- Date Of Birth: May 18, 1920
- Date Of Death: April 2, 2005
- State: Georgia
His Holiness Pope John Paul II
May 18, 1920 a” April 2, 2005 Karol Jozef Wojtyla, also known as Pope John Paul II, was born May 18, 1920 in Wadowice, a small city near Krakow, Poland. He was the second of two sons born to Karol Wojtyla Sr., a retired army officer and tailor, and Emilia Kaczorowska Wojtyla, a schoolteacher. During his childhood the Pope experienced many hardships including the loss of his mother, Emilia, and only brother, Edmund. His father died in 1941 when Karol was 20, which left him the sole survivor of his immediate family.
As a teenager he enjoyed religion, poetry and theater. In 1938, he enrolled at Krakow”s Jagiellonian University to study literature and philosophy. However, the Nazi occupation forces closed the university in 1939, forcing him to work in a quarry and chemical factory to earn a living and avoid deportation to Germany. With schools closed during the German occupation, Karol helped set up an underground university and the clandestine “Rhapsodic Theater.”
Recognizing his call to the priesthood, Karol began courses in the clandestine seminary of Krakow in 1942. When World War II ended, he resumed his studies in the major seminary of Krakow, and in the faculty of theology of the Jagiellonian University. He was ordained as a priest on November 1, 1946. Father Wojtyla was then sent to study at Rome”s Angelicum University.
Upon his return to Poland from Rome, he was vicar of various parishes in Krakow as well as chaplain for the university students until 1951, when he resumed his studies of philosophy and theology. Father Wojtyla eventually became professor of moral theology and social ethics in the major seminary of Krakow and in the Faculty of Theology of Lublin Catholic University.
Pope Pius XII appointed him as Auxiliary Bishop of Krakow in 1958. In 1964, he was nominated Archbishop of Krakow by Pope Paul VI, who also made him a cardinal in 1967.
