Pope John Paul II
at his Inauguration in 1978
John Paul II, Karol Józef Wojtyła, (born May 18, 1920) is the first Slavic pope in history and the first non-Italian pope since Adrian VI in 1522. He is also the most widely travelled pope, having made over 100 papal visits abroad, more than all his predecessors put together. John Paul II was elected pope of the Roman Catholic Church on October 16, 1978, following the short pontificate of his namesake, Pope John Paul I.
Karol Józef Wojtyła (pronounced Voy-tee-wah) was born in Wadowice, Poland in 1920.
An athlete, actor and playwright in his youth, Karol Wojtyła was ordained a priest on November 1, 1946. He taught ethics at Kraków and Lublin universities. In 1958 he was named auxiliary bishop of Kraków and four years later he assumed leadership of the diocese with the title of vicar capitular.
On December 30, 1963, he was named Archbishop of Kraków by Pope Paul VI. Both as bishop and archbishop, Wojtyła participated in the Second Vatican Council, making contributions to the documents that would become the Decree on Religious Freedom (Dignitatis Humanae) and the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes), two of the most historic and influential products of the council.
In 1967 Pope Paul VI elevated him to cardinal. In August 1978 following Pope Paul's death he participated in the Papal Conclave that elected Albino Luciani, the Cardinal Patriarch of Venice, as Pope John Paul I. At 65, Luciani was a young man by papal standards. While Wojtyła at 58 could have expected to participate in another papal conclave before reaching the age of eighty (at which he would be excluded), he could hardly have expected that his second conclave would come so soon, for on 28 September 1978, after only 33 days in the papacy, Pope John Paul I died, in circumstances that still remain mysterious. In October 1978 Wojtyła returned to the Vatican to participate in the second conclave in less than two months.
The conclave itself was divided between two particularly strong candidates, Giuseppe Siri, the reactionary Archbishop of Genoa, and Giovanni Benelli, the liberal Archbishop of Florence and close associate of Pope John Paul I. In early ballots Benelli came within nine votes of victory. Wojtyła however secured election as the compromise candidate, in part through the support of liberal cardinals like Franz König and conservatives who had previously supported Siri. On election, the first non-Italian pope for nearly half a millennium was referred to by many simply as the man for a far country. In terms of his age, his nationality, and his rugged health, the former athlete and playwright broke all the papal rules. He was to become the dominant twentieth-century pope of the Catholic Church, eclipsing Pope Paul VI in travels, Pope Pius XII in intellectual vigour, and Pope John XXIII in charisma.
When on October 16, 1978, at age 58, he succeeded Pope John Paul I, he fulfilled a prophesy made to him decades earlier by Padre Pio that he would one day be pope. There was also another part to the prediction. The monk with the stigmata also predicted that Wotjtyła's reign would be short and end in blood, a prophesy that almost became true when on May 13, 1981 he was shot and nearly killed by Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turkish gunman, as he entered St. Peter's Square to address a general audience.
There have been unproven speculations that the assassination was ordered by the Soviet Union. Two days after Christmas in 1983, Pope John Paul went to the prison and met with his would-be assassin.
There was a plot to assassinate the Pope during his visit to Manila in January 1995, as part of Operation Bojinka, a mass terrorist attack that was developed by Al-Qaida members Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheik Mohammed. A suicide bomber would dress up as a priest. He would then use the disguise to get closer to the Pope's motorcade so that he could kill him by detonating himself. Before January 15, the day which the men would attack the Pope during Philippine visit, an apartment fire led investigators led by Aida Fariscal to Yousef's laptop computer, which had terrorist plans on it, as well as clothes and items that suggested an assassination plot. Yousef would be arrested in Pakistan about a month later, but Khalid Sheik Mohammed would not be arrested until 2003.
John Paul II has written and delivered a number of speeches on the subject of the Church's relationship with Jews, and has often paid homage to the victims of the Holocaust in many nations. His visit to the Synagogue of Rome was the first by a pope since the founding of the Catholic Church.
The Anti-Defamation League recently stated, "The Anti-Defamation League congratulates Pope John Paul II on the 25th anniversary of his papacy. His deep commitment to reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people has been fundamental to his papacy. Jews throughout the world are deeply grateful to the Pope. He has defended the Jewish people at all times, as a priest in his native Poland and during his pontificate....We pray that he remains healthy for many years to come, that he achieves much success in his holy work and that Catholic-Jewish relations continue to flourish." [1]
He is considered a conservative on doctrine and issues relating to the ordination of women, and has been critical of Liberation Theology and those who regard themselves Catholics while questioning the church's teachings on faith and morals. In the 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) he reasserted the church's condemnation of abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment, calling them all a part of the "culture of death" that is pervasive in the modern world. His stands on capital punishment, world debt forgiveness, and poverty issues are considered politically liberal, showing that 'conservative' and 'liberal' labels are not easily assigned to religious leaders.
For antipopes during his papacy, see
Personal background
The Second Conclave of 1978
John Paul II's Coat of Arms
The Letter M is for Mary, the Mother of God, to whom he holds strong devotionThe First Polish playwright-Pope
Travels
Pope John Paul II visiting a synagogue in Rome in April 1983Relations with the Jewish people
Criticising a 'culture of death'
Serious Health Problems
Pope John Paul II kisses the Koran in May 1999
Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope ever to preach in a Lutheran Church in Rome, in December 1983Antipopes
Encyclicals of Pope John Paul II
Pastoral visits outside Italy
Pope John Paul II in old age