Saint John Paul II, Pope

Karol Wojtyła was born in 1920 at Wadowice in southern Poland; by the age of twenty he had lost his mother, his brother and his father. During the German occupation he worked in a quarry and a chemical plant, acted in an underground theatre and studied for the priesthood in secret. Ordained in 1946, he taught ethics and became archbishop of Kraków in 1964 and a cardinal in 1967. Elected pope on 16 October 1978, the first non-Italian pope in 455 years, he began his ministry on 22 October, now his feast. On 13 May 1981 he was shot in St Peter's Square and later visited his attacker in prison. He made 104 journeys abroad and began the World Youth Days. He died on 2 April 2005 and was canonized in 2014.