Suggest an Edit — John Paul II

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Biography

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Karol Józef Wojtyła was born on 18 May 1920 in Wadowice, in southern Poland, then the Second Polish Republic. He was the youngest child of Karol Wojtyła, a former non-commissioned officer in the Austro-Hungarian army who later worked in civil administration, and Emilia Kaczorowska. His mother died in 1929; an elder sister, Olga, had died in infancy before his birth; and his brother Edmund, a physician, died of scarlet fever in 1932. Raised thereafter by his father in a devout Catholic household, he completed secondary schooling in Wadowice and in 1938 moved to Kraków to study Polish philology at the Jagiellonian University, while also taking part in student theatre. The German occupation of Poland in 1939 closed the university. To avoid deportation he worked as a labourer in a limestone quarry and later at the Solvay chemical plant. After his father's death in 1941 he entered the clandestine seminary directed by Cardinal Adam Stefan Sapieha and was ordained a priest on 1 November 1946.

He was then sent to Rome, where he studied at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum) and obtained a doctorate in theology with a dissertation on the doctrine of faith in Saint John of the Cross. Returning to Poland he served in parish ministry, acted as chaplain to students and health-care workers, completed a habilitation in philosophy, and taught ethics at the Catholic University of Lublin and in Kraków. Appointed auxiliary bishop of Kraków in 1958, he became archbishop of that see in 1964 and was created a cardinal by Pope Paul VI in 1967. He took a substantial part in the Second Vatican Council, contributing especially to work on the pastoral constitution Gaudium et spes. On 16 October 1978, after the brief pontificate of John Paul I, the conclave elected him pope. He took the name John Paul II, becoming the first Slavic pope and the first non-Italian Bishop of Rome since the sixteenth century.

His pontificate lasted more than twenty-six years and was marked by an unprecedented programme of international pastoral journeys, the institution of World Youth Day, and a large body of teaching that included encyclicals on human work, Catholic social doctrine, the Gospel of life, and the relation of faith and reason, as well as the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. He is widely regarded as having encouraged the non-violent opposition that helped bring about the end of communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe, above all through his support for the Church and the Solidarity movement in Poland. He survived an assassination attempt in Saint Peter's Square on 13 May 1981 and later visited his assailant in prison. He promoted dialogue with Judaism, Islam, and other religions, including a visit to the Great Synagogue of Rome, a visit to a mosque, and interreligious gatherings at Assisi. Admirers and critics alike noted the length and centralizing character of his governance, his firm positions on sexual ethics and the ordination of women, and controversies over the handling of clerical sexual abuse that became more fully public during and after his reign.

In later years he lived with Parkinson's disease and other illnesses, remaining in public ministry until near the end. He died on 2 April 2005 in the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City and was first buried in the Vatican Grottoes; after his beatification his remains were transferred to the Chapel of St. Sebastian in Saint Peter's Basilica. Pope Benedict XVI beatified him on 1 May 2011, and Pope Francis canonized him on 27 April 2014. The Catholic Church keeps his liturgical memorial on 22 October, the anniversary of the inauguration of his Petrine ministry. He is invoked especially as a patron of World Youth Day, of young people, of families, and of the Archdiocese of Kraków.

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