Rewind – John Paul II’s visit and the Papal Cross
By Sean Heffernan
The 29th of September 1979 was one of the most momentous days in the history of this island, I was one day old, having been born the previous day in the Coombe...oh and the Pope came to visit.
In advance of a second visit from a Pope to these shores, I look back on a previous incumbents’ visit to Dublin.
While I was connected to various machines in the intensive care ward, people were slugging their way up past Crumlin hospital with picnic baskets and foldable chairs in tow, and I’m sure many reading this were part of that cohort.
For it was in the Phoenix Park that over one million people witnessed John Paul II celebrating mass atop a hill on which there were a number of large gazebo’s, a plethora of flags, topped off by a most impressive cross in the background.
The cross, a design of renowned architect Scott Tallon Walker, is made of steel and measures 105 metres tall.
It is without doubt one of the most iconic monuments in the country, and many times when I’ve stopped by it on a walk of the park, there was a tour bus parked in the adjacent car park and a large group of tourists clicking away with their cameras.
Beside the cross is a stone plaque which reads ‘Pope John Paul II offered mass at this place on 29th September 1979. Be converted every day’.
As I stand atop the cross, I try to imagine what it must have been like for John Paul II to have stood at that same spot upon alighting from the helicopter, and surveyed the scene in front of him.
I also suspect the jealousy levels of many senior politicians who were present were up to 90 as well!
First non-Italian Pope in 400 years
When he was announced as Pope the year before, the first non-Italian to hold the position for over 400 years, the reverberation’s around the world were high on the Richter scale, it was like a 200-1 chance of winning the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
Had he been alive today, Karol Józef Wojtola would be celebrating his 98th birthday having been born on May 18th 1920 in Wadowice Poland.
He was ordained a priest in 1946, was made Archbishop of Krakow in 1964 and was appointed a cardinal by Pope Paul VI three years later.
A year to the day before I was born (September 28th 1978 to be precise), the Catholic Church was in shock as Pope John Paul I had died suddenly having been ordained only 33 days previously on August 26th.
By contrast the previous title holder Paul VI lasted 15 years in the job before he met his maker.
Quite a number of Italian cardinals and bishops were been talked about in the media as being in the running for the top job in the Vatican.
So cardinals from around the world made their way to Rome to sit in ‘conclave’, where they discuss and then vote behind closed doors until a new Pope has been elected.
The strict rules state that once you enter the building the conclave takes place in, you cannot leave until the new ruler of the Catholic Church has been announced.
So in a way, like an Irish election, there are many rounds of voting, with the lowest polled candidates in each round eliminated.
In a practice that has been in place since time immortal, when each elimination round of voting has ended, black smoke is emitted through a chimney in a building in the Vatican, with white smoke emitted when a new Pope has been decided upon.
When the balcony doors opened and out came Cardinal Wojtyla, stunned head scratching was the order of the day.
Papal Cross will once again be centre stage
Upon his ordination John Paul II spoke of wanting to visit all the Marian Shrines in the world, and anticipation reached fever pitch that he would want to visit Knock Shrine in County Mayo.
And when it was indeed announced, a massive plan of action swung into place, as plans for a giant altar in the Phoenix Park came into being.
When JP II passed away in 2005, there was a special mass in his memory held at the Papal Cross.
A few years back, when that year’s tranche of State papers were released under the 30-year-rule, it was revealed that in 1981 then Taoiseach Charles Haughey sought for the Office of Public Works (OPW) to landscape the area around the monument.
This came about after he met with the Archbishop of Dublin Dermot Ryan, but soon hit a sizable stumbling block.
The OPW wrote to the Taoiseach’s office stating the cross was still owned by the Catholic Church, and they were refusing to hand over control of the structure and surrounds until an outstanding bill of £100,000 it claimed the State owed was handed over.
It recently hit the headlines again when a passer-by videoed an OPW worker standing on an elevated cherry picker cleaning the cross with a hose, despite a ban on the use of such devices due to the water drought.
The structure will once again be centre stage on August 26th as a reputed 500,000 – myself included – once more descend on the Phoenix Park to witness the highest official of the Catholic Church celebrate mass.
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