Pope John Paul II
1920-2005
Karol Jozef Wojtyla
Born May 18, 1920
 Near Krakow in southern Poland
 Sister, Olga, died in infancy before Karol
was born
 Mother, Emilia died in child birth when Karol
was 8 years old on April 13, 1929.
 Older brother, Edmund was a doctor and
died at age 26 when Karol was 12 years old
 Father died when Karol was 20 years old

“I was not at my mother’s death, I
was not at my brother’s death, I was
not at my father’s death. At twenty,
I had already lost all of the people I
loved.”
 When
he was in 3rd grade he was
called to the front of the class and
told his mother had died. He
returned to his desk.
 His father took him to a Marian
shrine which began his devotion to
Mother Mary.
 His father did much of the house
work so he could study.
While in high school and college Karol
performed in theater productions, wrote
plays, studied several languages and
played various sports.
 Karol entered the underground seminary
in 1942 during the German occupation of
Poland.
 He was ordained a priest in 1946 and
earned a doctoral degree in theology and
another doctorate in philosophy.


He taught ethics at the Jagiellonian
University there and subsequently at the
Catholic University of Lublin. While
teaching, Wojtyła gathered a group of
about 20 young people, who began to call
themselves Rodzinka, the "little family".
They met for prayer, philosophical
discussion, and helping the blind and sick.
The group eventually grew to
approximately 200 participants, and their
activities expanded to include annual
skiing and kayaking trips .
 In
1960, Wojtyła published the
influential theological book Love and
Responsibility, a defense of the
traditional Church teachings on
marriage from a new philosophical
standpoint.
At age 38 he was made the youngest
bishop in Poland.
 He took part in the Vatican Council II.
 In 1964 he was made Archbishop of
Krakow and in 1967 he became a
Cardinal.
 In 1978 at age 58 Karol became Pope
John Paul II, among the youngest persons
to be elected to this position in the
Catholic Church.

 On
May 13, 1981, he was shot in an
attempted assassination by a trained
Turkish gunman and member of the
militant group, Grey Wolves.
 A second assassination attempt
occurred on May 2, 1982 by a
Spanish priest from the right-wing
Lefebvre group who opposed the
Vatican Council II initiatives.
During his pontificate he wrote 14
encyclicals and traveled to 129 countries,
logging more miles than any other pontiff.
 In 1984 he initiated World Youth Day out
of a deep love for young people
 He was concerned about the world they
lived in and sought to offer moral
guidance and a life with meaning.

 He
delivered 129 homilies to general
audiences on the topic of love in
relationships.
 These were collected in the work
known as a “Theology of the Body.”
 It is an extended meditation on the
nature of human sexuality.
 John
Paul II publically apologized to
Jews, Galileo, women, victims of the
Inquisition, Muslims slaughtered by
the Crusaders, for the inactivity and
silence of many Catholics during the
Holocaust and almost everyone who
had suffered at the hands of the
Catholic Church through the years.
 John
Paul II died on April 2, 2005 at
age 84.