As we have seen from the great outpouring of love and respect for the late Pope John Paul II, our favorite shepherd was loved by people around the world, both as a shepherd and as a world leader. But he was also loved as our personal friend.

You didn’t have to be Polish (or love someone who was Polish) to love Pope John Paul II, but it helped. I remember the day in the fall of 1978 when we were all awaiting the election of a new pope after the death of Pope John Paul I. I had a couple of televisions on, so anxious I was to hear the news, but my mother-in-law heard it first. Don’s mother was the daughter of Polish immigrants; in fact, her parents had come to New York only a year before her birth. She had been the victim of some discrimination in New York, and at that time the Polish were the butt of a million jokes. Of the names they were called “Polack” was the only one that could be printed in a family newspaper.

Sophie heard the news before I did. When I answered the phone, I could hardly make out who it was or what she was saying. I finally realized it was Grandma Sophie and she was screaming, “He’s Polish! He’s Polish!”

For the rest of her life, the fact that we had a Polish pope was a great source of pride to Grandma Sophie and whenever a priest was in the house, she would let them know (right off the bat) that she, like the pope, was Polish. That fact was usually a great conversation starter, and she was happy to continue the conversation (which was usually a bit one-sided) and show everyone a book she had about the pope, a book she purchased in Poland when she, Pete and Don visited Krakow in 1981. The book, in Polish, had pictures of several of the places Karol Wojtlya had lived before he moved to Rome, and after Sophie was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s she’d carry the book with her everywhere she went. She insisted on showing it to anyone who came in the door. Some of her grandchildren’s friends were kind enough to let her show them the book about 17,000 times.

One of the reasons so many people traveled to Rome for the pope’s funeral—so many people that the city was in virtual gridlock and the mayor was begging them to go home—was that we all knew Pope John Paul II. He was not only our spiritual leader, he was our personal friend. How many people ever saw Pope Pius XII, or for that matter, Paul VI? I’m not criticizing two fine popes; they lived at a time when air travel was not so easy and when the world was a much different place. But this pope traveled to every continent; he came to visit us where we lived. He seemed to even like us.

The first time I saw Pope John Paul II was on a windy, chilly hillside in Iowa when he visited this country in 1979. When we first heard the news that the pope was not only coming to the U.S., but that he was coming to Iowa, we were astounded. At that time, the concept of a pope coming to Iowa was as mind-boggling as space travel or a moon-landing must have been to our grandparents. Human beings stayed on the ground and popes stayed in the Vatican; it was as simple as that. I’m not sure if anyone in my family had ever seen a pope. Only priests and Religious had seen the pope and then it was usually a postage-sized pope in a tiny window overlooking St. Peter’s Square.

So when the word came that this energetic, new, young pope was coming to Iowa we took off in buses, cars, caravans, even on motorcycles and bikes. If he was coming to within 300 miles of our home, by gosh, we were going to be there. And we were: 300,000 of us.

The weekend Pope John Paul II died, conversations in churches and even in shopping centers and grocery stores were often about “the time I saw the pope.” Millions of Americans had personal experiences with this pope, either in this country or in Rome. When we went to Rome (and we went in droves), we were able to have an almost-private audience with him, thanks to the huge auditorium he built next to the Vatican—another indication of his desire to see us and to know us. Pope John Paul II changed our ideas about who the pope is and what he does. God Bless you, John Paul II. May you rest in peace.

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