972, which then met on and off through
- The Kraków metropolitan even put his own ideas up for de-
bate: just before the synod opened, he published a book-length
treatise on how to breathe life into the conciliar documents.197
It was Vatican II that launched Wojtyła as an international
mover and shaker in the Catholic Church. In addition to shaping
the letter of its reforms, he made extensive contacts in the Holy
See over the course of the Council. Though unknown in the Vati-
can at the Council’s outset, work in successive Council commis-
sions turned the priest from Wadowice from a relative unknown
into an intellectual respected even by such esteemed periti as
Yves Congar. During the First Session, the Dominican Congar
had described Wojtyła simply as one “Polish bishop” among
many.198 Yet, by February 1965, he not only knew the Kraków
archbishop’s name, but in fact had developed a deep and abiding
respect for the prelate: “Wojtyła made a very great impression [in
the commission on Schema XIII]. His personality is imposing. A
power radiates from it, an attraction, a certain prophetic force
that is very calm, but incontestable.”199
By the end of the Council, Wojtyła had become a Vatican
insider from behind the Iron Curtain. This does not mean that
Wojtyła played a defining role at the Council. Nonetheless, he
became progressively more significant and more visible over its
course. His newfound prominence contributed in no small part
to his rapid ascent through the Church hierarchy—archbishop
in 1964, cardinal in 1967, Holy Father in 1978. Stefan Swieżawski
later recalled, “Both during the Council and thereafter, when we - Wojtyła, U Podstaw Odnowy: Studium o Realizacji Vaticanum II (Kraków: Pol-
skie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1972); Wojtyła, Sources of Renewal: The Implementation
of the Second Vatican Council, trans. P. S. Falla (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980). - Congar, My Journal of the Council, 152.
- Ibid., 714.