Pope John Paul II.

Emilia and Karol Wojtyła welcomed their second son, Karol Józef, in 1920 in Wadowice, Poland. Older brother Edmund later became a doctor. When Karol was nine, his mother died, and his father raised him alone. Nicknamed Lolek, he excelled in sports and acted in school plays. He developed a devotion to the Virgin Mary and studied theater at Jagiellonian University before World War II shut down his education.

The College of Cardinals elected John Paul II pope on October 16, 1978, at age 58. He took the name of his predecessor John Paul I and became the first non-Italian pope since Adrian VI in the 16th century. His papacy pushed interfaith dialogue: in 1986 he became the first pope to enter a synagogue, and in 2001 the first to enter a mosque. He survived an assassination attempt by Mehmet Ali Agca in 1981. He traveled to 129 countries, covering over 750,000 miles. He canonized 482 saints and beatified 1,338 people, more than all his predecessors combined.

Catholic priests must remain celibate, so John Paul II never married. He maintained close relationships with his father Karol Wojtyła and brother Edmund, though both predeceased him. Theater captured his imagination: he wrote plays and poems under the alias Karol Wojtyła. He spoke eight languages and used the motto Totus Tuus in devotion to Mary. Parkinson’s disease afflicted him from 1992 until his death in 2005.

John Paul II received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2000 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004. Time named him Person of the Year in 1994. Five million mourners came to Rome for his funeral in 2005, the largest mourning ceremony in history. He traveled more than any pope, championed interfaith relations, and defended human dignity. Pope Francis canonized him in 2014.