Q 01/05

What was Pope John Paul II's birth name?

A) Albino Luciani

B) Joseph Ratzinger

C) Karol Wojtyła

D) Stefan Wyszyński

Answer · why

C) Karol Wojtyła

He was born in 1920, the youngest of three children of a former army officer and a schoolteacher.

Q 02/05

John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope since which 16th-century pontiff?

A) Alexander VI

B) Julius II

C) Adrian VI

D) Clement VII

Answer · why

C) Adrian VI

The gap was 455 years; the run of Italian popes he ended had begun with Clement VII in 1523.

Q 03/05

In which small Polish town was John Paul II born?

A) Nowy Sącz

B) Tarnów

C) Zakopane

D) Wadowice

Answer · why

D) Wadowice

His mother, a schoolteacher, died when he was eight, and his elder brother Edmund, a doctor, died of scarlet fever.

Q 04/05

As a schoolboy, the future pope played football in which position?

A) Centre-back

B) Striker

C) Goalkeeper

D) Winger

Answer · why

C) Goalkeeper

School games were often Jews against Catholics, and he frequently played on the Jewish side.

Q 05/05

During the Nazi occupation, Wojtyła avoided deportation by working where?

A) A textile mill and a bakery

B) A quarry and a chemical plant

C) A coal mine and a steel mill

D) A shipyard and a brewery

Answer · why

B) A quarry and a chemical plant

A lorry accident in the quarry left him with one shoulder higher than the other and a permanent stoop.