7 John Paul II 7(Angelicum University, 1948). Returning to Poland,
Wojtyła became an assistant pastor in the village of
Niegowić in 1948. Within a year he was moved to Kraków’s
St. Florian’s parish. Over the next decade, Wojtyła taught
at the Jagiellonian University, where he also completed a
master’s degree in theology and a doctorate in sacred the-
ology (both in 1948). He was appointed chair of ethics at
the Catholic University of Lublin in 1954.
In 1958 Pope Pius XII appointed him auxiliary bishop
of Kraków. Wojtyła was a prominent participant in the
Second Vatican Council (1962–65). Pope Paul VI designated
him archbishop of Kraków in 1963 and added the rank of
cardinal in 1967.
He was elected pope on Oct. 16, 1978, and was
installed on October 22 as John Paul II. From the moment
of his inauguration, John Paul presented an activist image
that was amplified by his travels. Parading his message
through many cultures and speaking in many languages,
the energetic and handsome 58-year-old pope became a
media icon. His potent mix of religion and politics—and
its deep roots in Poland—was dramatized in his trips
abroad, which, in effect, surrounded the Soviet Union
with messages of religious freedom, national indepen-
dence, and human rights. In the first 10 years of his
papacy, John Paul supported Poland’s dissident Solidarity
trade union, advising Poles to advance slowly so that the
Communist regime would have little excuse to impose
martial law. This strategy was thrown into crisis when
John Paul was shot and nearly killed by a Turkish gun-
man, Mehmet Ali Ağca, on May 13, 1981. The assassination
attempt was almost certainly a conspiracy, but investiga-
tors have never proved who sponsored it. Throughout
the 1980s, however, it was widely believed that the
Soviets had been behind the attempt in the hope of