The Word : From poems to exhortations, the Pope’s printed word fills volumes and holds steady on the bestseller lists. We may not agree, but we respond, and it’s no mystery why: Americans hunger for firm moral stands.

You might expect it of John Grisham or Jackie Collins. But not of Pope John Paul II. Yet, it is the Pope’s prolific output that has crowded bookstore windows lately.

“Crossing the Threshold of Hope” is his academic and theological reflection on a range of topics, from the existence of God to the ties that bind world religions. “Prayers and Devotions” is the pontiff’s book of daily reflections based on the Roman Catholic church year. It nurtures the souls more than challenges the minds of the world’s 1 billion Catholics. Even the dust jacket shows the softer side of the Pope. His tender smile all but announces that Pope derives from the Greek word for father .

Two other releases are works His Holiness completed before his election to the Vatican. “Love and Responsibility” is a reprint, first published in 1960. It is his pastoral guide to marriage and sex, written when he was a bishop in his native Poland.

“The Place Within” is a collection of poems that spans 50 years. The earliest date from 1939, when he was a young man, dreaming of a career as an actor or philosopher. The most recent are from 1978, the year he was named Pope.

There are clues to be gathered from all these writings about the Holy Father himself and the nature of his faith. Yet, the books are closer to spiritual meditations than to life stories. And this seems to be what readers want. Six million copies of “Crossing the Threshold” were published worldwide late last fall, making it an instant best seller.

Well before his book-blitz, John Paul had a definite public image. In the 16 years of his reign, the world has come to know this globe-trotting pontiff as a grandfather figure of a particular kind. He is the Harry Truman of the Holy See, the family patriarch who calls it like he sees it and doesn’t hesitate to remind you. He has an unfailing ability to choose the conservative side of an issue. Contraception, abortion, homosexuality, communism, capitalism--he’s against them all.

The Pope stands to the right side of center in part because of his years under Nazism and communism in his native Poland. Political suppression made him absolutely certain of the difference between good and evil, and made him a staunch defender of human rights. American society, in contrast, has come to stand left of center, so much so that we seem at times unwilling, or even incapable, of judging right from wrong.

When in doubt, count on the Pope for this much: He will answer every question according to the orthodox teachings and traditions of the Church. “Damnation is the opposite of salvation,” he writes. “Both presuppose the immortality of the human being.” For baby boomers, many of them unchurched by choice, the Pope’s clear-cut pronouncements can be useful. Especially at a time when boomers, who still account for the bulk of the population, are moving in the Pope’s general direction. As the latest national elections demonstrate, conservative is now considered a compliment.

Still, in getting to know his unflinching opinions, the question does cross a reader’s mind: Who is this man? First, he is a conservative Catholic priest who lived through the atrocities of World War II. Next, he is a Pole. He was born in Wadowice, in 1920. His mother died when he was 9, and he was raised in a Jewish neighborhood where he met Jerzy Kluger, a classmate who became a lifelong friend. Kluger lost his family to the Auschwitz death camp in World War II. Years later, when the Pope--then Karol Wojtyla--became Archbishop of Krakow, Auschwitz was in his diocese. By then he was already a well-established critic of communism. As Pope, his regular outpouring of prayers and public denunciations caused many Central European Catholics to credit him with helping bring the system down.

The most important books he read as a boy include a volume of poetry by St. John of the Cross, a Spanish mystic. A prayer book from his father was also meaningful. It contained the prayer to the Holy Spirit, who is often symbolized in tongues of fire and credited with generating the love that moves the world toward God. His father told the seedling Pope to recite the prayer daily. He still does. And he believes the Holy Spirit toppled the Soviet Union.

At age 22, Wojtyla entered the underground seminary, well aware that Catholicism was outlawed in Poland. “As a young priest, I learned to love human love,” he writes. He also refers to it as “fair love,” learned when he was a pastor, counseling young engaged and married couples. John Paul II credits these couples with teaching him about responsible parenthood, too. In 1960 he published his book on the subject. “Love and Responsibility” is much more about respect for the sanctity of life, and the injustice of using others for personal pleasure, than it is about sexual practices. But in it John Paul II does make his position on birth control clear. Continence, or abstinence, was then and has remained the only option he accepts. “Those who do not desire the consequence must avoid the cause,” he wrote, in no uncertain terms.

For a time, Wojtyla taught ethics at the Catholic University at Lublin. He had been named cardinal when he sat on the review board of Father Andrzej Szostek, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on moral theology. Szostek is now pro-rector of the university, and some Vatican watchers believe he helped the Pope draft his most controversial encyclical to date. This letter, to all Catholic bishops, dated 1993, is called “Veritatis Splendor” (“The Splendor of Truth”). In it, the Pope rejects any definition of evil that allows for “greater” and “lesser” degrees.

His critics accuse him of trying to impose his views as law. Bernard Haring, the revered Swiss theologian, responded to Veritatis Splendor in an article for the British journal, The Tablet. “The document,” he wrote, “is directed above all towards one goal: to endorse total assent and submission to all utterances of the Pope.”

The absolute authority of his office, the defense of church doctrine as the center of Roman Catholic faith, and the sanctity of all life, are the major themes that run through the Pope’s work. Changing times and popular opinions have never phased him. In the mid-60s, then-Archbishop Wojtyla took his place at the Second Vatican Council in Rome. In the heady spirit of renewal that followed, there was talk of reunification with the Church of England, which split from Roman Catholicism in the 16th Century. But John Paul II cast a chill on future discussions two years ago when the C of E began ordaining women priests.

More recently, the Vatican rescinded approval of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, an inclusive-language translation. Such versions refer to God, for example, as “Almighty” or “Creator” as alternatives to “Father” and “Lord.”

Instead of addressing these matters, in “Crossing the Threshold,” the Pope offers a two-page chapter on a women’s issue he considers more pressing. “In our civilization woman has become, before all else, an object of pleasure,” he writes. He recommends turning to Mary, the Mother of God, to inspire a new theology of women. Several feminist theologians have this project well in hand. Not, perhaps, as His Holiness envisions it. He sees women’s roles in the family and society being redefined. For her part, African-American theologian Delores Williams compares slave women from civil war days, abused by their masters, to the suffering Christ. Her essay on the subject is in the anthology “A Troubling in My Soul.”

Elizabeth Johnson, another prominent theologian, argues that a female image of God can be found in sacred Scripture. In her book, “She Who Is,” Johnson suggests it is Sophia from the Book of Wisdom.

Like them or not, the Pope’s passionately held ideals do grab attention. Time magazine named him their man of the year for 1994, citing the forceful way that he defines his vision of the moral life. Yet, nothing in his writing suggests that he sees himself as a trendsetter. Quite the opposite. “Allow me once more to disagree with such a way of looking at things,” he politely requests in “Crossing the Threshold.” With similar words he repeatedly distances himself from popular opinion, as he responds to the series of interviewers’ questions that form the basis of the book.

True to his image as an intellectual, steeped in history, the Pope takes on dense, theological issues without ever talking down to his readers. In a brief run-through of Christian thought, he cites Aristotle, Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, Paul Ricoeur and Martin Buber, as well as the gospel of John and the letters of Paul.

And he does not try to gloss over complex matters, either. In writing about non-Christian religions, he is respectful, yet honest about the differences as well as the similarities. Both Muslims and Buddhists have objected to the way they are represented by the Pope. Earlier this month, Buddhists protested in Sri Lanka, and Muslim militants in Manila were charged with conspiring to assassinate the Pope.

New Age spirituality also meets with papal disapproval. “We cannot delude ourselves that this will lead toward a renewal of religion,” he quips. New Age philosophy is Gnostic, John Paul II contends--which is to say it accepts part but not all Christian teaching.

While a tenacious, uncompromising nature emerges from “Crossing the Threshold,” a more vulnerable person filters through the Pope’s “Prayers and Devotions.” He worries that advances in science and technology have not overcome the violence of modern society. “What is the meaning of pain, of evil, of death, which in spite of all progress continue to subsist? Has the picture of tensions and threats characteristic of our age perhaps become less disquieting? . . . It seems not. . . . Over these few years they have revealed themselves more . . . and they do not permit the illusions of another time to be nourished.”

The most fascinating entries show the Pope’s commitment to his homeland. He does more to promote Polish saints than any Pope in history. St. Stanislaus, patron of Poland, St. Hedwig, a wealthy widow who cared for the poor, and Our Lady of Jesna Gora, the Blessed Mother represented as a black Madonna, are remembered. A prayer in praise of sports, and another for tourism, reflect other aspects of John Paul’s personal life. He was an avid skier and hiker in his day, and he has toured more than 60 countries since becoming Pope.

His book of poems offers a glimpse into his romantic nature. But it would not convince anyone that he missed a higher calling. Of them all, “Thoughts on Maturing” speaks to his most recent public image as an ailing man who has suffered hip surgery, a broken arm and two assassination attempts during his papacy. He may be losing physical strength, but not his indomitable will:

Maturity: The surface meets the

depth

Maturity: penetrating the depth,

the soul more reconciled with the

body,

but more opposed to death,

uneasy about the resurrection.

Maturing toward difficult

encounters.

Writings by the Pope:

CROSSING THE THRESHOLD OF HOPE, by His Holiness John Paul II, edited by Vittorio Messori (Alfred A. Knopf: $20; 244 pp.)

VERITATIS SPLENDOR (“The Splendor of Truth”) 1993 letter from the Pope to Catholic bishops, (available from the Catholic News Service, 3211 4th St. N.E., Washington, D.C. 20017; (202) 541-3250)

PRAYERS AND DEVOTIONS, by Pope John Paul II (Viking Penguin: $22.99; 466 pp.)

THE PLACE WITHIN: The Poetry of John Paul II, translated from the Polish by Jerzy Peterkiewicz (Random House: $10; 197 pp.)

LOVE AND RESPONSIBILITY, by Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II) translated from the Polish by H. T. Willetts (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $15; 319 pp.)