List of apologies made by Pope John Paul II

During his long reign as Pope, he apologized to Jews, women, people convicted by the Inquisition, and almost everyone who had suffered at the hands of the Catholic Church over the years.

As Pope, he officially made public apologies for over 100 of these wrongdoings, including:[2][3][4][5][6] "Women's dignity has often been unacknowledged and their prerogatives misrepresented; they have often been relegated to the margins of society and even reduced to servitude...Certainly it is no easy task to assign the blame for this, considering the many kinds of cultural conditioning which down the centuries have shaped ways of thinking and acting.

"[8][3][4]We cannot know how many Christians in countries occupied or ruled by the Nazi powers or their allies were horrified at the disappearance of their Jewish neighbours and yet were not strong enough to raise their voices in protest.

[9][4][10]In December 1999, at the request of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith who would later become Pope Benedict XVI, the International Theological Commission presented its study on the topic Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past.

The purpose of this document is "not to examine particular historical cases but rather to clarify the presuppositions that ground repentance for past faults."