Brief Chronology of Pontiff John Paul II
by Robert Strybel
Polish American Journal, May 2005

• May, 18, 1920. Karol Jozef Wojtyla is born in Wadowice, Poland, second son of retired army officer and tailor by profession and a mother of Lithuanian origin.
• 1929. Karol’s mother died of heart and kidney problems just a month before his ninth birthday. Lolek did well at school and loved sports but was only a half-hearted altar boy.

• 1932. His 26-year-old brother Edmund, a medical doctor, dies of scarlet fever contracted from a patient he has been treating/

• 1938. Karol and his father move to Krakow where he enrolls at Jagiellonian University to study literature and philosophy. He joins a theater groups and is regarded as a good actor and singer.
• 1939. After the Nazis closed the university, Karol works as a laborer in a stone quarry.
• 1941. His father dies at the age of 61.
• 1942. Karol starts clandestine studies for the priesthood and works in a chemical factory until ...
• 1944. When the Germans begin rounding up Polish males. He finds refuge in the Kraków Archepiscopal residence.

• 1946. Father Karol Józef Wojtyla is ordained into the Roman Catholic priesthood. Over the next few years he studies at pontifical universities in Rome, earning two master’s degrees and a doctorate. During vacations he ministers to Polonian communities in France, Belgium and Holland.
• 1948. Father Wojtyla returns to Poland, works in Kraków-area parishes and serves as a chaplain for university students.
• 1951-1953. He completes his studies in philosophy and theology and becomes a professor of moral theology and social ethics.
• 1958. Father Wojtyla becomes auxiliary bishop of Kraków.
• 1962. The Polish bishop is one of its intellectual leaders of the II Vatican Council.
• 1964. Named Archbishop of Krakow, he becomes known for his courage in defense of religious freedom against the communist authorities.

• 1967. Archbishop Wojtyla receives a cardinal’s hat from Pope Paul VI.
• 1978. He becomes the first Pole ever and the first non-Italian to be elected Pope in 455 years.
• 1979. The triumphant homecoming of Jan Pawel II (drugi) gives Poles a new sense of hope, purpose and self-esteem. (A year later the Solidarity movement, the first independent mass organization in Soviet-bloc history arises.)
• 1981. While meeting pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square, the pope is shot and nearly killed by Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agça.
• 1982. In Fatima, Portugal, mentally unbalanced Spanish monk Juan Fernandez Krohn tries to stab the pope who is not hurt in the incident.
• 1982. In Fatima, Portugal, mentally unbalanced Spanish monk Juan Fernandez Krohn tries to stab the pope who is not hurt in the incident.
• 1983. During his third pilgrimage to his homeland, the pope uplifts the spirits of his downtrodden compatriots langhuishing under martial law which military strongly General Jaruzelski lifts a month later.

• 1987. In his third visit to his homeland, the pope strongly defends the rights of workers to have their own independent trade unions such as the outlawed Solidarity.
• 1989. Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev invites John Paul II to the USSR.
• 1990. The Pontiff flies to Czechoslovakia to hail collapse of communism and give his support to the new democratic President Vaclav Havel.
• July 15, 1992.- The pope undergoes surgery to have an intestinal tumor size of orange removed.
• 1992. The Pope rehabilitates Galileo, condemned by the Church 359 years earlier for maintaining that the earth revolves around the sun.
• 1992. The Holy Father issues the Roman Catholic Church’s new universal, the first in nearly five centuries.

• 1999. The Polish-born pontiff pays his second to last visit to his Polish homeland and is clearly energized by the affection showered on him by his countrymen.
• 2000. John Paul II achieves a longstanding dream of leading Christianity into the Third Milennium by symbolically opening the Sacred Door of St. Peter’s Basilica. He publicly apologizes to all those wronged by the Church over the ages. During his first visit to the Holy Land, he apologizes for Christian offenses against Jews and calls for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
• 2001. During a visit to Syria, he becomes the first pope in history to enter a mosque and apologizes to Muslims for the transgressions committed against them by Christian Crusaders. Later that year he apologizes to victims of sexual abuse by priests.

• March 31. The pope suffers a heart attack and develops a very high fever from a urinary infection, but refuses to return to hospital.
• April 1. Continuing deterioration of the pontiff’s health is report and Church leaders say his death is at hand.
• April 2. Amid world-wide prayer vigils, most of the day the dying the 84-year-old pope slips in and out of consciousness and expires at 9:37 p.m. (Central European Time), surrounded by his closest friends and medical staff.
• April 3-8. The world mourns and honors a unique religious leader who is already being called John Paul the Great. The ceremonies connected to the Holy Father’s wake and funeral are televised live world-wide, with an estimated two billion people watching the service. Almost two million Polish pilgrims travel to Rome.

Back to John Paul II Index

HOME