Saint John Paul II

Karol Wojtyła was born in Wadowice, Poland, on May 18, 1920. He lost his mother at nine, his brother at twelve, his father at twenty: he was left alone in the world in 1941, in an occupied Poland. During the occupation he worked in a stone quarry and in a chemical plant, and studied theology in an underground seminary, risking his life. He was also an actor: he belonged to an underground theater that performed in people’s homes. He was ordained in 1946, taught philosophy, and became archbishop of Kraków. On October 16, 1978, he was elected pope: the first non-Italian in four hundred fifty-five years, and the first Slav in history. His pontificate lasted twenty-seven years, and it’s impossible to sum up. He made one hundred four international trips, visiting one hundred twenty-nine countries. He was decisive in the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, starting with his first return to Poland in 1979. He survived an assassination attempt in St. Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981, and went to prison to forgive the man who had shot him. He asked forgiveness, in the name of the Church, for the faults of the centuries — the Crusades, the Inquisition, anti-Semitism, Galileo. He was the first pope to enter a synagogue and a mosque. He lived his last years with Parkinson’s disease, in front of everyone, without hiding. He died on April 2, 2005. Francis declared him a saint in 2014. If your name is John Paul, today is your name day.