John Paul II (1920-2005)

Pope 1978-2005, the first non-Italian to be elected pope since 1522. He was born near Kraków, Poland. He upheld the tradition of papal infallibility and condemned artificial contraception, women priests, married priests, and modern dress for monks and nuns - views that aroused criticism from liberalizing elements in the church.

In a March 1995 encyclical, Jean Paul II stated in unequivocal terms his opposition to abortion, birth control, in vitro fertilization, genetic manipulation, and euthanasia, and employed the church's strongest language to date against capital punishment. In March 2000, he undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, visiting Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Territories. In May 2001, he used a historic visit to Greece, that was protested against by Orthodox priests, to apologize for the sins of Roman Catholics against Orthodox believers. He went on to Syria, where he became the first pope to enter a mosque, the Umayyad mosque in Damascus.

In 1939, at the beginning of World War II, Wojtyla was conscripted for forced labour by the Germans, working in quarries and a chemical factory, but from 1942 studied for the priesthood illegally in Kraków. After the war he taught ethics and theology at the universities of Lublin and Kraków, becoming archbishop of Kraków in 1964. In 1967 he was made a cardinal. He was shot and wounded by a Turk in an attempt on his life in 1981. Although he has warned against the involvement of priests in political activity, he opposed the Gulf War in 1991 and the Iraq War in 2003, and condemned arms manufacturers as sinful.