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It was during the Nazi occupation of Poland that Karol made the decision to pursue his spiritual vocation. Many years later, he was to say that living in a country which had had to fight for its existence had taught him the meaning of exploitation. "I put myself immediately on the side of the poor, the disinherited, the oppressed, the marginalised and the defenceless," he said in 2000.
In the 1940s, however, there was no hint that he would eventually head up the world's nearly one billion Catholics. Instead, enamoured of the mystical writings of Saint John of the Cross, he wished to enter a closed order. Unwilling to see such potential locked away behind monastery walls, however, the Polish church turned down his application three times.
In 1946 he was ordained as a diocesan priest, a move which set the 26-year-old on a career curve which would take him through Archbishop and Cardinal to the Holy See.
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