Zwoliński, Andrzej (Wydawnictwo Naukowe Papieskiej Akademii Teologicznej w Krakowie, 2003)
On December 18, 2002 General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed Year 2004 an International Year Commemorating Fighting Slavery and its Abolition (resolution 57/195). In this way the Assembly wanted to emphasize its involvement in global efforts to abolish and entirely eliminate all forms of racial discrimination, xenophobia and similar examples of intolerance and enslavement of man from the life of society. Slavery means such a position of an individual in a society in which he/she becomes “someone's property”, volitionlessly subdued to decisions and activities of his/her owners. John Paul II in an extremely suggestive way and with great personal involvement incessantly undertakes the subject of slavery, pointing to its ever new forms and disquietingly wide range, as “slavery” is not merely a historical term, but continues to be the present reality for a vast number of people in contemporary world.
