Benedict XVI, in his homily on the steps of St Peter's during the beatification ceremony, called him "beloved and revered".
In an apparent reference to John Paul's bold defiance of Communism and support for the Polish Solidarity movement, Benedict said his predecessor "turned back with the strength of a titan ... a tide which appeared irreversible."
The first non-Italian Pope in 455 years when he was elected in 1978, John Paul brought new vitality to the Vatican but alienated many Roman Catholics with his conservative social views.
Baptised Karol Wojtyla, he was born in a small town near Kraków, in southern Poland, the son of an army officer, in 1920.
His childhood was marred by the premature death of his mother when he was nine, and by the death of his older brother three years later.
When he was 21 he lost his father.
During the Nazi occupation of Poland, he spent four years working in a chemical factory, and in his spare time attended clandestine courses in theology in Kraków.
He became a parish priest and rose steadily through the Church hierarchy, eventually being created a cardinal in 1967.
When he was elected Pope in October 1978, he was a relative outsider amid the vast bureaucracy of the Holy See.
In 1981 he nearly died in an assassination attempt when a right wing Turkish extremist, Mehmet Ali Agca, shot him at close range in Saint Peter's Square. One bullet went through his abdomen and another narrowly missed his heart.
The pope said the Virgin Mary had saved his life and had one of the bullets inserted into the diamond-studded crown of the Virgin of Fatima in Portugal.
His travels took him to more than 120 countries, where he argued for peace and denounced human rights abuses.
"Beloved by his priests and esteemed by his brother bishops, he was also feared by those who regarded him as an adversary," said Cardinal Agostino Vallini, the vicar general of the diocese of Rome, during Sunday's beatification ceremony.
But for all his popularity, his moral teachings on family values, extramarital sex, homosexuality, birth control, euthanasia and abortion alienated many Catholics.
Reformers and Third World congregations in the grip of the Aids epidemic were increasingly disappointed at his refusal to give ground on the use of condoms for contraception.
John Paul II became the first pope to pray in a synagogue, in Rome; the first to enter a mosque in an Islamic country, in Damascus, Syria; and the first to preside a meeting of the heads of all the major world religions – at a day of prayer for peace at Assisi in 1986.
He suffered through various health problems in the 1990s, including an operation for a benign intestinal tumour, a fractured shoulder, a broken thigh bone and Parkinson's disease.
The disease left him increasingly debilitated and he eventually died at the age of 84 on April 2, 2005. His funeral was held in St Peter's Square six days later.
In an apparent reference to John Paul's bold defiance of Communism and support for the Polish Solidarity movement, Benedict said his predecessor "turned back with the strength of a titan ... a tide which appeared irreversible."
The first non-Italian Pope in 455 years when he was elected in 1978, John Paul brought new vitality to the Vatican but alienated many Roman Catholics with his conservative social views.
Baptised Karol Wojtyla, he was born in a small town near Kraków, in southern Poland, the son of an army officer, in 1920.
His childhood was marred by the premature death of his mother when he was nine, and by the death of his older brother three years later.
When he was 21 he lost his father.
During the Nazi occupation of Poland, he spent four years working in a chemical factory, and in his spare time attended clandestine courses in theology in Kraków.
He became a parish priest and rose steadily through the Church hierarchy, eventually being created a cardinal in 1967.
When he was elected Pope in October 1978, he was a relative outsider amid the vast bureaucracy of the Holy See.
In 1981 he nearly died in an assassination attempt when a right wing Turkish extremist, Mehmet Ali Agca, shot him at close range in Saint Peter's Square. One bullet went through his abdomen and another narrowly missed his heart.
The pope said the Virgin Mary had saved his life and had one of the bullets inserted into the diamond-studded crown of the Virgin of Fatima in Portugal.
His travels took him to more than 120 countries, where he argued for peace and denounced human rights abuses.
But for all his popularity, his moral teachings on family values, extramarital sex, homosexuality, birth control, euthanasia and abortion alienated many Catholics.
Reformers and Third World congregations in the grip of the Aids epidemic were increasingly disappointed at his refusal to give ground on the use of condoms for contraception.
John Paul II became the first pope to pray in a synagogue, in Rome; the first to enter a mosque in an Islamic country, in Damascus, Syria; and the first to preside a meeting of the heads of all the major world religions – at a day of prayer for peace at Assisi in 1986.
He suffered through various health problems in the 1990s, including an operation for a benign intestinal tumour, a fractured shoulder, a broken thigh bone and Parkinson's disease.
The disease left him increasingly debilitated and he eventually died at the age of 84 on April 2, 2005. His funeral was held in St Peter's Square six days later.
