Pope John Paul'sWritings are voluminous. Perhaps the best way into them is to read hisActing Person: A Contribution to Phenomenological Anthropology (Boston: D. Reidel Publishing, 1979); this is a difficult book but essential to understanding the author. More accessible is his Crossing the Threshold of Hope (New York: Knopf, 1994). Not referred to in the article above, but something that has become the center of attention for thousands of study groups, is his Theology of the Body: Human Love in the Divine Plan (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 1997), a collection of his addresses delivered from 1979 through 1984. For a readable condensation of each encyclical, see DondersJoseph G., ed., John Paul II: The Encyclicals, 3rd ed. (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2005). The official texts of John Paul's encyclicals are available in many editions, but the most reasonably priced can be found at Pauline Books and Media in Boston (www.pauline.org). For online editions, go to the official Vatican Web site (www.vatican.va) and follow icons to the English-language site, and from there to “The Holy Father,” which leads to downloadable official texts from the pontificate of John Paul II and other recent popes.
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For secondary sources and biographies, see WeigelGeorge, Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (New York: Cliff Street Books, 1999), and, although critical of the pope, especially of his last years, John Cornwell, The Pontiff in Winter: Triumph and Conflict in the Reign of John Paul II(New York: Doubleday, 2004). For a superb and readable account of how John Paul II's Vatican functioned, see AllenJohn L.Jr., All the Pope's Men: The Inside Story of How the Vatican Really Thinks (New York: Doubleday, 2004).
