April 3, 2005
The world's greatest traveler, Pope John Paul II
This photo and cutline ran with my June 1982 article in the Catholic Standard on Pope John Paul II's visit to Britain.
What an inspired choice the College of Cardinals made on Oct. 16, 1978, picking on their eighth ballot Karol Wojtyla as pope.
The vigorous actor, skier and devout cardinal took his message on how to navigate an out-of-control modern world everywhere he could, from Rio di Janiero to Angola, from Coventry and Denver to the Philippines (partial map here).
News accounts of the passing of Pope John Paul II note that he is the most traveled pope of all time. It is quite likely that he is as well the most traveled person in human history.
In 
An Amateur's Guide to the Planet, I noted in the third chapter, on missionaries in Borneo:
Pope John Paul II, the modern world’s champion missionary (and perhaps even its foremost traveler at 625,000 miles), issued an encyclical in 1990 calling for increased missionary zeal. He wrote that “faith demands a free adherence on the part of a person, but at the same time faith must also be offered to that person.” Even so, he acknowledged that simply preaching at people would have little success in the modern world: "People today put more trust in witnesses than in teachers, in experience than in teaching and in life action than in theories."
Pope John Paul demonstrated that the indeed, people trust more in experience than in teaching, and that the vast experience gained on his travels made him treasure more than ever traditional wisdom on the importance of life and the family.
The Washington Post reported:
Simplified radically, his theology was this: Without fixed moral principles, people can fall into the trap of treating one another like objects of commerce or pleasure or vengeance. The proof was in nearly all realms of human activity. In "The Gospel of Life," his famous 1995 indictment of modernity, he cited the Second Vatican Council in listing murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, slavery, prostitution and disgraceful working conditions.
He continued to the corners of the Earth to bring this message. The figure of 625,000 miles traveled, logged by the mid-1990s, mushroomed to 742,000 miles by 2002, according to report from the Vatican Information Service (described here). And the Pope continued traveling, despite poor health, through 2004, for a total of 25 years of his papacy.
"Since the start of his Pontificate on October 16, 1978," the Vatican Web site notes, "Pope John Paul II has completed 104 pastoral visits outside of Italy and 146 within Italy. As Bishop of Rome he has visited 317 of the 333 parishes."
CNN lists his visits to 125 countries here.
I saw the pope during his October 1979 visit to Washington, D.C., part of his first visit to the United States. Few of us had an inkling that this brand-new but very dynamic pope would go on later in the decade to, along with President Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, help bring Communist rule to an end in Poland and ultimately Eastern Europe.
As I note in my article below, the pope waded into a small lion's den in secular, cynical Washington, D.C., but that was sandwiched between far more bold ventures to Poland, in June 1983, June 1987 and June 1991. CNN notes of his first visit:
Huge, adoring crowds met him wherever he went and were an acute source of embarrassment to the communist government. Officially, the country was atheistic; it was also suffering from food shortages. The pope added to the authorities' discomfort by reminding his fellow Poles of their human rights."That was the beginning of the end of what we call the Soviet Empire," Robert Moynihan, editor and publisher of the magazine "Inside the Vatican," told CNN in a 2003 interview. "I think he brought that empire down, but not with missiles and not even with economic sanctions, but just by being a man, by being a man of faith."
By 1982, John Paul inspired great respect on his trip to, of all places, resolutely anti-Catholic Britain. I'll conclude by reprinting is a story I wrote more than two decades ago about that trip (published in Washington, D.C.'s Catholic Standard). How brave of him to go where he did and teach traditional morality. Who else has even attempted a fraction as much?
Washingtonian tells of British response to Pope
'More joyous' than during U.S. visit
June 10, 1982
By Jeannette Belliveau
(Special to the Catholic Standard)
LONDON — As a Washington Catholic now living in Protestant Britain, I expected the worst during Pope John Paul II's historic visit.
At first it seemed like Henry VIII in 1531 all over again. Cries of "the Antichrist," "pagan" and "Communist sympathizer" came from Ian Paisley and other fundamentalist Protestants. In March, a poll showed only half of Britons approved of the visit.
At my office outside London, a coworker grumbled the morning John Paul arrived: "The Pope is here making political statements," she said, "talking about war. He's supposed to be a spiritual leader."
But my smugness at the undoubtably greater tolerance and pluralism in the United States has been brought to an abrupt halt over the past few days. If anything, this is a more joyous event than the Pope's American visit in 1979, a welcome of amazing warmth from a country one-quarter the size of the U.S. — and less than 10 percent Catholic.
As one of the 175,000 who saw the Pope on the Mall in Washington, I now ponder the turnouts he has somehow received in this overwhelmingly Anglican nation: 350,000 in Coventry, 200,000 in Manchester and York, 300,000 even in Scottish, Presbyterian Glasgow.
The press coverage has been, in a word, glowing. "Joyful crowds take Pope John Paul to their hearts," was the banner headline in the May 30 Sunday Times.
John Paul is emerging here as a leader unafraid to call forcefully for peace in the Falklands and unity among Christians. This visit will undoubtably be remembered for a different stress from his visit to Washington, where he restated traditional themes against divorce, contraception, married clergy and women priests.
But John Paul's message is almost eclipsed by his forceful personal magnetism. Most riveting was his ministry to the sick on the day he arrived, at St. George's cathedral in London. As Guardian correspondent John Ezard put it:
John Paul's quarryman face and tender hands dominated a national service for the sick, elderly and dying yesterday afternoon. The event ... was the first in which intimate qualities of strength and love were able to emerge clearly from the man who quarried stone as a student. ... The pope's personal force could be seen most pointedly from close to the altar during the anointings. He clasped the hands of his people and looked with concentration into their eyes. Their faces opened like flowers as he touched them on the brows and fingers.By the end of an event of great intensity, not only the sick but many of the able-bodied in the congreation had to be led out of the cathedral, while they recovered from its impact.
A magical and surprising moment in this nations where Catholics number but 4.4 million. Try to imagine it happening in secular, cynical Washington.
As notable as the sizable crowds greeting John Paul are the tiny numbers at counter-demonstrations. While he celebrated Mass at Wembley Stadium in suburban London, Protestant protesters gathered at Trafalgar Square. I counted perhaps 600, and police estimated 500. A paltry turnout for a major, well-publicized London meeting -- I've covered meetings of the Montgomery County (Md.) school board that pulled more of a crowd.
The Rev. David Wright, vice-chairman of the Scottish Reformation Society, addressed the crowd. "Is he (the Pope) our brother in Christ?" he asked. "No!" they roared back.
A man in the crowd, wearing a "Jesus Lives" T-shirt, listened with eyes shut and fist raised straight in the air. Periodically he shouted, "Thank you, Jesus! Bless His name! Hallelujah!" It was a scene right out of the rural Maryalnd revivalist meetings, held summer evenings on Route 355 outside Darnestown.
Despite seeming so American, the man -- David Hartshorn, and his wife Rose -- were from Chatham, in Kent. What did they think of the pope's visit? "Horrifying," said Rose. "It's politically inspired, as well."
How so? "It's a subtle move from the devil to weaken the resolve of the country against the Argentine," said Dave. "He wants peace at any price. Peace at any price doesn't suit us."
Feelings like this run deep but not wide. In Liverpool, where earlier in March militant Protestants aborted a sermon by Anglican leader Dr. Robert Runcie, Ian Paisley could muster but 300 demonstrators on the Sunday of the pope's visit.
Far more typical was a Sunday Times editorial entitled, "First Citizen of the World:"
In all the long annals of the papacy, there has never been an occupant of the throne of St. Peter who knew better how to appeal to his fellow creatures, Catholics and non-Catholics, Christians and non-Christians, old and young, sick and healthy: Karol Wojtyla is a human phenomenon.
One priest asked on television whether the pope was winning converts responded, "Perhaps not converts, but sympathizers."
Jeannette Belliveau is a 28-year-old native of Rockville who from 1975 to 1981 was an education and features reporter on the Montgomery Journal. She moved to Britain in October. She is now a copy editor on Here's Health magazine in Surrey, England.
- posted by jbelliveau at 12:48 PM in Love, Sex, Romance and Travel
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