John Paul II gets TV treatment - twice

One is delighted to note that Pope John Paul II's enduring charisma survives him with the media even when he's no longer with us.

As it happens, two American television networks - ABC and CBS - had practically the very same idea at the same time. Both networks are working separately on a film focusing on the Polish pope. Both documentaries are being planned for this season, even if no broadcast dates have been announced yet.

The title of ABC's film is Have No Fear: The Life of John Paul II and it will run for two hours. CBS's mini-series version has the working title of Pope John Paul II and will run for four hours over two evenings.

Inevitably, the road for both productions led to Rome, where ABC recently completed shooting, and CBS is working up to mid-October. It has to be noted that before Rome, while ABC did much of its filming in Vilnius, Lithuania, CBS covered a good part of John Paul's pre-Vatican life in Krakow, the city where Karol Wojtyla was archbishop before being elected Pope in 1978.

Neither network has so far made its script available, but both disclosed that they have opted to tell the story mostly as a flashback. In fact, ABC opens with John Paul praying at the Wailing Wall during his visit to Jerusalem in 2000, while the CBS mini-series looks backward and forward from when he was very seriously wounded in an assassination attempt by the Turkish gunman, Ali Agca, on St Peter's Square on May 13, 1981.

While as it seems, both ABC and CBS approach John Paul II with due reverence, there appears to be one fundamental difference. Lorenzo Minoli, one of the executive producers of ABC's Have No Fear, said: "Ours does not avoid controversy: we show the Pope's confrontation with (the later assassinated El Salvador Archbishop Oscar) Romero over liberation theology. We deal with the sex scandals in the American Church.

"We depict his youthful friendships with several young women and even show an innocent kiss while he is acting in a play. We show 'the human man' behind the Pope." He added: "We are not making an Opus Dei movie. Others are."

Certainly, Opus Dei, a conservative Catholic movement, is deeply involved on the CBS film. It is being co-produced by members of Opus Dei, who have close ties with the Vatican, which has vetted their original script. The series' consultant, Alberto Michelini, is also an Opus Dei member. His son, Ian, the director of the series' second unit, was baptised by John Paul II.

While it does seem that Opus Dei's connections with Vatican circles has given CBS privileged access to the Vatican, the same, perhaps, cannot be said for ABC's director's assistants. However, directors of both networks, ABC and CBS, consider Karol Wojtyla as a leader of courage, a born fighter with a clear vision who went all out to spread love. Indeed, a Pope of great moral force, energy and spirit.