Pope John Paul II (1920 to 2005)

Poland was occupied by the Nazis at this time during World War II and Karol worked as a forced laborer in a quarry and later in a chemical factory. In this way he was able to escape deportation. In 1942 he began studying at the illegal seminary in Krakow and was ordained a priest in 1946. 

Karol Jozef Wojtyla received his doctorate in 1948 on the subject of "The Faith of St. John of the Cross" and subsequently worked as a parish priest in various parishes in Cracow. He habilitated and became professor of moral theology and social ethics at the Great Seminary of Cracow and the Faculty of Theology in Lublin.

Pope Pius XII. appointed Wojtyla auxiliary bishop of Krakow and became the youngest member of the Polish episcopate. In 1964 he was appointed archbishop and received the cardinal title in 1967.

October 16: After the unexpected death of John Paul I, who had only a very short term of 33 days, Wojtyla is elected Pope as the first Pole. In memory of him, he chose the name John Paul II. He traveled a lot and made 104 trips in total. With this he made valuable contacts with the powerful and influential people of his time.

In these years, starting in 1980, he supported the Polish trade union movement "Solidarnosc" and thus influenced the political upheaval in Poland. Ultimately this was the trigger for the collapse of the entire communist power structure.

On May 13, 1981, the Turk Ali Agca attacked Karol and seriously injured him. The motive remained largely unexplained. The following year, another attack was carried out on the Portuguese pilgrimage site of Fatima. This time the pope remained unharmed.

- April 13th: John Paul II visits a Jewish synagogue in Rome and enters a Jewish house of worship for the first time by a pope. 

- October 27: Pope John Paul II initiates a common prayer of the world religions for peace. 

- Many years later, on May 6, 2001, Pope John Paul II prayed in the shrine of John the Baptist in the Umayyad Mosque.

The rigid papal moral teaching, his uncompromising no to artificial contraception and abortion, was not generally accepted. As a very conservative pope, John Paul II preached against the use of condoms, which led to harsh criticism in view of the millions of AIDS patients and deaths.

He also confirmed celibacy for priests. Later, in the Apostolic Letter "Ordinatio sacerdotalis", John Paul II again rejected the ordination of women. In 1998 the Pope recognized the complicity of Christians in the Holocaust of the Jews. In 2000 he went a step further and asked for forgiveness in the "Mea Culpa" for sins committed by Christians throughout history, especially against Jews, women and indigenous peoples. In particular he rehabilitated the astronomer Galileo Galilei, who was condemned by the Inquisition in the 17th century.

One year before his death, John Paul II visited the French place of pilgrimage Lourdes as his last trip abroad. On March 30, the Pope showed himself for the last time to the thousands of faithful who prayed for him.

On April 2, the Pope died. According to police estimates, four million people had come to Rome. Among them were numerous politicians from many nations. About 300,000 people crowded into St. Peter's Square, some of whom took their seats shortly after midnight. Another hundreds of thousands gathered in Rome, where the funeral service was broadcast on large screens.

The Pope was an important leader of the Catholic Church. Thus his successor in office Benedict XVI took up the beatification and later the canonization unusually fast. Karol Wojtyla is said to have performed two miracles by healing two seriously ill believers. Almost one million people around St. Peter's Square took part in the canonization.