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| Born in Wadowice,
Poland: |
May 18, 1920 |
| Ordained: |
November 1, 1946 |
| Celebrated his first
Mass: |
November 2, 1946 |
| Episcopal
consecration: |
September 28, 1958 |
| Created a Cardinal
by Pope Paul VI: |
June 28, 1967 |
| Elected Pope, 264th
Bishop of Rome: |
October 16, 1978 |
| Died: |
Saturday, April 2, 2005 |
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O God, from whom the just receive an unfailing reward,
grant that Your servant John Paul, our Pope, whom You made vicar of Peter
and shepherd of Your Church, may rejoice for ever in the vision of Your
glory, for he was a faithful steward here on earth of the mysteries
of Your forgiveness and grace. We ask this through Christ our
Lord. Amen.
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Biography
Karol Józef Wojtyla was born on May 18, 1920 in Wadowice, Poland.
The youngest child of a school teacher and a retired army officer, he was
an active young man, an athlete and an outdoorsman whose passions were
poetry, philosophy, and the theater.
Much of his advanced education was obtained underground after the Nazi
invasion of Poland in 1939. He was ordained a priest in 1946, a
bishop in 1948, was appointed archbishop of Kraków in 1964, and elevated
to the college of cardinals in 1967, at forty-seven its youngest
member.
When Cardinal Wojtyla was elected the 264th successor of
Peter in 1978, he became the youngest pope since Pius IX a hundred years
before, the first Polish pope, and the first non-Italian pontiff since
Adrian IV in the sixteenth century.
John Paul II circled the globe, logging over a million miles and
visiting every continent except Antarctica. He opened dialogues with
Protestant denominations; visited Auschwitz, a Jewish synagogue, and a
Muslim mosque; and made pilgrimages to Orthodox countries where no pope
had ever set foot before.
His legacy to the Church includes more than a dozen encyclicals, as
well as scores of apostolic letters, constitutions, and
exhortations. He beatified and canonized more than a thousand men
and women from all walks of life and greeted hundreds of millions of the faithful
through his travels and papal audiences.
He was tireless in his work for the poor and powerless, speaking out
against war, economic injustice, political oppression, and what he called
the industrialized world's "culture of death." Pope John
Paul II's ultimate homily was probably his own life — a life
characterized by a charismatic personality, heartfelt advocacy for human
dignity and political and religious freedom , and unshakable faith.
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