50 Years After St. John Paul’s First “Plea’’ to America
Culture was collapsing. America was at war in Vietnam and with itself, just as divided in 1969 as it seems now. That’s when the future St. John Paul the Great arrived for the very first time. Everywhere people somehow just knew he was holy, describing the 49-year-old Cardinal as a potential pope.
The first time he arrived in America a half century ago, star-struck Polish Americans seemed to somehow intuitively sense something powerful.
When Karol Wojtyla arrived at Orchard Lake St. Mary’s the night of September 22, 1969, students and seminarians at the Polish Seminary, college and high school 25 miles northwest of Detroit, gathered outdoors in the night sky waiting with torches.
Orchard Lake leader Walter Ziemba introduced the young cardinal as “the Father of Orchard Lake.’’ How could they tell?
The boys, from high school students to seminarians, marched behind Wojtyla, singing on their way to the Orchard Lake Shrine Chapel for evening prayer. The next day, September 23, he delivered a homily about “Why one exists.” He spoke on their vocations — how each of them and each of us — has a special calling and purpose given to us by God. He told them Orchard Lake was a place where they too could learn “why we exist.” Then the school made Wojtyla and the two priests accompanying him, (both future cardinals) honorary alumni.
The visit received wall-to-wall coverage. The governor and top dignitaries were there. The crowd spoke of this young stranger as if they already sensed he might possibly someday be the pope. He would be more: a saint who would win the Cold War and become the most recognized saint in history. But how did they know?
In 1978, just nine years later, this Polish soul shocked the world, becoming the first non-Italian pope in 455 years (and the only Polish pope) in “the year of three popes,” the year Pope John Paul I died after just 33 days as pope, when cardinals were deeply divided over two strong Italian candidates and finally, improbably chose a 58-year old from Poland. He would serve as pope from 1978–2005.
He was far less recognized in 1969. Yet crowds were enchanted. From September 16 to October 1, 1969, the 49-year-old cardinal visited U.S. cities with large Polish populations, places that included Buffalo, Hartford, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Orchard Lake, Boston, Washington, St. Louis, Chicago, Philadelphia, Doylestown, Brooklyn and New York City.
Today the John Paul II Project sends U.S. college students to Poland to learn his teachings (his writings on every subject are equal to the volume of 20 Bibles). JPII Project founders Joe and Corrine MacDonald were among the roughly 3 million pilgrims who were touched by the saint’s legacy at World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland in 2016. Their program has grown ever since. Schools are similarly named in his honor. People are finally absorbing much of what he had to show us. Time has shown the power of his words.
Love at first sight
But exactly how did they know and sense his importance in 1969, you wonder reading the old clips.
The answer is suddenly clear and just clicks: When love is completely pure and true, you just know, quickly. Like love at first sight and like recognizing something is simply meant to be, all the dots connect, God’s Plan:
The new film The Divine Plan, which debuts nationwide in November, explains how Ronald Reagan would see TV coverage of John Paul’s June 1979 return to Poland. The film explains how, somehow, Reagan too saw this man and the way Poles reacted and “just knew.’’
Reagan, then a former California governor planning his 1980 campaign for president, literally jumped up and said “That’s it.’’
Reagan knew at that moment John Paul would be the “key’’ to toppling all of communism because pure truth and pure love have an amazing power over the darkness of an Evil Empire. The film shows how Reagan and John Paul both believed in a Divine Plan, that everything happens for a reason and that guided them in an unprecedented alliance that dumped communism onto the ash heap of history.
Details of that Divine Plan are only emerging now three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall. But again, you read the books and stories about John Paul’s very first 1969 visit to America and it becomes clear people just sensed there was something holy about this smiling cardinal.
“A Polish Soul has a Polish Heritage’’
While visiting St. Florian Catholic Church in the Polish enclave of Hamtramck, Michigan on September 22, 1969, Wojtyla described what he called “a Polish Soul,’’ telling the crowd:
“Each human person is a great capital. It is most valuable to invest in a person; it is most important to put as much as possible into a person and into people. It is most important to put into the soul, especially of a young child, all the moral values and seeds of talent. Each little child impresses me tremendously because when I see that little child, I see all the possibilities, values, talents which are contained in him and which can and must develop…
“A Polish soul has a Polish heritage, and a heritage is a step from the past and a dream of the future for the Polonia. From this heritage a new vine, a new president, a new cardinal can come into being in these United States. You cannot forget about this. You cannot say that the Polonia is being persecuted. We must grit our teeth and work towards the end which will put us on top. And we will be on top, if we preserve our values in our children … so I plead with you to please bring your children up in the proper Christian spirit.’’
Wojtyla’s 1976 prophecy
Orchard Lake hosted a second U.S. tour for the cardinal in 1976 where he made an often-repeated prediction about the battle between the Church and the anti church:
“We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of the American society or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel. This confrontation lies within the plans of Divine Providence; it is a trial which the whole Church, and the Polish Church in particular, must take up. It is a trial of not only our nation and the Church, but, in a sense, a test of 2,000 years of culture and Christian civilization with all of its consequences for human dignity, individual rights, human rights and the rights of nations.”
In September 1987, John Paul returned to Hamtramck, 18 years after his first appearance. More than 10,000 people packed open fields across from my Grandma Helen’s house near the corner of Hewitt and Joseph Campau. A statue of the pope would be erected nearby at the corner of Belmont and Joseph Campau. At Orchard Lake, they set up a center to preserve his teachings. People just knew.
As St. John Paul said during his last visit to Hamtramck in 1987:
“Dear brothers and sisters: the more you are aware of your identity, your spirituality, your history, and the Christian culture out of which your ancestors and parents grew, and you yourselves have grown, the more you will be able to serve your country, the more capable will you be of contributing to the common good of the United States….
“Today there is talk of the ethnic principle, of ‘roots’, since from these roots the full personality of the individual, the community and the nation arises… Today it rolls like a wide wave over the face of the world, which realizes that we cannot live according to the principle of ‘all against all,’ but only according to another principle, ‘all with all,’ ‘all for all.’ Solidarity must take precedence over conflict. Only then can humanity survive, can each nation survive and develop within the great human family…”
“Why we exist,’’ JPII’s first 1969 homily at Orchard Lake.
The new film The Divine Plan debuts November 6. Order tickets here.
