In life John Paul II was a global superstar who produced several bestsellers, including memoirs, plays and poetry. Yesterday he proved that he had star appeal even in death as a comic book that tells his life story sold out as soon as it appeared in the bookshops.
Depicting the Pope as a superhero, the book is aimed mainly at the young. But bookshops on Via della Conciliazione, the boulevard leading up to St Peter's Basilica, reported that as many adults as children were buying it. . .
The Life of John Paul II in Cartoons tells the story of Karol Wojtyla's childhood in Poland, his life as a worker and secret seminarian under Nazism and as a bishop and cardinal under communism, his election as Pope, the attempt on his life in 1981 and his global travels, including his trip to Jerusalem in 2000. It ends with the image of the pages of the Gospels fluttering in the breeze on his coffin at the funeral in April in St Peter's Square as the huge crowd called for his instant sainthood. Significantly the preface is by Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, the head of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, who is in charge of the “fast-track” procedure for beatifying and canonising the late Pope.
The opening pages depict the moment in 1978 when the first non-Italian Pope in four centuries prayed to the Virgin Mary for the strength and courage to take up the papacy before being presented to the crowds from the balcony of St Peter's Basilica. “Holy Father, do you remember everything you have to do?” a cleric asks as he makes his way to the balcony. “I remember everything,” the new Pope replies. . .
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