22/10/2025
St. John Paul II
St. John Paul-II was born on May 18, 1920 in the town of Wadowice in Poland. His father was Karol Wojtyla and mother Emilia. The name given to this saint by his parents is Karol Josef Wojtyla. He got a job of laborer in a German-run chemical factory in 1940, when Poland was occupied by N**i Germany. When he was about 20 years old, he lost his mother, brother and father. The lose of the loved ones made him to look towards spiritual life and he entered a secret seminary and was o5rdained a priest on November 1, 1946.He was posted as Auxiliary Bishop of Krakow on September 28, 1958 when he was only 38 years old by Pope Pius-XII. He became cardinal on June 26, 1967 when Paul-VI was the pope. He participated in the Second Vatican Council as Bishop and contributed much in the deliberations. When Pope John Paul-I died suddenly after a very brief period in the papal chair, he was elected as pope by the cardinals on October 16, 1978 and was inaugurated as pope on October 22, 1978 when he was 58 years old as the 264th pope. He was the first pope from Poland and also the first pope from a communist country. During his long tenure as pope (26 years 5 months and 3 days) he beatified 1340 people and canonized 483 saints. He visited many countries in the world than any other pope as a missionary of peace and he is the cause for the fall of communism in Poland and in East European countries. He took very rigid stand against abortion and his view about human life as expressed by him during his visit to USA is �All human life from the moments of conception and through all subsequent stages is sacred�. He died of old age on April 2, 2005.
He was declared venerable on December 19, 2009 by pope Benedict-XVI. He was beatified on May 1, 2011 on the basis of a reported miraculous cure at his intercession, of a French nun Sister Marie Simon Pierre of the Congregation of Little Sisters of Catholic Maternity Wards, who was afflicted with Parkinson's disease. He was canonized on April 27, 2014 by Pope Francis for a miraculous cure from an incurable brain neurism of a Costa Rican woman named Floribeth Mora Diaz. The feast day of Saint John Paul-II is October 22, the date of his papal inauguration.
