Pope John Paul II Visits the United States

POPE JOHN PAUL II VISITS THE UNITED STATES

A New Pope

On 1 October 1979 Pope John Paul II arrived in Boston on the first leg of his first trip to the United States. Pope John Paul II had been elevated to the chair of Saint Peter the previous October after the sudden death of Pope John Paul I, whose thirty-four-day reign was the shortest in modern history. The new pope, formerly Cardinal Karol Woytyla, archbishop of Krakow, Poland, was the first non-Italian pope since 1522 elevated to the papacy.

The Pope's Message

American Catholics received John Paul II with great excitement at his stops in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Des Moines, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. In New York the pope spoke to the United Nations, endorsing support from industrial countries for the less-developed nations of the world which struggled to provide for their people. He also spoke out vigorously for human rights: "All human beings in every nation and country should be able to enjoy effectively their full rights under any political regime or system." On the Middle East he insisted that the Palestinian question would have to be addressed before peace could be achieved.

Conservative Views

While the pope's political and economic views were generally liberal, he also used his time in the United States to reiterate his conservative views on sexuality and the nature of the priesthood. In Boston he urged young people to abandon selfishness for sacrifice and to give up the self-indulgence of sex, drugs, and entertainment for true love and its demands. At a convocation of 350 bishops in Philadelphia John Paul II reasserted the tenets of Humanae Vita, which opposed the use of artificial birth control. He also demanded Catholics reject abortion, divorce, homosexual practices, and nonmarital sex. On the issue of the ordination of female priests, he insisted on maintaining the tradition of the male priesthood. John Paul II also reasserted his stand insisting on the celibacy of priests, even though more and more priests in the United States were leaving their orders for marriage and family.

The Capital City

In Washington, D.C, John Paul II visited for three hours with President Jimmy Carter at the White House, the first pope to visit that building. He also celebrated a mass for thirty-five hundred women religious at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, where he encouraged women to recognize the holiness of their calling. He was taken aback when Sister Theresa Kane, president of the Leadership of Women Religious, confronted him with the assertion that all priestly offices should be open to all persons of the church. Only a few of the women at the service openly protested the limitations on their religious calling.

Message Recognized?

When Pope John Paul II left the United States 7 October he had met with rapturous crowds, including hundreds of thousands of fellow Poles in Chicago and an estimated 350,000 people who poured into mostly Protestant Iowa when he visited a small church near Des Moines. The pope and the American bishops hoped to focus on the religious message John Paul II brought to the United States, but ribbons, banners, flags, and T-shirts with such slogans as "I Got a Peep at the Pope" which sold as souvenirs to his audiences exemplified the carnival-like excitement.

Limited Influence

In spite of the pope's charm and the hopes of Catholic conservatives, there is little evidence that John Paul II's visit changed the behavior or ideas of laymen about private sexual behavior or even the possibility of women priests. The Second Vatican Council had unleashed the independent thinking of an increasingly well educated laity in America, who were fully adapted to the culture of the late twentieth century. They loved John Paul II the man but rejected the parts of his message that did not fit their perceptions of life and faith, a pattern that would continue though the first Polish pope's reign.