18 May: Pope John Paul II

100 years ago today in 1920, Pope John Paul II (Karol Jozef Wojtyla) was born. Here are some things you may not know about him.

1. He was the first pope since the 16^th century who wasn't Italian. He seemed to start a trend in that, since the two popes who followed him weren't Italian, either.
2. He was born in Wadowice, Poland. By the time he was 21 his entire family had died – his mother died from childbirth when he was 9 and his elder brother died when he was 12.
3. He narrowly escaped death more than once as a young man. When he was 15, a friend jokingly pointed a gun at him which turned out to be loaded – the bullet just missed him. In 1944 he was run over by a German truck and badly injured. Luckily, the men in the truck flagged down another vehicle to take the injured man to hospital, so he survived. Later that same year, Nazi soldiers raided his town, arresting all the young men. He hid behind a door in his house and escaped arrest.
4. If he hadn't been called to the church, he might well have gone into acting as a career. He belonged to a theatre group and was not only able to remember his own lines, but everyone else's as well – which meant on one occasion when a fellow performer had to drop out, he was able to take on an extra role and saved the show. His phenomenal memory would stand him in good stead when he was pope, too – he could remember the names of all the bishops in the world and could recall details about people he'd met when he met them again years later.
5. He was known for his anti-communist views, but it was the communist party who wanted to appoint him Bishop of Krakow, vetoing every previous candidate submitted to them. No doubt they regretted it when he became pope. Nevertheless, John Paul II made sure he read the works of Karl Marx, because, in his own words, “If you want to understand your enemy, you need to know what he has written.”
6. He was also a keen skier, until he was 73. He was known to sneak out of the Vatican incognito in a black hoodie in order to go Skiing.
7. He spoke nine languages fluently - Polish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Italian, French, German, English, Spanish and Portuguese. During his time as pope, he visited 129 countries.
8. He had an impressive record for canonising and beatifying people. He beatified 1,340 people and made 483 people saints. That's more than all the other popes before him combined.
9. Marvel produced a comic about him in the 1980s.
10. He was made a saint himself in April 2014. His feast day is on October 22^nd and he is patron of the Archdiocese of Krakow, young Catholics and families.

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