John Paul II biography

Saint John Paul II was born in Wadowice, Poland on 18 May 1920, the youngest of three children to Karol Wojtyła and Emilia Kaczorowska. He was given the name Karol Józef Wojtyła.

His mother died of a heart attack and kidney failure when he was just eight years old. His older sister Olga had died before he was born and his older brother died when Wojtyła was just 12 years old.

Wojtyła was baptised one month after his birth, made his First Communion at the age of 9 and was confirmed when he was 18 years old. As a boy, he was very athletic and in particular, enjoyed playing football as a goalkeeper. In his childhood town, games were often organized between teams of local Jewish and Catholic boys, with Wojtyła often playing on the Jewish side.

In 1938, he and his father left his birth town of Wadowice and moved to Krakow where he enrolled at the Jagiellonian University, studying philology and various languages. While he was required to participate in compulsory military training during this time, he refused to fire a weapon. During his studies, he also learned as many as 15 languages.

When the Nazi German occupation forces invaded Poland in 1939, they forced the closure of the university and Wojtyła was required to work. During this time, he met Jan Tyranowski who introduced him to the Carmelite spirituality and the "Living Rosary" youth groups, things that would become central to the spiritual formation of Wojtyła.

In 1941, his father died of a heart attack, leaving Wojtyła as the only surviving member of his immediate family at just 20 years old. His father’s death prompted serious discernment to the priesthood and in 1942, he knocked on the door of the Archbishop's residence in Kraków and asked to study for the priesthood.

He studied in the clandestine underground seminary run by the Archbishop of Krakow, Cardinal Adam Stefan Sapieha. When the Gestapo began rounding up young men to curtail the uprising there, Wojtyła hid in the basement of his uncle and later escaped to the Archbishop’s residence. When the German’s left in 1945, the students reclaimed the ruined seminary.

After finished his studies at the seminary, Wojtyła was ordained as a priest on All Saints’ Day, 1 November 1946 Cardinal Sapieha. He was then sent to Rome’s Pontifical International Athenaeum Angelicum, the future Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas. He earned a Licentiate of Sacred Theology in 1947 and passed his doctoral exam in 1948. During his time at the university, he visited Padre Pio for confession and was told he would ascend to the highest post in the Church.

Wojtyła returned to Poland in 1948 for his first pastoral assignment in the Niegowić, at the Church of the Assumption. He was then transferred to the parish of Saint Florian in Krakow and taught ethics at Jagiellonian University and subsequently at the Catholic University of Lublin.

During his pontificate, he made journeys to 129 countries, becoming one of the most traveled world leaders in history. His trips were often significant, becoming the first pope to visit the White House and travel to the United Kingdom. He often met with other religious leaders, calling for harmony between people of different faiths.

As a priest, he had a soft spot for working with young people and that continued into his papacy, as he pioneered the international World Youth Days, presiding over nine of them between 1985 and 2002, with millions of people attending each event.

As pope, he wrote 14 papal encyclicals and taught about sexuality, writing what has become known as Theology of the Body. He taught on the importance of workers, the dignity of women, the moral wrongs of abortion and euthanasia, and urged a more nuanced view of capital punishment.

He was an outspoken critic of apartheid in South Africa, making a pilgrimage to neighbouring countries in 1988 but avoided entering South Africa. He called for economic sanctions against the South African government. He also criticised the war in Iraq, the Persian Gulf War and Rwandan genocide. He was also a vocal critic of organized crime, particularly the Mafia in Southern Italy.

His inspiration to people in parts of Eastern Europe has been credited with helping to bring about the end of Communism in the region. The first post-communist President of Poland created John Paul II with giving Poles the courage to demand change. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said without John Paul II, the collapse of the Iron Curtain would have been impossible.

He also visited dictatorships in Central and South America, and was a vocal critic of their leaders. Several of them collapsed in the years following his visits.

He completed a full-scale reform of the Catholic Church’s legal system and ordered the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, creating an authentic reference text for teaching Catholic doctrine.

His staunch criticism of communist and dictatorial regimes drew the ire of some, however. On 13 May 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot and critically wounded as he entered St Peter’s Square by Mehmet Ali Ağca, an expert Turkish gunman who was a member of a militant fascist group. John Paul II survived and visited his attacker in prison at the end of 1983, speaking with him privately for twenty minutes.

On 12 May 1982, while visiting Fatima, Portugal, a man tried to stab John Paul II with a bayonet by a traditionalist Catholic Spanish priest named Juan María Fernández y Krohn, who accused him of being an agent of Communist Moscow. The Pope survived the attack with non-life-threatening injuries.

As Pope, he apologized to many groups who had suffered at the hands of the Catholic Church through the years, including its involvement in slavery, religious wars, injustices against women and the silence of some Catholics during the Holocaust.

The many trips, longevity as pope and assassination attempts took their toll on John Paul II however. In 2001, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. In 2005, he was hospitalized with breathing problems. While he left a few days later, he was hospitalized just two weeks later and underwent a tracheotomy.

On 31 March 2005, he developed septic shock and was monitored by a team of consultants in his private residence. He was given the Anointing of the Sick by his friend and secretary Stanisław Dziwisz. On 2 April 2005, he spoke his final words, saying "Allow me to depart to the house of the Father". He died in his private residence that evening of heart failure.

Immediately upon his death, calls for his canonization began. He began to be referred to as John Paul the Great. His successor Pope Benedict XVI began the process for his beatification immediately, bypassing the normal restriction to wait five years.

On 19 December 2009, he was proclaimed “Venerable”. On 14 January 2011, Pope Benedict XVI confirmed a miracle involving Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, who had been cured of Parkinson’s, and he was beatified.

On 27 April 2014, Pope John Paul II was canonised along with Pope John XXIII, in a mass concelebrated by 150 cardinals and 700 bishops, and attended by at least 500,000 people.

St John Paul II in Australia

Saint John Paul II made two visits to Australia as pope and remains one of the few saints to have set foot in the country.

He first visited the country in 1973 when he was a Cardinal, attending the 40th International Eucharistic Congress in Melbourne.

He first visited Australia as Pope in November 1986, visiting Canberra, Brisbane, Sydney, Hobart, Melbourne, Darwin, Alice Springs, Adelaide and Perth. He was only the second pope to visit Australia at the time.

More than 200,000 people attended an open-air Mass at Sydney’s Randwick Racecourse, and visited the Sydney Opera House, as well as several schools and parishes across the country.

He also traveled to the heartland of Australia, Alice Springs, interacting with and engaging with Indigenous Australians. During his visit, he made a point of meeting with workers, migrants, and everyday people, not just dignitaries and politicians.

In January 1995, he returned to Australia at the age of 74 for a three-day visit to beatify Mother Mary Mackillop. During his time in Australia, he said Mary Mackillop embodied all that was best in the nation and its people, praising the genuine openness to others, hospitality to strangers and generosity to the needy. She would be canonised by Pope Benedict XVI 15 years later.

As part of his first ever email, John Paul II apologized for the church-backed Stolen Generations of Aboriginal children in Australia.