Karol Wojtyla was to be the youngest pope ordained in the 20th Century. He grew up in the southern Polish village of Wadowice, the son of an army sergeant. He had a strict, devout upbringing. His mother and brother died before he was 14. As a young man he enjoyed sports, including soccer and skiing, and had a love of acting and the theatre. He was still a teenager in 1939 when German tanks invaded Poland.
During World War II and the Nazi occupation he worked as a labourer, studying theology in secret. In 1944 following a crackdown on religious teaching he was forced into hiding. Many of his friends went to concentration camps. Continuing his studies after the war, he was ordained a priest in 1946. By 1964 he was Archbishop of Krakow and three years later he became a cardinal. During these years he gained respect for his stand against Poland's Communist regime.
Karol Wojtyla was an unexpected choice for pope when he was elected in 1978, aged 58. He was the first non-Italian for 450 years and was seen as an outsider for the job. He took the name John Paul II. One of his first visits was to Poland - the first papal visit to a nation under Communist rule. But his tour gave strength to people and helped sow the seeds of the revolution that would come 10 years later. After two frail predecessors he was seen as a man of action.
John Paul II went on to become the most widely travelled pope in history. Advisers warned that his growing influence could make him an assassination target, but he kept up the pace of public appearances. On 13 May 1981 he was shot and seriously wounded by a hired would-be killer in St Peter's Square. He is pictured here just moments before the shooting.
After a long recovery he met the Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca and offered forgiveness. In May 2000 the Vatican revealed that in 1917 three children in Portugal had seen a prophetic vision of the assassination attempt. This was the so-called third secret of Fatima - kept secret for decades - which was revealed to coincide with a visit by the Pope to the shrine of Fatima. He believed the Virgin of Fatima had saved his life.
Security around the Pope was tightened in the wake of the 1981 attempt on his life. His regular foreign tours gave the world a new word - Popemobile. The glass-sided, bullet-proof cars, from which John Paul II stood and waved to the crowds, became a familiar sight.
The Pope saw many political changes across the world including the fall of Communism in eastern Europe and the end of apartheid in South Africa. In September 1995 he visited South Africa and is pictured here in Johannesburg with the country's first black President, Nelson Mandela.
In his last years Pope John Paul II was dogged by arthritis and Parkinson's Disease. In 1992, he had a large tumour removed from his intestine. He had a hip replacement operation in April 1994 and on a trip to France in 1996 he collapsed. But he continued to travel widely. In January 1998 the Pope visited Cuba and was greeted by Fidel Castro, the Communist leader of a traditionally Roman Catholic country.
The Pope on Mount Nebo, west of Amman, Jordan, where Christians believe Moses first glimpsed the Promised Land. It was part of a tour of religious sites in 2000 to mark the millennium. In February he became the first pope to visit Egypt, a mainly Muslim country, where he called for harmony between different religions. In March he expressed sympathy with the plight of the Palestinians, and spoke of the Church's sadness at the persecution and anti-Semitism directed at Jews by Christians.
Pope John Paul II set himself a hectic schedule for 2000, but was determined to lead celebrations for the Catholic “Jubilee Year”. The high point was the traditional Easter message delivered in a solemn open-air ceremony in St Peter's Square. The following month he celebrated his 80th birthday. Despite increasing frailty he kept working, making an emotional trip to his native Poland in 2002 and voicing his opposition to the war in Iraq in 2003.
Photo's Of Pope John Paul II
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