John Paul II has a unique place in history as the first non-Italian to be pope for 455 years and the first Slav ever to sit on the throne bequeathed two thousand years ago by Jesus to Saint peter. And when his peers elected him in 1978, he was the youngest Pope for 130 years.

 Few of those who saw an unknown Pole step forward to greet the crowds in Saint Peters Square on October 16th, 1978 could have imagined what an impact he was going to make. He has affected not just Catholic lives but the history of the world.

 In particular his highly political interventions in his native Poland played an influential role in the destruction of the Iron Curtain and the collapse of the ideology he hated above all others- Communism.

This sympathetic biography chronicles his life from the early death of his mother, his ambitions to become an actor, his resistance work against the Nazis, his work in a limestone quarry, his journey to become a priest and finally his spiritual leadership of one billion Catholics.