"The Shoes of the Fisherman" & John Paul II

I just watched the film of Morris West’s The Shoes of the Fisherman, which involves a bishop from the Soviet Union becoming the first non-Italian Pope in 400 years. I just kept thinking of the accession of Karol Józef Wojtyła of Poland ten years later (15 years after the book). Was the book a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy?

I think it was the other way around: West heard about the non-Italian Pope idea from sources, including that Wojtyła was a candidate, and only after that did he think it would make a good novel.

I doubt very much that anyone was thinking of Karol Wojtyla as a future pope in 1963. He was a relatively obscure Polish Bishop when the book was written. He was mostly notable for being relatively young for his office (he was made Bishop in 1958 at the age of 38 and was the youngest Bishop in Poland) and for being relatively outspoken in his opposition to Communism. His big break came a few months after the book was published when he was unexpectedly named as Archbishop of Krakow and a Cardinal in December 1963. He was probably seen more as a symbol at this point of the Church’s support for its Eastern European members rather than as an individual.

Josyf Slipyj was the more likely inspiration for West. Like Wojtyla, he was an Eastern European (Ukrainian in his case) Catholic clergyman. But he was a much better known figure in 1963. He was older and had opposed both the Nazis and the Soviets and had written about his experiences in prison.

Agreed. The cardinal who becomes pope in The Shoes of the Fisherman (a better book than a movie, BTW) was also a former political prisoner of the Soviets. The future JPII had a sometimes-difficult life in Poland under Soviet domination (pace Gerald Ford), but was never imprisoned, IIRC.

Pope Kiril is Ukrainian in the book. He’s based, apparently, on Josyf Slipyj. It’s just interesting how there was later a pope named Karol from behind the Iron Curtain.