Pope John Paul II

John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope in 455 years and reigned for twenty-six. Born Karol Wojtyła in 1920 in Wadowice, Poland, he lost his mother at eight, his brother at twelve and his father at twenty, and spent the German occupation working in a quarry and a chemical plant while studying for the priesthood in an underground seminary. He was a poet, a playwright and a philosopher who lectured on phenomenology, and he took students hiking and kayaking as bishop, which the secret police found hard to monitor. He was made Archbishop of Kraków in 1964, spent fourteen years contending with a communist state over church building permits and catechesis, and was elected pope in October 1978 after the thirty-three-day reign of John Paul I. His first visit to Poland in June 1979 drew crowds of millions and is widely credited with the confidence that produced Solidarity a year later. Both he and Gorbachev later said the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe would not have happened as it did without him. He was shot in St Peter's Square in 1981 and visited his would-be assassin in prison. He travelled to 129 countries, apologised for Catholic wrongs including the Inquisition and antisemitism, prayed at the Western Wall, and was the first pope to enter a mosque and a synagogue. He was immovable on contraception, women's ordination and priestly celibacy, and his handling of the abuse crisis is the standing charge against him. He died in 2005 and was canonised in 2014.

• Lived: 1920 CE – 2005 CE
• Nationality: Polish
• Roles: pope, head_of_state, philosopher

Related

• The Cold War
• Election of Karol Wojtyła as Pope John Paul II — First Polish Pope
• John Paul II's 1979 Pilgrimage to Poland — Catalyst for Solidarity
• Solidarity Movement in Poland