Saint John Paul II

Pope
(1920–2005)

Saint John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła on May 18, 1920, at Wadowice in southern Poland, was the first non-Italian pope in 455 years and one of the most significant figures in twentieth-century world history. He grew up in a deeply Catholic family, losing his mother when he was nine, his older brother when he was twelve, and his father when he was twenty-one. These losses drove him to an intense relationship with God and with the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom he took as his mother and to whose care he entrusted his entire life under the motto Totus Tuus, Totally Yours.

During the German occupation of Poland he was a manual worker and a secret seminarian, studying theology clandestinely under the protection of Cardinal Sapieha while the Nazis systematically murdered the Polish intelligentsia. He was ordained a priest in 1946, obtained a doctorate in philosophy in Rome, and returned to Krakow, where he became a philosophy professor, poet, playwright, and eventually Cardinal Archbishop of Krakow. He was elected Pope on October 16, 1978, at the age of fifty-eight.

His pontificate of nearly twenty-seven years was one of the longest in history and one of the most consequential. He made 104 pastoral journeys to 129 countries, canonised 482 saints and beatified 1340 blessed, more than all his predecessors combined. His role in the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe was widely acknowledged: his first pilgrimage to Poland in 1979 is regarded by historians as a key catalyst for the Solidarity movement that eventually brought down the Communist regime. He survived an assassination attempt in 1981 and personally visited his would-be assassin in prison to offer his forgiveness.

He died on April 2, 2005, the vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday, a feast he had established. He was beatified by Benedict XVI in 2011 and canonised together with John XXIII by Pope Francis in 2014. His feast is celebrated on October 22nd.