Pope John Paul II

There are a lot of heroes in my life, but my one and only is Pope John Paul II. He was the one who ended communism in Poland and in other countries. Because of this, he saved a lot of countries from destruction.

People call him Pope John Paul II, but I like to call him by his given name, Karol Jozef Wojtyla. He was the youngest Pope ordained in the 20th Century. Karol was born on May 18,1920 in Wadowice, Poland. His mother died, before he was 14. His older brother Edmund, a doctor, died in 1932. His father, a non-commissioned army officer, died in 1941. The one thing that Pope John Paul II loved when he was younger, was sports; he liked soccer and skiing. German tanks invaded Poland in 1939, when he was just a teenager. Pope John Paul II was ordained a priest in 1946. In 1964 he was ordained Archbishop of Krakow. Three years later, he became a Cardinal. At that time, he gained respect from people.

John Paul was ordained pope in 1978. He was 58 years old. He was the first non-Italian to be picked in four-hundred and fifty years. The name, John Paul was his choice. The first place that he picked to visit after being ordained Pope, was Poland. Because of all of his vists, he was the the most widely traveled pope in history. On May 13, 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot. Although he forgave the person who shot him, John Paul believed in was the Virgin of Fatima who saved him. From then on, Pope John rode in a glass car. It was a familar sight to people when he rode in it.

Pope John Paul II is the third longest pontificate in the history of the Papacy. This was according to the Roman Catholic tradition. His Papacy ended with his death on April 2,2005. Since the death of Pope John Paul II, a number of people at the Vatican referred to him as "John Paul the Great".