As pope, John Paul II spent only 37 hours in Chicago.
But those 37 feverishly busy hours–speeding through cheering crowds, presiding over outsized liturgies, issuing stern edicts, joking with adoring throngs–proved a remarkable harbinger of the pontificate to come.
During a brief visit to Chicago, from Oct. 4 to Oct. 6, 1979, the young “pilgrim pope” drew the enormous crowds that became a hallmark of his travels around the world in the quarter-century that followed.
He delighted audiences with his bold evangelism, leavened by deft populist touches. He exhausted his entourage with his relentless push to reach as many people as he could, from early morning until late at night.
The new pope, in office for less than a year, also used his time in Chicago to address the nation’s bishops behind closed doors, telling them that there was no room for movement or discussion on volatile issues such as women’s roles in the church and birth control.
It was his first comprehensive discussion of doctrine for an English-language audience, and it set an uncompromising agenda that has kept the pope at odds with some Catholics ever since.
But at the time, the long-term significance of those events was lost in the charm of the moment.
“It was like things stood still during that period. There was anticipation, hope–and maybe, on my part, relief” as the spectacle came off without a hitch, said former Mayor Jane Byrne, who had just taken office herself that year.
Irish street bands greeted the pontiff. Latinos shouted for “Juan Pablo.” “We, Lutherans love you, too,” declared one banner. “Shalom, Pope John Paul II,” said another. At a time when Catholics and non-Catholics alike projected their own hopes onto a pope they hardly knew, Chicagoans found many reasons to claim him as their own.
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There was one community that already knew him well: Chicago’s Polonia, which rejoiced at the election of their fellow countryman in 1978, and turned out in force for what was actually his third trip to Chicago.
In 1969, as Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, he had become the first Polish prince of the church to visit Chicago. Seven years later, in 1976, he and 15 other Roman Catholic bishops from Poland spent four days in the city, where their schedule included a 90-minute boat ride on Lake Michigan and a late-evening trip to the top of the Sears Tower.
Wojtyla had provided a link to the old country, and Chicagoans, in turn, had helped fund his archdiocese in Krakow when the Communist government tried to strangle it.
His return as pope gave Chicago’s Polish community perhaps its proudest moment yet.
Women dropped to their knees when they saw him reach Five Holy Martyrs Catholic Church on Chicago’s Southwest Side. Mothers held up sick children, praying for a miracle.
“Oh my God, it was like heaven,” recalled Rev. Matt Bednarz. “It was like living in paradise. I figure the Lord was rewarding the Polish people for being faithful.”
The climax of Pope John Paul II’s visit was a Friday afternoon mass in Grant Park that drew hundreds of thousands of worshipers, despite an October chill and dire warnings about gridlock.
Flanked by 350 bishops in white, the pope said mass atop an 18-foot-high tiered altar decorated with 17,000 yellow and white chrysanthemums.
The pope called on Catholics to evangelize, the theme of his Chicago visit. He also decried racism, urging the crowd to serve “the less favored in your own midst and in the rest of the world.”
Some 600 priests moved through the crowd with consecrated hosts while 129 selected worshipers, led by Byrne, received communion from the pope.
At other stops, the pope was serenaded by world-renowned opera singer Luciano Pavarotti one night and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra the next. Even eminent artists seemed a little star-struck by the pope as he sat on a throne in Holy Name Cathedral.
“There they were, all of these fine musicians, performing for him,” recalled public relations executive Janet Diedrichs, who helped the archdiocese coordinate publicity for the visit. “And when the concert was over, a number of these musicians reached under their chairs and pulled out their cameras so they could take a picture of the pope. … You don’t see that too often when you go to Symphony Hall.”
But for all the pope’s grandeur, what most struck Chicagoans were the human touches.
After the symphony concert, he emerged to greet yet another crowd that roared at the sight of him. “I assure you I am not the Chicago Orchestra,” the pope demurred with a smile. “I am only the pope.”
It was like that outside nearly every event, and each night outside the cardinal’s residence on North State Parkway, where crowds waited for hours just to get a glimpse of the pope. He always seemed to find a microphone and a few extra minutes to banter with them in his rich, heavily accented baritone.
“He had this obvious charisma, that when you were near him you could just feel his importance and his warmth, and you could see how it affected the people around him,” Diedrichs said.
Perhaps the most lasting image of the visit came from the cardinal’s balcony, where the pope had blessed and joked with and sung with yet another crowd. This impromptu congregation stretched deep into Lincoln Park. With each word or gesture from the pope, it became more boisterous, threatening to keep him up all night.
Instead, Pope John Paul II made a gesture understandable in any language or faith: He cupped his hands together, rested them on his cheek, closed his eyes and tilted his head. The pope wanted to go to sleep.
The crowd cheered one more time, then dispersed happily into the night.