Life & Times of Pope John Paul II

This revealing and controversial three-hour documentary features interviews with Mikhail Gorbachev, Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski. It provides a behind-the-scenes look at the Popes surprising role in the power politics that led to the fall of Communism in 1989. Through the 1980s, Pope John Paul II met regularly with the head of the CIA, and participated in what former U.S. National Security Advisor Richard Allen calls the greatest secret alliance in history between the Vatican and the Reagan Administration. The documentary begins with a look at the dramatic life of Karol Wojtyla in Poland before he became Pope. Shot on location in Poland, the documentary uses dramatic re-enactments to depict his childhood. The program describes how, as Pope in the 1980s, John Paul II recognized that Communism had lost all credibility. He saw that it had become an authoritarian shell with geriatric leadership which neither inspired fear nor projected any vision. Says writer/director Terence McKenna: That was the Popes brilliance, but his critics believe his blindness led the Church into a similar state in the 1990s. Leading European theologian Hans Kung says that John Paul II betrayed the Second Vatican Council and brought the Church into the biggest crisis of this century. American theologian Charles Curran claims that under John Paul II great harm has been done to the life of the Church.