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Friday, April 01, 2005

The Life of Karol Wojtyla, Pope John Paul II

May 18, 1920 Karol Wojtyla born in Wadowice, Poland (a town near Krakow) to Karol Wojtyla, a retired army officer and tailor, and Emilia Kaczorowska Wojtyla, a school teacher
June 20, 1920 Karol is baptized
1926 Attends elementary school
1929 Mother dies of heart and kidney ailments
1930 Attends secondary school
1932 Brother Edmund dies of scarlet fever
1938 Confirmation. Enters Jagiellonian University to study philosophy and literature. He enjoyed acting, singing, and writing.
1939 Germany invades Poland
1940 Karol escapes Nazis by taking a job as a stone cutter
1941 Father dies
1942 Begins studies in a secret seminary
1944 Injured after being hit by an automobile. Karol escapes Nazis by moving to archbishop's residence
November 1, 1946 Karol ordained to the priesthood; spends next two years in graduate studies, Studies under the Dominican Garrigou-Lagrange in Rome
1948 Appointed assistant pastor; chaplin to university students
1951 Returns to his studies
1953 Wrote first doctoral thesis "Evaluation of the possibility of Constructing a Christian Ethic based on the System of Max Scheler"
1954 Communists shuts down theology department at university; joined faculty of the Catholic University of Lublin, which was the only Catholic university in the Communist bloc.
1956 Appointed to Chair of Ethics
September 28, 1958 Consecrated auxiliary bishop of Krakow
1960 Writes "Love and Responsibility", on sexual ethics
1962 Appointed acting bishop of Krakow. Attends the Second Vatican Council, Contributed to "Gaudium et spes"
1963 Visits the Holy Land. Named Metropolitan
January 13, 1964 Named Archbishop of Krakow
1967 Named a Cardinal
1969 Publishes "The Acting Person", a document on phenomenology
October 16th, 1978 Elected Pope after eight rounds of balloting. Takes the name John Paul II, after the previous Pope, John Paul I, who reigned for only 34 days.
1979 Visits Poland, Communist authorities were very worried. First Encyclical Redemptor hominis
1981 Mehmet Ali Agca attempts assassination of the Pope, who is hit with two bullets. Agca was working for the Bulgarians, at the request of the Soviet Union
1984 Diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the United States
1987 Donum vitae and Redemptoris Mater. Visited by Dimitrios, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople
1988 Ecclesia Dei
1989 Restoration of diplomatic relations with Poland.
1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church
1994 Reaffirms the celebate male priesthood. Publishes "Crossing the Threshold of Hope"
1995 Evangelium vitae and Orientale lumen
1997 Visits Poland again
1998 Visits Cuba. Fides et ratio
1999 Pope visits Mexico and the United States, including Saint Louis, Missouri
2002 Rosarium Virginis Mariae
2004 Mane nobiscum Domine

Short Biography of Pope John Paul II

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