BIOGRAPHY OF ST. JOHN PAUL II · The small “Lolek” (a nickname his mom gave him and which his...

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BIOGRAPHY OF ST. JOHN PAUL II

A DIFFICULT CHILDHOOD

Karol Wojtyla was born on May 18,

1920 in Wadowice, a small city

located in southern Poland. His

father, (also named Karol) was an

auxiliary officer in the Polish army;

his mother, Emilia Kaczorowska, had

been a seamstress and school

teacher. Emilia’s health was very

delicate, and she suffered from severe kidney problems and her heart slowly

weakened from a congenital infection. When she was pregnant with Karol, the

political situation in the country was critical and World War I had recently ended.

Despite everything, Emilia intuited in the depths of her heart that this pregnancy was

extraordinary and she was sure that her baby would become someone special. At that

time, access to abortion was not easy, but given her situation, the option was still

offered to her.

On June 20 of the same year, he was baptized with the name Karol Josef Wojtyla, in

St. Mary’s Church (the Church of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary).

The small “Lolek” (a nickname his mom gave him and which his classmates would

later use) was the second son of this marriage; his brother

Edmund was 15 years older than him. St. John Paul II’s life

was marked by suffering from an early age.

At nine years old, he suffered the loss of is mother, who

died on April 13, 1929. His Father took it upon himself to



raise his two sons, being a man in whom military firmness and a deep spiritual life

were deeply united.

During the month of May, the same year that his Mother died, Karol received his First

Communion; from that day, he began to attend

daily Mass with his dad, a custom that he never

abandoned throughout his life. On the same day

that he received his First Communion, the

scapular was imposed upon him, and from then

on, he always wore this sacramental as a sign of

his filial love for the Blessed Virgin Mary.

His older brother Edmund, a doctor and pride of the family, and personal hero of the

young Karol, died of scarlet fever on December 4, 1932.

Remembering this period in his life, the future Pope tells us: Day after day I was

able to observe the austere way in which he lived. By profession he was a soldier

and, after my mother's death, his life became one of constant prayer. Sometimes

I would wake up during the night and find my father on his knees, just as I would

always see him kneeling in the parish church.”

In the midst of World War II and with the Nazi occupation of Poland, the future

pontiff sensed the possibility of a Polish genocide, and to avoid being deported to the

invading country, he found work as a manual laborer in a quarry and then at a

chemical plant. The horrors of the war and of the concentration camps, along with

the experience of work, helped him to understand physical exhaustion, hunger,

and the religious fervor of the poor and the working class.

An unforgettable experience for Karol Wojtyla was having witnessed the death of his

coworkers in the mine. “I was present when, after detonating dynamite, some

rocks fell on a fellow worker and killed him.”



On February 18, 1941, his father died of a heart attack, which Pierced Karol’s

heart deeply. When he returned home, to the damp basement apartment that he

shared with his father in Krakow, he found that the center of his universe had died.

Karol Wojtyla, Sr., had been in bed for two months and died while his son was

working.

“At twenty I had already lost all the people I loved, and even those I might have

loved, like my older sister who, they said, died, six years before I was born.”

NAZIE PERSECUTION AND EXTERMINATION

World War II began with the German invasión of Poland on September 1, 1939. Days

later, England and France declared war on Germany, and on September 17, Poland

was invaded by the Soviet Union. Because of a German-Soviet agreement on

September 28 of that year, Poland was divided into

two zones of occupation.

This was the historical and social context that

Poland suffered when the question of a priestly

vocation arose for the young Wojtyla. Considered

the most Catholic country in the world, during

the six years of Nazi occupation, Polish

Catholicism suffered the hell of persecution, as

did the three million Jews who lived in that land and were largely exterminated in

concentration camps.

The Nazis did not only want to suppress Poland, but to eliminate it as a nation,

stripping it of its identity. They immediately began to arrest those who they rightly

considered the main figures of Polish identity: the Catholic Church. Seminaries were

closed, and priests, seminarians and even bishops were arrested. Many of them

died in death camps.



The universities and high schools were closed. The

invading forces stole and took treasures of Polish culture

to Germany. The arrest and later execution of Poles was

a daily practice of the Nazis. Millions of prisoners,

interned in concentration camps, worked like slaves for

the Reich. Hundreds of thousands of them were killed or

died of hunger, illness, and exhaustion.

In the gas chambers of the camps of Auschwitz,

Majdanek y Treblinka nearly three million Polish Jews

were murdered. “Sometimes I would ask myself: so many young people of my own

age are losing their lives, why not me? Today I know that it was not mere

chance.”

VOCATION

Nevertheless, the decision to become a priest would take another year and a half to

mature in the heart and mind of Karol. Years later, he would remember ”with great

pride and gratitude the fact that I was allowed to do manual labor for four

years; during that time, I received lights about the most important issues in my

life, and the path of my vocation became clear…, like an interior fact of

indisputable and absolute clarity.”

On May 23, the Gestapo raided the Salesian

parish in Debniki, and arrested and deported

13 priests who later died in the concentration

camps. Jan Tyranowski was in the church that

day, but the agents did not enter the place

where he was. A little later, Karol was moved

to a new job in the quarry which consisted of setting the explosives and wick in the

rock. Now he spent more time in the barracks, where it wasn’t as cold…, and Karol

occasionally had the opportunity to read.

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During the summer of 1941 he was transferred again, this time to the main factory.

His task for three years was to carry by hand buckets full of whitewash from the ovens

to the laundry. The work was easier, and inside, but it took almost two hours for him

to get there and the same to get home. Karol preferred the night shift (sometimes he

stayed to do a double shift and so save the long trips to and from work) because it

was quieter and he could dedicate more time to reading.

Already before he was a priest, he had moments of Deep prayer and meditation.

Constant prayer was what allowed Karol to keep going, as much in his spiritual as

well as emotional life, in the midst of such a hard life of work. He prayed each day

in the church of Debniki before going to work, he prayed at the factory, he prayed in

the old wooden church near the factory, and when he went each day to the cemetery

each day after work, he prayed at the tomb of his father, and then later prayed at

home. Most of his coworkers who knew how his life was in the midst of the religious

persecution, looked at him with respect, admiration, and affection. Stefania

Koscielniakowa, who worked in the factory’s kitchen, remembers that her supervisor

pointed to him on one occasion and said to her: “that boy prays to God, he is a

cultured young man, he is very talented and writes poetry…; he doesn’t have a

mother or father….; he is very poor…, give him a bigger loaf of bread because

what we give him is the only thing he eats.”

Meanwhile, Karol kept finding time and energy to continue with the clandestine

theater, attending meetings with intellectuals in Krakow, speaking every week with

Tyranowski, reading and writing much, learning languages and continuing to study

philosophy on his own.

One afternoon in September of 1942, after rehearsing a theatrical work of Norwid,

Karol returned to to Kotlarczyk and asked him not to assign him any more roles in

future plays of the group. He immediately explained that he was thinking of entering

the clandestine seminary because he wanted to become a priest. Kotlarczyk – who

was the soul of the theater group, and who now shared the apartment of Tyniecka



treat with Karol – spent several hours trying to dissuade him from his plan. He invoked

the holiness of art as a great mission, and reminded Karol of the warning of the

Gospel against wasting talent and begged him

to postpone his decision. Nevertheless, Karol

stayed firm and the next month began his

studies at the seminary. The classes were

individual and were given in secret places.

The majority of the students did not know of

the existence of the other seminarians until

the war ended. The external life of Karol hardly changed when he began seminary:

he continued walking in Solvay and fulfilled his commitments with the Rhapsodic

Theater for six months. The difference was that now, in addition to his previous

obligations he was also studying at seminary in secret, which also posed a great

risk. Being arrested as a secret seminarian meant death in a concentration camp, as

happened to not a few Poles in this situation.

Karol rose at dawn to go to Mass at 6:30; then he went running to the Solvay

Factory where he spent the day; he visited the tomb of his father at the cemetery

and ran home to finish his duties for seminary. Sometimes he arrived at 6:30 Mass

after finishing the night shift. Being a seminarian, he also studied German in a

systematic way because he wanted to read several German philosophers who

especially interested him in their native language. He later used a German-Spanish

dictionary to learn Spanish so he could read the works of St. John of the Cross in

thits original language.

On January 29, 1944, when hope invaded Poland because it seemed like the war

was ending, Karol suffered a serious accidento n his way back from work. A heavy

German military truck loaded with thick planks that hung over the sides of the

truck, struck him as it passed. He was knocked to the ground with a strong

concussion. A lady who was passing by, washed him a little with water from a



ditch, and stopped another truck who took him to the hospital. He was

unconscious for nine hours and spent 15 days in the hospital and several more

weeks recovering at home.

On August 1, a large uprising broke out in Warsaw. On the 6th, called Black Sunday,

the German commander, afraid of an uprising in Krakow, carried out a huge city-wide

raid. When they broke into Karol’s house, he stayed

in his room, kneeling and praying in silence, and

inexplicably, the soldiers did not enter those rooms.

PRIEST

It would still take almost six months for the Nazis to

retreat from Krakow. With the end of the conflict,

the seminary was able to act openly. Karol finished

his studies brilliantly, and on NOVEMBER 1, 1946, AT

26 YEARS OLD, KAROL WOJTYLA WAS ORDAINED A

PRIEST at the Major Seminary in Krakow and

celebrated his first Mass in the Crypt of St. Leonard

in Wawel Cathedral.

Shortly thereafter, he obtained a licentiate in Theology

from the Pontifical University of the Angelicum. There,

he improved his French, and at the same time learned

English and Italian. Karol proved to be proficient at

learning languages: at meals he sat with North

Americans or other students and listened to them

attentively. He already spoke German and had learned

Spanish on his own in Krakow. He also impressed all

his classmates with his vigor and skill in sports.



He did not like to be isolated. He tried to meet with people with different ideas

and points of view, and made an effort to learn from them. Karol was always a

great listener and a master of silence. He had the gift of immediately gaining the

trust of those with whom he was speaking.

On July 3, 1947, Karol received the highest grades for his four exams for his

licentiate, on a test taken entirely in Latin. On June 19, 1948, he finished his

doctorate, also with the highest grades possible, even though he could not then

receive his doctoral diploma because of a lack of resources to print his thesis.

Returning to Poland, his first assignment as a priest was in Niegowici, a small town

where there was no running water, sewage system, nor electricity. The region had

been recently devastated by flooding which caused severe damage in all the

buildings. There he gave himself entirely to the pastoral care of these poor people, to

teach religious in several schools, and to care for the sick and visit everyone.

He organized activities for young people. He

quickly made friends and admirers. He

travelled in car or on foot – whether it was

raining or in the bitter cold, through the mud

or through snow, from town to town, always

accessible and in a good mood. While he

travelled in car on the road full of potholes,

Organizó actividades para la gente joven. Ganó rápidamente amigos y

admiradores. Viajaba en carro o a pie –bajo la lluvia o con un frío terrible, por el

barro o por la nieve, de pueblo en pueblo, siempre accesible y de buen humor.

Mientras viajaba en carro por la carretera llena de baches, he usually read a book.

WHen we went on foot, he prayed. When someone stole an elderly widow’s bed

linens, he gave her his and he slept for months on the mattress base, without pillow,

sheets, or anything else.



On his long journeys, snow would stick to his cassock, then it would melt inside

the houses he would visit, and freeze again when he left, forming a heavy bell

around his legs, a bell that became increasingly heavy and prevented him from

taking long strides; when night came, he could hardly drag his legs, but he

continued, because he knew that people were waiting for him, that there were

people who spent the year waiting for that encounter.

On March 17, 1949, after seven months of service in Niegowici, Karol was assigned

as coadjutor of the parish of St. Florian in Krakow. There he

immediately developed an intense pastoral plan. He also kept

in close communication with intellectuals, artists, and

students. In that city where culture and education was

venerated, the 29 year old priest, with an exceptional

education, charming and intelligible, soon became something

of a celebrity. Full of energy, he fulfilled his obligations in the

parish and also maintained a thick network of friends and

acquaintances among university students and intellectuals of

the city. In November of 1951, his bishop ordered him to leave his parish duties in

order to obtain another doctorate.

On September 23, 1958, he was consecrated Auxiliary Bishop of the Apostolic

Administrator of Krakow, Bishop Baziak, becoming the youngest member of the Polish

Episcopate.

He participated in the II Vatican Council, where he

actively participated, especially in the

commissions responsible for writing the Dogmatic

Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, and

the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes. During

those years, the then bishop Wojtyla comined

theological productivity with an intense apostolic



labor, especially with youth, with whom he shared as many moments of reflection and

prayer as he did of diversion and adventure in the open air.

On January 13, 1964, Bishop Baziak passed away, so Bishop Wojtyla rose to take the

See of Krakow as the titular bishop. Two years later, Blessed Paul VI converted

Krakow into an Archdiocese. During his work as Archbishop, the future Pope was

characterized by the integration of laity in pastoral work, the promotion of youth and

vocational ministries, the building of churches despite strong opposition from the

Communist regime, the promotion of human dignity and the religious formation of

workers, and the encouragement of Catholic thought and publications. He also played

a prominent role in the formulation of the Declaration on Religious Liberty.

After the Council, Blessed Paul VI, named him Cardinal of the Roman Church on

June 26, 1967.

Karol Wojtyla had published his most famous written work in 1960, Love and

Responsibility. Blessed Paul VI, delighted by his apologetic defense of the traditional

Catholic teachings about marriage, trusted extensively in the counsel of Archbishop

Wojtyla when he wrote Humanae Vitae. In

1976, he was invited by Blessed Paul VI to

preach the Lenten retreat at the Papal

residence.

In 1978, and Blessed Paul VI passed away and

a new Pope was elected, Cardinal Albino

Luciani who was 65 years old and took the

name John Paul I, the “Pope of the Smile.”

Nevertheless, he passed away 33 days after his election. On October 16, 1978, after a

new conclave, the Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla was elected as the successor of St.

Peter, breaking the tradition of more than 400 years of choosing Popes of Italian



origin. On October 22, 1978, he was invested as the Supreme Pontiff, assuming the

name John Paul II.

Below are his first words as the Successor of Peter:

"Dear brothers and sisters, we are still all very saddened by the death of the

very dear Pope John Paul I. And now the most eminent cardinals have called a

new bishop of Rome. They called him from a far-away country...far, but always

near in the communion of faith and the Christian tradition. I was afraid in

receiving this nomination, but I did it in the spirit of obedience to Our Lord and

with total trust in his Mother, the Most Holy Madonna.”

“I don't know if I can express myself well in your – in our – Italian language. But if

I make a mistake, you will correct me. And so I introduce myself to you all, to

confess our common faith, our hope, our trust in the Mother of Christ and of the

Church, and also to begin again on this path of history and of the Church with the

help of God and with that of men.”



St. John Paul II passed away on April 2, 2005, on the Vespers of Divine Mercy

Sunday.

He was beatified by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on May 1, 2011, Divine Mercy

Sunday.

He was canonized by Pope Francis on April 27, 2014, Divine Mercy Sunday.

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