At only 58 years of age, he was the youngest pope since Pope Pius IX in 1846, who was 54.
Pope John Paul II (Ioannes Paulus II; Giovanni Paolo II; Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his death in 2005.
Emilia, who was a schoolteacher, died from a [attack] and kidney failure in 1929 when Wojtyła was eight years old.
During this time, his talent for language blossomed, and he learned as many as 15 languages — Polish, Latin, Italian, English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Luxembourgish, Dutch, Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian, Czech, Slovak and Esperanto, nine of which he used extensively as pope. In 1939, after invading Poland, the Nazi German occupation forces closed the university.
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, in order to avoid deportation to Germany.
In February 1940, he met Jan Tyranowski who introduced him to the Carmelite spirituality and the "Living Rosary" youth groups.
His father, a former Austro-Hungarian non-commissioned officer and later officer in the Polish Army, died of a heart attack in 1941, leaving Wojtyła as the immediate family's only surviving member.
In October 1942, while the war continued, he knocked on the door of the Archbishop's residence in Kraków and asked to study for the priesthood.
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, in order to avoid deportation to Germany.
On 29 February 1944, Wojtyła was hit by a German truck.
On 6 August 1944, a day known as "Black Sunday", the Gestapo rounded up young men in Kraków to curtail the uprising there, similar to the recent uprising in Warsaw.
More than eight thousand men and boys were taken that day, while Wojtyła escaped to the Archbishop's residence, where he remained until after the Germans had left. On the night of 17 January 1945, the Germans fled the city, and the students reclaimed the ruined seminary.
In Wojtyła's last book, Memory and Identity, he described the 12 years of the Nazi régime as "bestiality", quoting from the Polish theologian and philosopher Konstanty Michalski. == Priesthood == After finishing his studies at the seminary in Kraków, Wojtyła was ordained as a priest on All Saints' Day, 1 November 1946, by the Archbishop of Kraków, Cardinal Sapieha.
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange beginning on 26 November 1946.
Wojtyła earned a licence in July 1947, passed his doctoral exam on 14 June 1948, and successfully defended his doctoral thesis titled Doctrina de fide apud S.
Duncker, author of the Compendium grammaticae linguae hebraicae biblicae. According to Wojtyła's fellow student the future Austrian Cardinal Alfons Stickler, in 1947 during his sojourn at the Angelicum Wojtyła visited Padre Pio, who heard his confession and told him that one day he would ascend to "the highest post in the Church".
Wojtyła earned a licence in July 1947, passed his doctoral exam on 14 June 1948, and successfully defended his doctoral thesis titled Doctrina de fide apud S.
John of the Cross) in philosophy on 19 June 1948.
Cardinal Stickler added that Wojtyła believed that the prophecy was fulfilled when he became a Cardinal. Wojtyła returned to Poland in the summer of 1948 for his first pastoral assignment in the village of Niegowić, from Kraków, at the Church of the Assumption.
He repeated this gesture, which he adopted from the French saint Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, throughout his papacy. In March 1949, Wojtyła was transferred to the parish of Saint Florian in Kraków.
The group eventually grew to approximately 200 participants, and their activities expanded to include annual skiing and kayaking trips. In 1953, Wojtyła's habilitation thesis was accepted by the Faculty of Theology at the Jagiellonian University.
In 1954, he earned a Doctorate in Sacred Theology, evaluating the feasibility of a Catholic ethic based on the ethical system of the phenomenologist Max Scheler with a dissertation titled "Reevaluation of the possibility of founding a Catholic ethic on the ethical system of Max Scheler" (Ocena możliwości zbudowania etyki chrześcijańskiej przy założeniach systemu Maksa Schelera).
However, the Communist authorities abolished the Faculty of Theology at the Jagellonian University, thereby preventing him from receiving the degree until 1957.
In 1958, when Wojtyła was named Auxiliary Bishop of Kraków, his acquaintances expressed concern that this would cause him to change.
This beloved nickname stayed with Wojtyła for his entire life and continues to be affectionately used, particularly by the Polish people. == Episcopate and cardinalate == === Call to the episcopate === On 4 July 1958, while Wojtyła was on a kayaking holiday in the lakes region of northern Poland, Pope Pius XII appointed him as an Auxiliary Bishop of Kraków.
Wojtyła accepted the appointment as Auxiliary Bishop to Kraków's Archbishop Eugeniusz Baziak, and he received episcopal consecration (as Titular Bishop of Ombi) on 28 September 1958, with Baziak as the principal consecrator and as co-consecrators Bishop Boleslaw Kominek (Titular Bishop of Sophene and Vågå, auxiliary of the Catholic Archdiocese of Wrocław, and Franciszek Jop, Auxiliary Bishop of Sandomierz (Titular Bishop of Daulia.
At the age of 38, Wojtyła became the youngest bishop in Poland. In 1959, Bishop Wojtyla began an annual tradition of saying a Midnight Mass on Christmas Day in an open field at Nowa Huta, the so-called model workers' town outside Kraków that was without a church building.
In 1960, Wojtyła published the influential theological book Love and Responsibility, a defence of traditional Church teachings on marriage from a new philosophical standpoint. While a priest in Kraków, groups of students regularly joined Wojtyła for hiking, skiing, bicycling, camping and kayaking, accompanied by prayer, outdoor Masses and theological discussions.
In 1961, he coined "Thomistic Personalism" to describe Aquinas's philosophy. During this period, Wojtyła wrote a series of articles in Kraków's Catholic newspaper, Tygodnik Powszechny ("Universal Weekly"), dealing with contemporary Church issues.
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.
When Wojtyła visited New England in the summer of 1976, Tymieniecka put him up as a guest in her family home.
Pope John Paul II (Ioannes Paulus II; Giovanni Paolo II; Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his death in 2005.
He was elected pope by the second papal conclave of 1978, which was called after John Paul I, who had been elected in August to succeed Pope Paul VI, died after 33 days.
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.
Like his predecessor, John Paul II dispensed with the traditional papal coronation and instead received ecclesiastical investiture with a simplified Papal inauguration on 22 October 1978.
John Paul II's earliest official visits were to the Dominican Republic and Mexico in January 1979. While some of his journeys (such as to the United States and the Holy Land) were to places previously visited by Pope Paul VI, John Paul II became the first pope to visit the White House in October 1979, where he was greeted warmly by then-President Jimmy Carter.
He was the first pope ever to visit several countries in one year, starting in 1979 with Mexico and Ireland.
In September 2001, amid post-11 September concerns, he travelled to Kazakhstan, with an audience largely consisting of Muslims, and to Armenia, to participate in the celebration of 1,700 years of Armenian Christianity. In June 1979, John Paul II travelled to Poland, where ecstatic crowds constantly surrounded him.
This first papal trip to Poland uplifted the nation's spirit and sparked the formation of the Solidarity movement in 1980, which later brought freedom and [rights] to his troubled homeland. Poland's Communist leaders intended to use the pope's visit to show the people that although the pope was Polish it did not alter their capacity to govern, oppress, and distribute the goods of society.
He was the first reigning pope to travel to the United Kingdom, in 1982, where he met Queen Elizabeth II, the Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
While in Britain he also visited Canterbury Cathedral and knelt in prayer with Robert Runcie, the Archbishop of Canterbury, at the spot where Thomas à Becket had been killed, as well as holding several large-scale open air masses, including one at Wembley Stadium, which was attended by some 80,000 people. He travelled to Haiti in 1983, where he spoke in Creole to thousands of impoverished Catholics gathered to greet him at the airport.
In 1983, John Paul II visited Guatemala and unsuccessfully asked the country's president, Efraín Ríos Montt, to reduce the sentence for six left-wing guerrillas sentenced to death. In 2002, John Paul II again travelled to Guatemala.
He was encouraged by John Paul II to maintain episcopal unity as a top priority. In his travel to Managua, Nicaragua, in 1983, John Paul II harshly condemned what he dubbed the "popular Church" (i.e.
The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favour of this theory." John Paul II's embrace of evolution was enthusiastically praised by American paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, with whom he had an audience in 1984. Although generally accepting the theory of evolution, John Paul II made one major exception—the human soul.
In 1985, while visiting the Netherlands, he gave an impassioned speech condemning apartheid at the International Court of Justice, proclaiming that "No system of apartheid or separate development will ever be acceptable as a model for the relations between peoples or races." In September 1988, John Paul II made a pilgrimage to ten Southern African countries, including those bordering South Africa, while demonstratively avoiding South Africa.
In 1985, while visiting the Netherlands, he gave an impassioned speech condemning apartheid at the International Court of Justice, proclaiming that "No system of apartheid or separate development will ever be acceptable as a model for the relations between peoples or races." In September 1988, John Paul II made a pilgrimage to ten Southern African countries, including those bordering South Africa, while demonstratively avoiding South Africa.
These visits reinforced this message and contributed to the collapse of East European Communism that took place between 1989/1990 with the reintroduction of democracy in Poland, and which then spread through Eastern Europe (1990–1991) and South-Eastern Europe (1990–1992). ===World Youth Days=== As an extension of his successful work with youth as a young priest, John Paul II pioneered the international World Youth Days.
Some believed that this was the mob's vendetta against the pope for his denunciations of organised crime. === Persian Gulf War === Between 1990 and 1991, a 34-nation coalition led by the United States waged a war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which had invaded and annexed Kuwait.
During this time, the Vatican had expressed its frustration with the international ignoring of the pope's calls for peace in the Middle East. === Rwandan genocide === John Paul II was the first world leader to describe as genocide the massacre by Hutus of Tutsis in the mostly Catholic country of Rwanda, which started in 1990 and reached its height in 1994.
He called for a ceasefire and condemned the massacres on 10 April and 15 May 1990.
Some believed that this was the mob's vendetta against the pope for his denunciations of organised crime. === Persian Gulf War === Between 1990 and 1991, a 34-nation coalition led by the United States waged a war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which had invaded and annexed Kuwait.
In his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus, John Paul II harshly condemned the conflict: No, never again war, which destroys the lives of innocent people, teaches how to kill, throws into upheaval even the lives of those who do the killing and leaves behind a trail of resentment and hatred, thus making it all the more difficult to find a just solution of the very problems which provoked the war. In April 1991, during his Urbi et Orbi Sunday message at St.
In 1993, during a pilgrimage to Agrigento, Sicily, he appealed to the Mafiosi: "I say to those responsible: 'Convert! One day, the judgment of God will arrive!'" In 1994, John Paul II visited Catania and told victims of Mafia violence to "rise up and cloak yourself in light and justice!" In 1995, the Mafia bombed two historical churches in Rome.
In 1994, John Paul II asserted the Church's lack of authority to ordain women to the priesthood, stating that without such authority ordination is not legitimately compatible with fidelity to Christ.
In 1993, during a pilgrimage to Agrigento, Sicily, he appealed to the Mafiosi: "I say to those responsible: 'Convert! One day, the judgment of God will arrive!'" In 1994, John Paul II visited Catania and told victims of Mafia violence to "rise up and cloak yourself in light and justice!" In 1995, the Mafia bombed two historical churches in Rome.
During this time, the Vatican had expressed its frustration with the international ignoring of the pope's calls for peace in the Middle East. === Rwandan genocide === John Paul II was the first world leader to describe as genocide the massacre by Hutus of Tutsis in the mostly Catholic country of Rwanda, which started in 1990 and reached its height in 1994.
He visited the Umayyad Mosque, a former Christian church where John the Baptist is believed to be interred, where he made a speech calling for Muslims, Christians and Jews to live together. On 15 January 1995, during the X World Youth Day, he offered Mass to an estimated crowd of between five and seven million in Luneta Park, Manila, Philippines, which was considered to be the largest single gathering in Christian history.
In 1993, during a pilgrimage to Agrigento, Sicily, he appealed to the Mafiosi: "I say to those responsible: 'Convert! One day, the judgment of God will arrive!'" In 1994, John Paul II visited Catania and told victims of Mafia violence to "rise up and cloak yourself in light and justice!" In 1995, the Mafia bombed two historical churches in Rome.
In 1995, during his third visit to Kenya before an audience of 300,000, John Paul II pleaded for an end to the violence in Rwanda and Burundi, pleading for forgiveness and reconciliation as a solution to the genocide.
In 2000, he was the first modern pope to visit Egypt, where he met with the Coptic pope, Pope Shenouda III and the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria.
In March 2000, while visiting Jerusalem, John Paul became the first pope in history to visit and pray at the Western Wall.
John Paul II presided over nine of them: Rome (1985 and 2000), Buenos Aires (1987), Santiago de Compostela (1989), Częstochowa (1991), Denver (1993), Manila (1995), Paris (1997), and Toronto (2002).
I thought of its celebration as a providential opportunity during which the Church, thirty-five years after the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, would examine how far she had renewed herself, in order to be able to take up her evangelising mission with fresh enthusiasm. John Paul II also made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land for the Great Jubilee of 2000.
He was the first Catholic pope to visit and pray in an Islamic mosque, in Damascus, Syria, in 2001.
In September 2001, amid post-11 September concerns, he travelled to Kazakhstan, with an audience largely consisting of Muslims, and to Armenia, to participate in the celebration of 1,700 years of Armenian Christianity. In June 1979, John Paul II travelled to Poland, where ecstatic crowds constantly surrounded him.
In 1983, John Paul II visited Guatemala and unsuccessfully asked the country's president, Efraín Ríos Montt, to reduce the sentence for six left-wing guerrillas sentenced to death. In 2002, John Paul II again travelled to Guatemala.
In his 2003 apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in Europa, John Paul II wrote that he "fully (respected) the secular nature of (European) institutions".
On 19 May 2003, three weeks before a referendum was held in Poland on EU membership, the Polish pope addressed his compatriots and urged them to vote for Poland's EU membership at St.
"If the human body has its origin in living material which pre-exists it, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God." === Iraq War === In 2003 John Paul II criticised the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, saying in his State of the World address "No to war! War is not always inevitable.
Pope John Paul II (Ioannes Paulus II; Giovanni Paolo II; Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his death in 2005.
In April 2005, shortly after John Paul II's death, the Israeli government created a commission to honour the legacy of John Paul II.
On 19 December 2009, John Paul II was proclaimed venerable by his successor, Benedict XVI, and was beatified on 1 May 2011 (Divine Mercy Sunday) after the Congregation for the Causes of Saints attributed one miracle to his intercession, the healing of a French nun called Marie Simon Pierre from Parkinson's disease.
On 19 December 2009, John Paul II was proclaimed venerable by his successor, Benedict XVI, and was beatified on 1 May 2011 (Divine Mercy Sunday) after the Congregation for the Causes of Saints attributed one miracle to his intercession, the healing of a French nun called Marie Simon Pierre from Parkinson's disease.
A second miracle was approved on 2 July 2013, and confirmed by Pope Francis two days later.
John Paul II was canonised on 27 April 2014 (again Divine Mercy Sunday), together with John XXIII.
On 11 September 2014, Pope Francis added these two optional memorials to the worldwide General Roman Calendar of saints.
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