POPE JOHN PAUL II

Papież Jan Paweł II

Pope John Paul II is the most famous man of Polish. He’s

sometimes called Blessed John Paul or John Paul the Great, born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 1920 – 2 April 2005), reigned as Pope

of the Catholic Church from 1978 until his death in 2005. He was the second-longest serving Pope

in history and the first non-Italian since 1523.

JOHN PAUL II

Karol Józef Wojtyła was born in the Polish town of

Wadowice and was the youngest of three

children of Karol Wojtyła and Emilia

Kaczorowska. On 13 April 1929, Wojtyła's

mother died in childbirth.

CURRICULUM VITAE

In mid-1938, Wojtyła and his father

moved to Cracow, where he enrolled at

Jagiellonian University. He was

studying such topics as philology and

various languages.

In 1939, Nazi German occupation forces closed the

university after invading Poland. Able-bodied males

were required to work, so from 1940 to 1944 Wojtyła variously worked as a messenger for a

restaurant, a manual labourer in a limestone quarry and for

the Solvay chemical factory, to avoid deportation to Germany.

After his father's death, he started thinking seriously

about the priesthood. In October 1942, while the war continued, he knocked on the door of the Bishop's Palace in Cracow and asked to

study for the priesthood.

On finishing his studies at the seminary in Cracow, Wojtyła was ordained as a priest 1 November 1946, by the Archbishop of Cracow, Cardinal Sapieha. He then studied theology in Rome, where he earned a licentiate and later a doctorate in sacred theology.

He returned to Poland in the

summer of 1945 with his first

pastoral assignment in the village of

Niegowić, fifteen miles

from Crakow.

In March 1949, Wojtyła was transferred to the parish of Saint Florian in Kraków. He taught ethics at Jagiellonian University and subsequently at the Catholic University of Lublin. In 1954, he earned a

second doctorate, in philosophy.

In October 1962, Wojtyła took part in the Second Vatican

Council (1962–1965), where he made contributions to two

of its most historic and influential products, the

Decree on Religious Freedom and the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern .

On 13 January 1964, Pope Paul VI appointed him Archbishop of Kraków. On 26 June 1967, Paul VI announced Archbishop Karol Wojtyła's promotion to the Sacred College of Cardinals. Wojtyła was named Cardinal-Priest of the titulus of San Cesareo in Palatio.

In August 1978, following the death of Pope Paul VI,

Cardinal Wojtyła voted in the Papal conclave which elected Pope John Paul I, who at 65 was considered young by

papal standards. John Paul I died after only 33 days as Pope, triggering another

conclave.

The second conclave of 1978 started on 14 October, ten days after the funeral. It was split between two strong candidates for the papacy:

Giuseppe Cardinal Siri, the conservative Archbishop of Genoa, and the liberal Archbishop of Florence, Giovanni Cardinal Benelli, a close

friend of John Paul I.

A very charismatic figure, John Paul II was acclaimed as one of the most influential leaders of the 20th

century. He was instrumental in ending communism in his native

Poland and eventually all of Europe. John Paul II significantly improved the Catholic Church's

relations with Judaism, Islam, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the

Anglican Communion.

He was one of the most-travelled world leaders in history, visiting

129 countries during his pontificate. As part of his special emphasis on the universal call to

holiness, he beatified 1,340 people and canonised 483

saints, more than the combined tally of his predecessors during

the preceding five centuries.

He named most of the present College of Cardinals, consecrated or co-consecrated a large number of the world's past and current bishops, and ordained many priests. A key goal of

his papacy was to transform and reposition the Catholic Church. His wish was "to place his Church at the heart of a new religious alliance that would bring together Jews, Muslims and Christians in a great [religious]

armada".

On 19 December 2009, John Paul II was proclaimed venerable by his successor Pope

Benedict XVI and was beatified on 1

May 2011.