John Paul II in the context of "Pope Adrian VI"

Pio Laghi (21 May 1922 – 10 January 2009) was an Italian cardinal of the Catholic Church. His service was primarily in the diplomatic service of the Holy See and the Roman Curia. He served as Apostolic nuncio to several countries and as the Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 1991. Cardinal Laghi was Pope John Paul II's secret emissary to the White House and to several presidents of the United States. He had a particularly close relationship with George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush.

His work as an apostolic nuncio in Argentina (1974–1980), during the years of dictatorship, has been and continues to be the subject of controversy.

The Flagellation of Christ, in art sometimes known as Christ at the Column or the Scourging at the Pillar, is an episode from the Passion of Jesus as presented in the Gospels. As such, it is frequently shown in Christian art, in cycles of the Passion or the larger subject of the Life of Christ. Catholic tradition places the Flagellation on the site of the Church of the Flagellation (the second station of the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem). It is the second Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary and the sixth station of John Paul II's Scriptural Way of the Cross. The column to which Christ is normally shown to be tied, and the rope, scourge, whip or birch are elements in the Arma Christi. The Basilica di Santa Prassede in Rome is one of the churches claiming to possess the original column or parts of it.

In art, the subject was first depicted as one of a series of Passion scenes, but from the 15th century onwards it was also painted in individual works. The most-discussed single work is the enigmatic Flagellation of Christ on a small panel in Urbino by Piero della Francesca (1455–1460), the precise meaning of which has eluded generations of art historians. At the same time, Christ at the Column or Christ at the Stake developed as an image of Christ alone tied to a column or stake. This was most popular in Baroque sculpture, and also related to the subject, not found in the canonical Gospels, of Christ in the Dungeon. It is often difficult to distinguish between these two subjects, and between Christ at the Column and a Flagellation.

The 1983 Code of Canon Law (abbreviated 1983 CIC from its Latin title Codex Iuris Canonici), also called the Johanno-Pauline Code, is the "fundamental body of ecclesiastical laws for the Latin Church". It is the second and current comprehensive codification of canonical legislation for the Latin Church of the Catholic Church. The 1983 Code of Canon Law was promulgated on 25 January 1983 by John Paul II and took legal effect on the First Sunday of Advent (27 November) 1983. It replaced the 1917 Code of Canon Law which had been promulgated by Benedict XV on 27 May 1917. According to canon 6, the 1983 code of canon law abrogates the 1917 code of canon law and any penal laws made under it that are not contained in the 1983 code.

The 1983 Code of Canon Law is composed of laws called canons.

Trsat (Italian: Tersatto, Latin: Tarsatica) is part of the city of Rijeka, Croatia, with a historic castle or fortress in a strategic location and several historic churches, in one of which the Croatian noble Prince Vuk Krsto Frankopan is buried. Trsat is a steep hill, 138 m high, rising over the gorge of the Rječina river, about a kilometre away from the sea; strategically significant from the earliest times right up to the 17th century, it is today a major Christian pilgrimage centre and home to a statue of Pope John Paul II who came to Trsat as a Pilgrim in 2003. Today, the University of Rijeka's newly constructed campus lies in the western part of Trsat.

The Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem (Latin: Ordo Equestris Sancti Sepulcri Hierosolymitani, OESSH), also called the Order of the Holy Sepulchre or Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, is a Catholic order of knighthood under the protection of the Holy See. The pope is the sovereign of the order. The order creates canons as well as knights, with the primary mission to "support the Christian presence in the Holy Land". It is an internationally recognised order of chivalry. The order is estimated to have some 30,000 knights and dames in 60 lieutenancies around the world. The Catholic Order is distinct from the Greek Orthodox "Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre", presided over by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem.

The Cardinal Grand Master has been Fernando Filoni since 2019, and the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem is ex officio the Order's Grand Prior. Its headquarters are situated at the Palazzo Della Rovere and its official church in Sant'Onofrio al Gianicolo, both in Rome, close to Vatican City. In 1994, Pope John Paul II declared the Virgin Mary as the order's patron saint under the title "Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Palestine".

Pope Benedict XVI (born Joseph Alois Ratzinger; 16 April 1927 – 31 December 2022) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City from 2005 until his resignation in 2013. Following his resignation, he chose to be known as "pope emeritus", a title he held until his death on 31 December 2022.

Ordained as a priest in 1951 in his native Bavaria, Ratzinger embarked on an academic career and established himself as a highly regarded theologian by the late 1950s. He was appointed a full professor in 1958 when aged 31. After a long career as a professor of theology at several German universities, he was appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising and created a cardinal by Pope Paul VI in 1977, an unusual promotion for someone with little pastoral experience. In 1981, he was appointed Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, one of the most important dicasteries of the Roman Curia. In 2002, he also became Dean of the College of Cardinals. Before becoming pope, he had been "a major figure on the Vatican stage for a quarter of a century"; he had had an influence "second to none when it came to setting church priorities and directions" as one of John Paul II's closest confidants. Following the death of John Paul II on 2 April 2005, a conclave elected Ratzinger as his successor on 19 April; he chose Benedict XVI as his papal name in honour of Benedict XV and Benedict of Nursia.

The list of pastoral visits of Pope Paul VI details the travels of the first pope to leave Italy since 1809, representing the first ever papal pilgrimage to the Holy Land and the first papal visit to Africa, Asia, North America, Oceania, and South America. Pope Paul VI visited six continents, and was the most-travelled pope in history to that time, earning the nickname "the Pilgrim Pope". With his travels he opened new avenues for the papacy, which were continued by his successors Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis. He traveled to Jordan and Israel in 1964 where he met with Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I in Jerusalem which led to rescinding the excommunications of the Great Schism, which took place in 1054. The Pope also traveled to the Eucharistic Congresses in Bombay, India and Bogotá, Colombia. The first papal visit to the United States occurred on 4 October 1965, when Paul VI visited New York City to address the United Nations at the invitation of Secretary-General U Thant. During that visit, the Pope first stopped at St. Patrick's Cathedral where some 55,000 people lined the streets to greet him, met with President Lyndon B. Johnson at the Waldorf Astoria, addressed the United Nations General Assembly, celebrated Mass at Yankee Stadium, and viewed Michelangelo's Pieta at the New York World's Fair in Queens. Fifty years after the first apparition of Our Lady of Fátima, he visited the shrine in Fátima, Portugal in 1967. He undertook a pastoral visit to Africa in 1969. After a 1970 trip to several Asian and Pacific nations, he made no additional international trips. He died on August 6, 1978.

Polish members of the Catholic Church, like elsewhere in the world, are under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome. The Latin Church includes 41 dioceses. There are three eparchies of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the country, with members of the Armenian Catholic Church under the Ordinariate for Eastern Catholics in Poland. The ordinaries of these jurisdictions comprise the Episcopal Conference of Poland. Combined, these comprise about 10,000 parishes and religious orders. There are 40.55 million registered Catholics (the data includes the number of infants baptized) in Poland. The primate of the Church is Wojciech Polak, Archbishop of Gniezno.

In the early 2000s, 99% of all children born in Poland were baptized Catholic. In 2015, the church recorded that 97.7% of Poland's population was Catholic. Other statistics suggested this proportion of adherents to Catholicism could be as low as 85%. The rate of decline has been described as "devastating" the former social prestige and political influence that the Catholic Church in Poland once enjoyed. On the other hand, a 2023 survey of 36 countries with large Catholic populations using data from the World Values Survey revealed that 52% of Polish Catholics claimed to attend Mass weekly, the seventh highest of the nations surveyed and the highest among European countries. Most Poles adhere to Latin Catholicism. About 71.3% of the population identified themselves as such in the 2021 census, down from 88% in 2011.

Rerum novarum, or Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor, is an encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII on 15 May 1891. It is an open letter, passed to all Catholic patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops, which addressed the condition of the working class. It discusses the relationships and mutual duties between labor and capital, as well as government and its citizens. Of primary concern is the need for poverty amelioration of the working class. It supports the rights of labor to form trade unions, and rejects socialism and laissez-faire capitalism, or unregulated, brutal capitalism, while affirming the right to private property and to a living wage.

A foundational text of modern Catholic social teaching, many of the positions in Rerum novarum are supplemented by later encyclicals, in particular Pius XI's Quadragesimo anno (1931), John XXIII's Mater et magistra (1961), Paul VI's Octogesima adveniens (1971), and John Paul II's Centesimus annus (1991), each of which commemorates an anniversary of the publication of Rerum novarum. It also inspired Catholic activism, and influenced distributists and supporters of corporatism. Socialists generally contest the encyclical's interpretation of socialism, and some socialists, particularly Catholic socialists, interpret Rerum novarum as not rejecting socialism, argue that divine law justifies the abolition of private property, and emphasize its anti-capitalist character.