Michael Kelly
It’s 35 years ago this week since Pope St John Paul II visited Ireland.
It’s 35 years ago this week since Pope St John Paul II visited Ireland. I was only four months old at the time, so readers will forgive my lack of personal recollection of what were historic and faith-filled days.
It can be said without fear of contradiction that the Papal visit of 1979 was one of the most remarkable events in the history of the Irish people. For one, some 2.7million, almost half of the population of the island of Ireland at the time, attended Masses and liturgies with the Holy Father.
Irish Catholics had been used to seeing the Pope as a distant figure in Rome, prayed for during Mass or seen on a rare pilgrimage to Rome. Here was this Slavic Pontiff, a mere 59-year-old, striding down the steps of Aer Lingus’ flagship St Patrick. The moment he set foot on Irish soil he killed the ground to huge cheers from those who had gathered.
Even before he touched down, a decision to fly the Papal plane low across Dublin thrilled the 1.25million pilgrims gathered in the Phoenix Park.
John Paul II went on to circle the globe, but, remember, in 1979, Papal travel was still relatively rare.
Organisers had set a frantic pace for the visit with the Pope criss-crossing the country. The end result was that the Pope didn’t get setting down to dinner until after Midnight. He reportedly joked that “The Irish are trying to kill me on the first day!”
John Paul II was a giant of a man and his visit had a profound impact. Some 10% of boys born in Ireland in 1979 were named after the Pope. I think often of the words he uttered at his inauguration in 1978 and repeated in almost every country on earth: “Do not be afraid. Open wide the doors for Christ!”
Coming from the North, where the Pope was unable to visit became of the horrors of the civil conflict raging at the time, I think often about how my parents told and re-told me stories of the Pope’s visit to Drogheda as I was growing up. Tens of thousands of Northern Catholics flowed across the border to hear the Pope’s impassioned plea for peace. The crowds were so vast that the British army were eventually forced to abandon customary border checks and wave the vast lines of traffic through.
John Paul’s visit meant so much to so many people, his appeal for peace, went unheeded by the “men and women engaged in violence” he begged to “turn away from the paths of violence and to return to the ways of peace”. But, the Pope’s solidarity spoke volumes when he proclaimed in a strong voice “let history record that at a difficult moment in the experience of the people of Ireland, the Bishop of Rome set foot in your land, that he was with you and prayed with you for peace and reconciliation, for the victory of justice and love over hatred and violence”.
Recalling the 30th anniversary of the Pope’s visit with me in 2009, Bishop Joseph Duffy admitted that the Pope “called us to be so much more. I think we’d have to be very honest and upfront and confess that in many ways we in Ireland did not live up to that awesome challenge presented to us by that great Pope”.
It’s hard to disagree.
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The Irish Times marketing department has chosen ‘the story of why’ as a catchphrase to describe the newspaper. Perhaps they might start by answering the question as to why Kitty Holland, a staff member who took to social media to encourage people to attend a march calling for more abortion, was the journalist chosen to write the news story for The Irish Times at that same march. It’s hardly encourages confidence in the fairness and impartiality of the news.
