John Paul II (
Latin Ioannes Paulus PP. II,
Italian Giovanni Paolo II,
Polish Jan Pawel II) born
Karol Józef Wojtyla&_160;
(help·info) IPA&_160;
['ka??l 'juzef v?i?'t?wa];
18 May 1920 –
2 April 2005) reigned as the 264th
Pope of the
Roman Catholic Church and Sovereign of the
State of the Vatican City from
16 October 1978, until his death, almost 27 years later. His was the
second-longest pontificate after
Pius IX's 31-year reign. He has been the only
Polish pope, and was the first non-
Italian pope since the Dutch
Adrian VI in the 1520s.
John Paul II was Pope during a period in which the Catholic Church's influence declined in developed countries but expanded in the Third World. During his reign, the pope traveled extensively, visiting over 100 countries, more than any of his predecessors. He remains one of the most-traveled world leaders in history. He was fluent in numerous languages his native Polish and also Italian, French, German, English, Spanish, Croatian, Portuguese, Russian and Latin.[1] As part of his special emphasis on the universal call to holiness, he canonized a great number of people.
He beatified 1,340 people (some listed here), more people than any previous pope. The Vatican asserts he canonized more people than the combined tally of his predecessors during the last five centuries, and from a far greater variety of cultures.[2] Whether he had canonized more saints than all previous popes put together, as is sometimes also claimed, is difficult to prove, as the records of many early canonizations are incomplete, missing, or inaccurate. However, it is known that his abolition of the office of Promotor Fidei ("Promoter of the Faith" and the origin of the term Devil's advocate) streamlined the process.
After completing his studies at the Marcin Wadowita high school in Wadowice, in 1938 Wojtyla enrolled at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, and in a school for drama.[3] He worked as a volunteer librarian and did compulsory military training in the Academic Legion, but refused to hold or fire a weapon. In his youth he was an athlete, actor and playwright and he learned as many as ten languages during his lifetime, including Latin, Ukrainian, Greek, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, German, English as well as his native Polish. He also had some facility with Russian.
