Pope John Paul II was an actor, a poet, a spiritual leader and a scholar; as the bishop of Rome and the de facto human manifestation of the Catholic Church, he became the most recognizable man in the world. All are familiar with his image, but his identity as Polish philosopher Karol Wojtyla (pronounced Carl Voy-tee-wa) is blurry-if unknown-to many.

During the 2004-2005 semester, students at Saint Louis University have had the opportunity to approach this aspect of John Paul II's life in a philosophy course titled "Person and Act: The Philosophical Anthropology and Ethics of John Paul II/Karol Wojtyla."

Under the tutelage of Gregory Beabout, Ph.D., the group of students from various disciplines have read and analyzed Karol Wojtyla's two major philosophical works: "Love and Responsibility" and "The Acting Person."

In addition, the class has examined two of the encyclicals he issued as pope: "Laborem Exercens," or "On Human Work," which focuses on social justice in the economic sector, and "Evangelicum Vitae," or "The Gospel of Life," which addresses a variety of life issues, including abortion, the death penalty and euthanasia.

"When I tell some of my colleagues that I teach this material…they are sort of blown away that we try to read 'The Acting Person' because it is a very thick and difficult work," Beabout said.

In "The Acting Person" Wojtyla creates a definition of what it means to be a human person by examining the phenomenology of action. The work, titled "Person and Act" in the original Polish, illustrates that, in exercising self-determination as he undertakes an action, man affects not only the world outside of him: He also affects change within himself.

"It seems to me that what he is doing in 'The Acting Person' is…drawing out the philosophical underpinnings that are present in 'Love and Responsibility,'" Beabout said.

In "Love and Responsibility," Wojtyla explores every avenue of human relationships, writing on topics ranging from desire and unrequited love to the vocation of marriage, as he arrives at his essential moral philosophy.

"Sometimes we think of celibate persons as not really understanding love or marriage…but [Wojtyla] just seems to get right to the heart of what people feel and think, and how relationships work," said senior Laura Buck, a theology major who is a student in the class.

The ethic that he develops is essentially based on the commandment to love found in the Gospels, and centers on the value of the person.

"What I love about 'Love and Responsibility' is this…theme that is so central to the message of Jesus, the message of the gospels, the message of love; and then how that pertains to so many aspects of life," said junior Brian Strassburger, a mathematics major and philosophy minor. "And [Wojtyla] covers everything…from the sexuality of it, to the adolescence of it, and the shaping of that as you grow; he doesn't ignore any of it."

Students were surprised not only by Wojtyla's understanding of romantic relationships, but also by the depth and complexity of his writings. "Having never read his real work and real efforts, especially in regards to philosophy, I totally underestimated how brilliant of a person he was," Strassburger said.

"There's so much packed into each sentence, it reminds me of great philosophical works-anything from Kant and Aristotle-but also great theological works, in the sense of the Bible, where you can really unpack meaning in every sentence…it reflects his depth and knowledge of the subject matter," he said.

James Fortney, a senior, also felt that this perception of John Paul II is evolving as he continues to study the pope's thought.

"Immediately, from the first day of lecture and the first night of reading, I moved beyond recognizing this figure, the pope, to seeing him as a human being and a person," said Fortney, who is studying communication and pursuing a philosophy minor. "Learning about his background and his childhood and everything building up to this position in his life from 'A Witness to Hope,'" the definitive biography of John Paul II, written by George Weigel, "he became much more real to me, and less 'Hollywood-ized.'"

Reading the work of John Paul II has given the students a window into the events that shaped his life.

"The way in which he promotes the worker [in 'Laborem Exercens']…and wants to uphold that dignity…comes right from his experiences working [in manual labor] as a teenager," Buck said.

The value of the human person is central to all of John Paul II's teachings. Understanding the philosophical basis for this idea, and seeing that it is more than just an accepted part of Catholic tradition and doctrine, has given the students a greater respect for John Paul II, allowing the students to see him not just as a figurehead, but as a teacher.

"It's not just, 'I am going to support this tradition because I am the pope and I'm supposed to.' He has really gone through it deeply," Buck said.

In coming to understand John Paul II's philosophical thought, Strassburger found that it was, in a way, very closely aligned with his own.

"I feel like a lot of my own views…and my own tendencies that I have noticed in my philosophical reflection fall in line with his," Strassburger said. "We always talk about this individualism versus collectivism, and this dichotomy, splitting everything: Which way do you go?

"I've always felt like, I don't know which way I fall," he said. John Paul II was a man whose thought could not be divided into the conventional categories that people use to understand the world-something that was incomprehensible to many, but familiar to Strassburger.

Beabout first taught the course-which was originally developed and taught by John F. Kavanaugh, S.J.-when John Paul II came to St. Louis in 1999.

"I had a kind of intuition that this might be the last time that I would teach the class while [John Paul II] was alive, and my sense is that there has been a kind of poignancy for the students in the class," Beabout said.

Being in this course at the time of John Paul II's death "has totally changed the death of the pope for me," Fortney said. "It's no longer the death of the pope: It's the death of this man, Karol Wojtyla. I am able to separate the two, yet still see how important it is to have those two together: The pope is Karol Wojtyla, and Karol Wojtyla is the pope."

Even as John Paul II became unable to maintain his public life, the man and the philosophy that the students have come to understand through this course did not disappear.

"The way the events of the last couple of months unfolded, his difficulty speaking, and as Cardinal Ratzinger said, 'his eloquence of what he said to us in silence,' it seems to me is confirmed in a different way in light of the course readings we have done, and the reflections on the dignity of the person and how that personhood is revealed in human action," Beabout said.

As Beabout's students leave SLU, they will carry with them into the world John Paul II's ethic of love.

"I am looking to go into ministry, and so having an understanding of how he led the church the way that he did, and where we are today under his leadership, is going to be really crucial [for me]," Buck said.

Although Strassburger is not sure what he will do once he graduates, "I will be Catholic for the rest of my life," he said. "As much as this is philosophical, it gives me insight into my own faith, and this religion, and the truths that it holds. And for understanding Catholicism, what better source than the pope, and what better source than a pope that has lived-as pope-for 26 years?"