JOHN PAUL II - POPE

Totus Tuus (Entirely yours), the words written by Karol Wojtyla on the bishops consecration
were an expression of his love for the Mother of God to whom he referred throughout the entire
period of his pastoral work. He repeated them twenty years later, already as John Paul II.
Karol Wojtyla, later Pope John Paul II, the son of a retired Polish Army lieutenant, Karol
Wojtyla, was born on May 18, 1920. He spent his childhood at Wadowice, a provincial townlet
near Cracow. Having graduated from a secondary school he started studies in Polish philology
at the Jagiellonian University, the oldest Polish institution of higher learning. The first year of
studies posed no problem. Later he had his vacations a month shorter because on September
1, 1939 Nazi Germany invaded Poland. In Cracow, like in the rest of Poland, higher and
secondary schools were closed down. Like all people also Karol Wojtyla lived uncertain whether
he would survive. He worked. The official employment gave the so called Arbeitskarte which
protected from roundups. He was offered a job as a worker with the Solvay Chemical Works in
Cracow. Early in 1942 Karol Wojtyla took up clandestine theological studies. Studying under the
occupation meant that lectures were held in different places every time, in various points in
Cracow. Studying under the occupation meant work during the day and studying at night, it
meant constant fear and often death. Death especially frequent in Cracow since the Black
Sunday - the first Sunday of August 1944 - which the Nazis organized in retaliation for the
uprising which broke out in Warsaw. In connection with the situation the metropolitan of Cracow,
archbishop Adam Sapieha, called all the clerics to the bishops palace where he kept them till
the end of the war. Karol Wojtyla was there too. In August 1946 he graduated from the seminary
and was ordained priest in cardinal Adam Sapiehas private chapel on November 1. Soon
afterwards Karol Wojtyla went to Rome for a two -year stay connected with the preparation of his
doctoral thesis in the famous Angelicum papal institute.

Immediately after his return from abroad cardinal Sapienha sent Rev. Wojtyla to
Niegowic, a tiny village not far from Cracow where he was a parish priest. He worked there for
13 months but he left a lot after himself what is kept in the memory of the villages inhabitants.
Later he returned to Cracow to defend his M. A. thesis at the Theological Department of
Jagiellonian University on November 28, 1948 and, less than a month later, to defend his Ph.D.
thesis. The years that followed brought new accomplishments in the field of science and new
scientific degrees. At the same time Karol Wojtyla goes up in the church hierarchy. His
consecration for a bishop took place in the Wawel Cathedral on September 28, 1958. The year
1962 brings him the position of chapters vicar and the nomination for archbishop metropolitan
of Cracow comes from Rome on January 18, 1964. Late in May that year pope Paul VI
nominated 27 new cardinals, archbishop Karol Wojtyla among them. So, it was Rome again to
take an oath before the Holy Father, together with other cardinals in the Sistine chapel on June
28. The pope put the beretta rosa on the head of the newly nominated cardinal who
pronounced the traditional formula: To the glory of God Almighty and to the glory of the Church
accept this token of cardinals dignity for which you have to become a defender of faith until
bloodshed. And work again which has lasted uninterruptedly till 1978 when during a conclave
cardinal Karol Wojtyla was elected Pope and assumed the name of John Paul II. For the first
time in the 20th century old history of the Church it is being headed by a Pole.

1. Karol Wojtyla - a portrait from school years.

2. Karol Wojtyla - father with son Karol.
3. Rev. Wojtyla with altar - boys.
4. Karol Wojtyla - photos from the period when scientific research dominated the young
priests life.
5. On a bicycle trip.
6. Photo: young cardinal fulfilling his pastoral duties.
7. Polish Episcopate with the Primate of Poland cardinal Stefan Wyszynski (third from left)

and the metropolitan of cracow cardinal Karol Wojtyla (second from right)
8. Cardinal Karol Wojtyla at the meeting with the Pope Paul VI.
9. Not cardinal Karol Wojtyla any more but Pope John Paul II - a beginning of the new road
10. John Paul IIs third visit to Poland, Warsaw 1987. Welcoming ceremony at Okeci Airport
and the traditional moment known to all people on earth.
11. He always returned to Poland and left it with regret. Farewell ceremony at the Cracow
Airport during the second pilgrimage to the Homeland.
12. John Paul IIs third visit to Poland. The Holy Mass in Warsaw.
13. John Paul IIs third visit to Poland. Holy Mass in the chapel of the miraculous picture of
Our Lady of Czestochowa.
14. John Paul IIs third visit to Poland. Gdansk. The Pope is praying at the monument to the
Fallen Shipyard Workers.

15. John Paul IIs third visit to Poland. During his stay in the homeland the Pope met with the
representatives of the Jewish community living in Poland on the premises of the Polish
Primate
16. John Paul IIs third visit to Poland. Photo: cruise on the Baltic and Westerplatte where
first shots of World War II were fired on September 1, 1939.
17. During a cruise to Westerplatte the crew offered the Pope a boatswains whistle.
18. On many occasions John Paul II discussed the most important problems concerning the
humanity advocating love and peace ever since the beginning of his pontificate.
19. Again in Cracow against the background of the Wawel Royal Castle but already as Holy
Father John Paul II.
20. John Paul II delivers a homily to the thousands of faithful gathered near the sanctuary at
Jasna Gora in Czestochowa.