{"id":16,"date":"2009-09-27T19:13:27","date_gmt":"2009-09-27T19:13:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/he-was-just-a-simple-priest-remembering-the-papal-visit-to-iowa-in-1979.html"},"modified":"2009-09-27T19:13:27","modified_gmt":"2009-09-27T19:13:27","slug":"he-was-just-a-simple-priest-remembering-the-papal-visit-to-iowa-in-1979","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/he-was-just-a-simple-priest-remembering-the-papal-visit-to-iowa-in-1979.html","title":{"rendered":"“He was just a simple priest”: remembering the papal visit to Iowa in 1979"},"content":{"rendered":"
Incredibly, it’s been almost exactly 30 years since Pope John Paul II made his historic trip to America’s heartland, celebrating mass at a farm in Iowa.  (“We are all farmers,” he said at one point.)  <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Well, the spirit of that visit, evidently, lives on in those who were there.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n

From the Des Moines Register<\/a>:  <\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/font>\"Thumbnail<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

A pilgrim is one who embarks on a journey to find the sacred.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

So it was pilgrims who walked rural Iowa highways and suburban neighborhoods and filed from school buses parked on the closed interstate. The great masses huddled, side by side in the bitter cold wind on the grounds of Living History Farms in Urbandale and a country church in Cumming, the day’s first event.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Pope John Paul II arrived in a helicopter called Angel One and the largest crowd in Iowa history — 340,000 pilgrims — waited for his sacred message.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thirty years later, Oct. 4, 1979, is still recognized as one of Iowa’s most blessed and memorable days.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The memories are trivial: 9-year-old altar boy Bob Mulvihill’s eyeglasses slid down his nose, and he was too nervous to push them up as the leader of the world’s Catholics asked him if he was Irish.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They are significant: Iowa farmer Tom Frantzen was overcome by the pope’s message and altered his life’s work.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The pilgrims saw the pope as a gentle, humble man of God. He hugged children. His bright, blue eyes locked in on them. He was real.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“When I was a child, Catholics were seen as a far-out people who wore horns,” said Mary Jane Pray, 92, who sang in a choir that day. “I think it softened a lot of people’s hearts, especially if you were not Catholic. He was just a simple priest.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

His message was simple, too, but not easy: Care for the land and serve each other.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s exactly what some pilgrims did.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Check out the link<\/a> for the rest of this long, enlightening and inspiring story.  <\/span><\/font><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n
Photo: <\/font><\/font><\/i>Marvin Klein, a Dunlap farmer, served as deacon alongside the pope for the Mass at Living History Farms. He thought he would be afraid when reading the Gospel, but now recalls 30 years later, “It was amazing. I wasn’t.”  From the Des Moines Register file. <\/font><\/font><\/i><\/span><\/span><\/font><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Incredibly, it’s been almost exactly 30 years since Pope John Paul II made his historic trip to America’s heartland, celebrating mass at a farm in Iowa.  (“We are all farmers,” he said at one point.)   Well, the spirit of that visit, evidently, lives on in those who were there. From the Des Moines Register:  …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deacons","category-inspiration","category-pope"],"yoast_head":"\n"He was just a simple priest": remembering the papal visit to Iowa in 1979 - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/he-was-just-a-simple-priest-remembering-the-papal-visit-to-iowa-in-1979.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""He was just a simple priest": remembering the papal visit to Iowa in 1979 - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Incredibly, it’s been almost exactly 30 years since Pope John Paul II made his historic trip to America’s heartland, celebrating mass at a farm in Iowa.  (“We are all farmers,” he said at one point.)   Well, the spirit of that visit, evidently, lives on in those who were there. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. 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