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<img height='125' src='http://vaticanstamps.org/VPS/images/296/1153.jpg'> Saint Pope John Paul II, 80th Birthday Scott 1153 (2000)</center>
 
Karol Wojtyla was born in Wadowice (southwest of Karkow) on 18 May 1920, the son of a retired and pensioned army lieutenant. His mother died when Karol was almost nine years old. In 1938 his father moved to Krakow (the royal city of Poland) where Karol entered the Jagiellonian University as a student in Polish language and literature. He was skilled in drama and poetry. During the war he worked as a laborer in a limestone quarry. Karol and his father fled eastward with the outbreak of war but then returned to Krakow. His father died in 1942. Following recovery from a near-fatal accident in the quarry (hit by a truck) he felt called to the priesthood and began studies in secret. After the war the university reopened and Wojtyla graduated with distinction in theology. He was ordained priest on 1 November 1946. He earned a doctorate at the Angelicum in Rome in 1948, serving in academic positions thereafter. In 1963, St. Paul VI appointed Wojtyla as Archbishop of Krakow and in 1967 a cardinal. He served as a pectus during the Second Vatican Council.
 
Cardinal Wojtyla was elected pope at age 58 in the Conclave of 1978 (the Year of Three Popes). He served as Pope John Paul II, 16 October 1978 to 2 April 2005, the second-longest papacy after Pope Pius IX. John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope in 455 years since Hadrian VI (1522-1523), as well as the first pope from Poland.
 
References: 
• J.N.D. Kelly, Oxford Dictionary of Popes 
Article Links: • Thomas Crimando, <a href='http://vaticanstamps.org/vaticannotes/idisplay2.php?p=291-15&r=0'>80th Birthday of Pope John Paul II</a> Vatican Notes, Vol. 49, No. 1 p.15 (2000) 
• Michael Lamothe, <a href='http://vaticanstamps.org/vaticannotes/idisplay.php?p=66-378-56-99&r=0'>Pope John Paul II - Death & Sainthood</a> Vatican Notes, Vol. 66, No. 378 p. 56 (2018) 
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Stamp Link: Scott 1153-1155, 80th Birthday of John Paul II (2000) article link on next page

Vatican Notes article link: Michael Lamothe,  vol. 66, No. 378, 2008, pp. 56ff
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