Canadians have fond memories of Pope's visits

Sandra Dimitrakopoulos, CTV.ca News

ope John Paul II only had to touch a member of his flock, or smile at them, and they began to cry. His charisma and warmth brought hundreds of thousands to his many foreign visits, and that was no different for his three Canadian trips.

Pope John Paul II leaving Toronto after World Youth Day

While John Paul had been to Canada twice before -- in 1969 and 1976 -- the most travelled pontiff in history made his first trip to Canada as the Pope in September of 1984.

His next trip was an extension of that pilgrimage. John Paul travelled to Fort Simpson, Northwest Territories as part of a promise to return when fog prevented him from landing there in 1984.

His last visit was World Youth Day in July 2002. John Paul's poor health put the trip in jeopardy. But he not only managed to come to Toronto, he descended the plane under his own steam.

His appearance in 2002 was in sharp contrast to the 1984 trip, when a younger and more vigorous John Paul spent 12 days travelling from British Columbia to Newfoundland.

The trip began with him kissing the tarmac in the province where Roman Catholicism had its start in this country -- Quebec. In his first speech on Canadian soil, he extended an invitation to all Christians.

"I would like to recount to all believers the joy of believing in Christ," he said. "My word does not claim to furnish an answer to all your questions, or to replace your searching. But it will offer you the light and strength of faith in Jesus Christ."

Rev. Dan Donovan, a theology professor at St. Michael's College, at the University of Toronto, said that while the visit was obviously a celebration of religion, it was also a celebration of Canada.

"During those 12 days when the Pope covered the whole country, there was a sense in which we were all sharing in a common event," he told CTV.ca.

John Paul had a different message for everyone. In Quebec, he spoke of the challenges facing Catholicism in the modern world of science and technology. For the English-speaking portion of his trip, he emphasized multiculturalism.

To the youth, he challenged them to be idealistic and do something with their lives. John Paul also spoke of the importance of family life, love and marriage. At the Olympic stadium in Montreal, young people acted out a ballet pantomime that expressed their fears about the world, such as nuclear war.

Perhaps the most important message John Paul brought to Canada was that of native rights and pride in their culture.

Donovan said one of the most moving moments of the trip was when John Paul participated in a traditional sweet grass ceremony at Martyr's Shrine in Midland, Ont. -- one of three places where formal meetings were planned with native communities.

"In all of this, John Paul manifested his respect for Indian culture and made clear his desire that is should be integrated into Catholic liturgy," Donovan said in his book, A Lasting Impact: Pope John Paul II in Canada.

Disappointingly, heavy fog kept him visiting the Dene people of the Western arctic. But he promised to come back to Fort Simpson, and did three years later.

When John Paul returned in 1987, he was greeted by about 3,000 people, which was the smallest crowd the pontiff had ever addressed, but much more intimate.

"It was a wonderful thing that he promised to come back and in fact he did the next time he visited North America," Donovan said.

World Youth Day visit in 2002

His last trip to Canada in July 2002 was very different from the previous two. At 82, the Pope was obviously in some pain and discomfort but persevered during the six-day of events marking World Youth Day.

Attendance was lower than expected in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist hijacking attacks in the United States and rumours John Paul might not make it. But the outdoor mass at Downsview Park attracted a crowd of more than 800,000 -- one of the largest gatherings of people in Canadian history.

He also got a rock-star response from his young flock, which cried, collapsed and hugged each other at the sight of John Paul travelling through Toronto's Exhibition Stadium in his Popemobile at the start of the trip.

"People were very taken, Catholics, non-Catholics, by the Pope himself -- his radiance, his generosity of spirit, his warmth, his genuine concern for people," Donovan said of all his trips.

In 2002, there may have been even more affection for John Paul because he was older, and ill. "Maybe there was also a sense that this would be the last time these people would see him."

Not all of the Pope's dealings with Canada, however, have been so amiable.

Over the past year, the Pope has been urging authorities to stop approving same sex marriages, saying that they degrade the true sense of marriage between a man and a woman.

On September 5, 2004 at the Vatican, the Pope blasted Canada's growing acceptance of such unions. He told Donald Smith, Canada's new ambassador to the Vatican, that they lead to a "false understanding" of the nature of marriage.

"The institution of marriage necessarily entails the complementarily of husbands and wives who participate in God's creative activity through the raising of children," said the pontiff.

"Spouses thereby ensure the survival of society and culture, and rightly deserve specific and categorical legal recognition by the State," he added.

The Pope's conservative views on divorce, contraception and abortion have been widely criticized. The Vatican's statement in 2003 that condoms will not stop the spread of AIDS caused outrage.

But his papacy will be remembered for his prominent role on the world stage -- his campaigns against war and the excesses of capitalism, and his efforts in helping to bring down Communism in Europe.

As pontiff, John Paul has made more than 100 foreign visits. In doing so, he fulfilled his goal of bringing the church to Catholics around the world, as opposed to his predecessors who put more emphasis on Catholics coming to Rome, Donovan said.

"And in doing this, he has in a sense turned the papacy into a preaching function. He's kind of become the great preacher of the gospel, a kind of travelling evangelist."