Pope John Paul II - Apologies

Apologies

John Paul II apologised to almost every group who had suffered at the hands of the Catholic Church through the years. Even before he became Pope, he was a prominent editor and supporter of initiatives like the Letter of Reconciliation of the Polish Bishops to the German Bishops from 1965. As Pope, he officially made public apologies for over 100 wrongdoings, including:

• The legal process on the Italian scientist and philosopher Galileo Galilei, himself a devout Catholic, around 1633 (31 October 1992).
• Catholics' involvement with the African slave trade (9 August 1993).
• The Church Hierarchy's role in burnings at the stake and the religious wars that followed the Protestant Reformation (May 1995, in the Czech Republic).
• The injustices committed against women, the violation of women's rights and the historical denigration of women (10 July 1995, in a letter to "every woman").
• The inactivity and silence of many Catholics during the Holocaust (see the article Religion in Nazi Germany) (16 March 1998).

On 20 November 2001, from a laptop in the Vatican, Pope John Paul II sent his first e-mail apologising for the Catholic sex abuse cases, the Church-backed "Stolen Generations" of Aboriginal children in Australia, and to China for the behaviour of Catholic missionaries in colonial times.