His birth name was Karol Wojtyla. He was born May 18, 1920 at Wadowice, Poland. As a child, Karol was very athletic, and an excellent student. He liked to play different sports and hike. This may surprise you, but he actually considered a career in theater when he was young.

In 1942, in the midst of World War II, Karol decided that he wanted a career in the religious life. He was ordained a priest in 1946.

On October 16, 1978, after more than 30 years in the priesthood, Karol became the Catholic Pope John Paul II.

Pope John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope since Pope Adrian VI in 1522.

In 1981, someone tried to kill the pope. He was shot, but recovered after three months in the hospital. The pope actually had a private meeting with the man who shot him, and he forgave the man!

In 1994, Time magazine named him their "Man of the Year."

Pope John Paul II also traveled more than any pope in history. It is said that if you added up all of the miles he travelled, you could go around the world 28 times!

Additionally, he canonized more saints than any other pope, and added a series of meditations to the Rosary, called the Luminous mysteries.

In the 1990s, it was discovered that Pope John Paul II had Parkinson's disease. Even though this disease may have slowed him down, Pope John Paul II remained "a very active head of Roman Catholicism," according to About.com. He could speak eight different languages fluently, helping him communicate with people of all kinds and ages.

People say that when he went to Cuba, no one there belived in religion, but now even the dictator of Cuba goes to church!

Sadly, after being hospitalized several times, our pope passed away on April 2, 2005 in Vatican City.

R.I.P. Pope John Paul II

Editor's Note: This author found all of this info from http://catholicism.about.com/od/popes/p/popejohnpa05.htm.

In fact, the author copied that website wayyy too much, so I've taken their name off of the story, and put the author into my "Do Not Publish" folder. Thank you for trying, but please talk with your English teacher about the difference between using information from a source and simply copying the source.