Priests remember '79 papal visit and pride of Chicago Catholics

By Kathryn Dobies
Medill Reports - Chicago

As Pope Benedict XVI celebrated mass in Washington, D.C., Thursday, Chicago priests remembered the grandeur of the last papal visit to the windy city, in 1979 - not only by the day's events, but by the pride felt by Chicagoans.

"It was a wonderful visit," said Bishop Timothy Lyne, auxiliary bishop of Chicago. "One of the unique things I remember is there was no major crime in the city when the Pope was here."

It has been nearly 30 years since the first and only time a pope has visited Chicago, but Lyne recalls the sentiment of the city's Catholic residents and Chicagoans as a whole. At the time, Lyne was the Pastor of Holy Name Cathedral, and one of the organizers of the Pope John Paul II's visit to the city.

Bart Winters remembers the novelty of the visit.

"Chicago has been such a Catholic city traditionally," Winters said. "There was a great sense of pride, especially with the Polish population; but I think all Catholics."

Winters, a seminarian at the time, said the visit was special for him because he got to present Pope John Paul II with a painting, a gift from the seminary.

As a Polish-American priest and Chicago native, Father Edmund Siedlecki said that the pope's 1979 visit gave him a sense of thanksgiving.

"There was simply a pride that no one expected that someone from Eastern Europe became pope," Siedlecki said. "No one expected that; they thought it would be an Italian."

At the time, Siedlecki was the pastor at St. Wenceslaus Catholic Church on Chicago's Northwest Side and in charge of the construction of the platform where mass was celebrated in Grant Park. Siedlecki recalled that prior to the pope's visit on Oct. 5, he was in Grant Park almost the entire month readying the site.

"Once mass started," Siedlecki said, "I stayed with the reporters, but they were always talking to each other, so I had to find another place to pray."

Although Lyne, Winters and Siedlecki had different roles in the pope's 1979 visit, they shared the same emotion in remembering the monumental occasion. However, they were quick to note the vast differences between Pope John Paul II's visit to Chicago in 1979 and Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the U.S. today.

Since the sexual-abuse scandals within the U.S. Catholic Church have emerged, Pope Benedict comes at perhaps a more controversial point in the church's history than did Pope John Paul.

Over the past few days, Pope Benedict has spoken numerous times about the impact the sex-abuse scandals have had on the U.S. Catholic Church. On Thursday while celebrating mass in Washington, D.C. the pope acknowledged the victims, saying, "No words of mine can describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse."

Winters said that the sex-abuse scandals give this pope's visit a different texture; however, he, Lyne and Seidlecki think that Benedict is right to address the issue.

"We've lost moral leadership in our country," Seidlecki said. "Sixty five million Catholics baptized. We ought to be a stronger moral force with that many. We need to give an example to fellow Christians and other religious faiths."