Topic: Pope John Paul II - his life, achievements as a head of the Roman Catholic Church, and who is he for me.
16. A topic of your own choice. The topic must, of course, be related in some way to the subject matter of the course. Please advise me of your chosen topic if you select this option.
Topic: Pope John Paul II – his life, achievements as a head of the Roman Catholic Church, and who is he for me.
Every person in this world should have a role model, which means someone worthy of imitation, a person who serves as an example in many particular situations or behavior. For me a person like that always has been Pope John Paul II, who was born with a name Karol Józef Wojtyła. John Paul II was born on May 18th 1920, in Poland, in a town Wadowice, which is a very small town, located 50km from Krakow. He had a brother Edmund and a sister Olga. His father Karol was a non-commissioned army officer and his mother Emilia was a schoolteacher of Lithuanian descent. Karol Wojtyła was baptized on June 20th, 1920 in Wadowice by Ferdinand Franciszek Zak, he had his First Communion in 1929 and was confirmed in 1938. John Paul II was a strict Christian Roman Catholic since he was born, but that didn’t concern him in having a Jewish best friend ( in his childhood), Jerzy Kluger. His best friend once said for Times “But this pope is a friend of the Jewish people because he knows Jewish people”, unlike previous popes, which didn’t. Karol Wojtyła had a lot of death in his family during his childhood, his sister died before he was born, just before his 9th birthdays his mother died, and his father older brother died when he was 12 years old. He graduated from Marcin Wadowita high school, and started attending drama classes in Jagiellonian University, but sadly he couldn’t finish education at this University due to the Nazi forces closing it. During the World War II pope had to work in a quarry and a chemical factory. People had to work for Nazi forces to earn their living, not to be sent to Germany, or even not to end up in a concentration camps (especially since a lot of them were located in Poland). John Paul II studied philosophy, published poetry, and wrote and performed plays as part of a clandestine cultural resistance organization; he did all this by the night, because it was against the law during that period to educate itself. In 1942 he has started studying for the priesthood, of course, since the World War II was not over yet, it had to be done at underground seminary (Hidden, concealed, secret seminary). After Russia assumed control in Poland, Pope has obtained two doctorates, one in theology with, a thesis on the topic of faith in the works of St. John of the Cross, and one in philosophy. On July 4, 1958, Karol Wojtyła was selected as a bishop of Krakow, and 6 years after that he became an archbishop of Krakow. The biggest appointed titular that Karol Wojtyła had received happened on October 16th, 1978, he was elected a pope and took the name of John Paul II. Karol Wojtyła, also known as a Holy Father, was a first non-Italian to be chosen as a pope in over 400 years, the prior non-Italian pope was Hadrian VI in 1563, and he was Dutch. Holy Father was as well the youngest pope since 1846 (when Pius IX was elected). Also his pontificate (service as a pope) was one of the longest in the
