Pope's Visits Inspired Americans

Pope John Paul II, the self-described "pilgrim pope" made more than 100 foreign trips, including one several to the United States. The images of John Paul visiting with Jimmy Carter in Washington are unforgettable.

Neither will America's heartland soon forget his trip to St. Louis in January 1999 — his only visit to Missouri.

"That event will be remembered here for generations," said Gregory Beabout, a St. Louis University professor who edited a book on John Paul II.

About 600,000 people turned out during the pope's two-day visit, highlighted by the largest indoor Mass in U.S. history, which drew 105,000 worshipers to what was then called the Trans World Dome.

Hundreds of dignitaries greeted the pope, including President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks. Blessed with unseasonably warm temperatures, adoring throngs lined the city's streets for a glimpse of the Holy Father.

The visit reaffirmed St. Louis as a center of American Catholicism and attracted international attention to the region.

"What he did was to reach into a part of the country that is often more or less neglected — what other people call 'fly-over country,'" said the Rev. Robert Mahoney, a professor of sociology at Rockhurst University.

"He reached in and said, 'Here is a place I'm going where people need me,'" Mahoney said.

The pope's only previous trip to the Midwest came in 1979, near the very start of his papacy, when he stopped in Des Moines, Iowa, during a several-city U.S. tour.

His return to the region, 20 years later, came about largely because of the efforts of former St. Louis Archbishop Justin Rigali, a longtime friend of the pope's who worked for many years in the Vatican.

It was among several overseas trips the pontiff made on the eve of the third millennium to give new direction to his followers and strengthen ties between Roman Catholics in the United States and Latin America.

The pope met privately with Clinton, who at the time was under siege by the Monica Lewinsky affair, but did not make any public reference to the scandal.

But he did not hesitate to speak out against the death penalty, abortion and euthanasia.

"As believers, how can we fail to see that abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide are a terrible rejection of God's gift of life and love?" he said during the Mass.

That day, the pope asked then-Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan to spare the life of convicted killer Darrell Mease. Mease was to have been executed days after the papal visit for the 1990 slayings of three people.

Former U.S. Sen. Jean Carnahan, the late governor's widow, recalled being at the pope's side when he made the request.

"I still remember standing there when the pope said, 'Mercy for Mr. Mease,'" Carnahan said. "It was a profound moment."

The governor's decision to spare Mease's life was criticized, but he cited the extraordinary nature of the request.

"He was advised not to do it by his advisers and his staff," Carnahan said, "But he thought it was the right thing to do, and he had no regrets about it."

The visit included other notable moments. At Cathedral Basilica, in front of 2,000 worshipers, a rabbi participated in a papal prayer service for the first time. It was a symbol of the pope's outreach efforts; under his leadership, the Vatican in 1993 established diplomatic relations with Israel.

Thousands traveled from Kansas City for the event. Bill Cordaro, who was director of youth and campus ministry in the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese, helped lead a group of 650 people, mostly youths, to St. Louis for a youth rally on the first day of the visit.

Cordaro said the pope, then 78, looked frail, but at moments would seem energized by the 20,000 young people inside the Kiel Center, now the Sauvis Center.

"You'd watch the pope feed off the energy of the kids," Cordaro recalled. "He would say something and the kids would react, and he'd look up and you could see it in his face: 'Wow,'"

Experts said the pope inspired tremendous devotion from young people — which Cordaro said was evident during his visit.

He had "real love and affection for teenagers and young adults," Cordaro said, "And he showed it by taking out time in the course of his busy schedule to meet with them at the rally."

Some who attended the Mass said it was an unforgettable experience.

Beabout, the Saint Louis University professor, remembered the pontiff holding up a special chalice during the consecration. The chalice had belonged to French-Canadian priests who settled near St. Louis at the end of the 17th century.

Beabout said, "That moment, seeing the connectedness we have to the 17th century and all the unfolding of the history of this area ... is something generations will talk about in the future."

The Vatican said the pope was near death as dawn broke Saturday, his breathing shallow and his heart and kidneys failing.

"It's more than just being sad. It's a pain in the heart," said Andrea Sandoval, 36, at historic Mission Dolores in San Francisco, where the pope in 1987 cradled 4-year-old AIDS victim Brendan O'Rourke.

Brendan, who contracted the disease from a blood transfusion when he was an infant, died in 1990 of an AIDS-related illness.

"He has been in our towns. He has driven in our streets. He has been with us and our people," said Bishop Joseph A. Galante of Camden, N.J., during a special Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

Raymond Flynn, a former Boston mayor who was U.S. ambassador to the Vatican from 1993 to 1997, recalled that during diplomatic functions the pope would look at him and say:

"Raymond, is it still raining in Boston?" a reference to the steady rain that greeted John Paul II's 1979 trip to Boston. The pope's legacy will be his impact on young people, Flynn said.

"He talked truth to them. He told them oftentimes what they didn't want to hear," Flynn said. "He would tell the young people don't be afraid to do what's right, not what is fashionable or trendy."

By Shashank Bengali