I was born in 1920 in the Polish town of Wadowice as the youngest of three children. Despite the rising tensions at the time, I was able to enjoy my high school years in relative peace. When I was 15, I was nearly shot by a gun that was thought to be unloaded, the first of the many neardeath incidents that I was able to avoid.
During my college years, both Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland. Universities were supressed and all able-bodied males were required to work, so I came to work in a limestone quarry doing hard labor. In the same year that I started working at the quary, I suffered two major injuries... a fractured skull after being hit by a tram, and a shoulder injury that would leave me with a permanent stoop after being hit with a lorry.
By the time I turned 20, all of my immediate family had passed. After the death of my father, I came to study at an underground seminary run by the archbishop of Krakow. Four months after I started studying at the underground seminary, I was hit by a German truck and spent two weeks hospitilized with a severe concussion and another shoulder injury. This injury would help to soldify my vocation as a priest.
After an uprising in Poland’s capital in 1944, the German Gestapo attempted to round up all Polish men in Krakow who were old enough to fight to prevent the uprising from spreading. Luckily, I was able to hide from the Gestapo in my uncle’s basement as the Germans searched above. I would then escape to the archbishop’s residence until the Germans fled Poland after the Soviet’s Vistula-Oder Offensive at the end of WWII.
I was ordained as a priest in 1946, one year after WWII had officially ended. I was appointed as an auxillary bishop in Krakow in 1958, making me the youngest bishop in Poland. In 1967, Pope Paul VI would name me a cardinal after my participation in Vatican II and in the assemblies of the Synod of Bishops.
After the death of Pope Paul VI in 1978, my predecessor would be chosen as the next Pope and his reign would last for 33 days, the shortest of any Pope. Although I was not the first candidate for Pope, I would be the one who was chosen to take my predecessor’s place and name at the age of 58.
During my time as Pope, I survived two major assassination attempts. During the first attempt, I was shot twice by a pistol and nearly bled out. It was only by the Blessed Virgin Mary’s protection that I was able to survive. I would ultimately pass away from an infection caused by my declining health on April 2, 2005 at the age of 84. I was canonized 9 years after my death on April 27, 2014. My feast day is on October 22nd, the same day that I became Pope.
I am... Saint Pope John Paul II.