Crowds Push to See Pope John Paul II Beatified

The May 2011 issue of The Catholic Mirror is now out!

Sure, the priest reassignments are certainly the hot topic for the month, but there is also a story on the front page that is near and dear to our hearts – our “we survived the beatification” story! Thanks to Anne Marie Cox, Mirror staff, for collecting our thoughts and sharing them in this month’s issue of The Catholic Mirror. Here’s a bit of the story . . .

Lisa and Joel might have missed the beatification of Pope John Paul II if they had stuck with their plan.

As it turned out, the Des Moines-area couple, of St. Francis of Assisi Parish in West Des Moines, stayed up all night shortly after arriving in Rome and managed to be in the thick of the crowd for the historic beatification of the late Holy Father.

“Until his death, Pope John Paul II was the only pope I knew,” said Lisa, a lifelong Iowan. “When he came to Living History Farms in 1979, I was just three years old, and I don’t have any memories of his visit. Then in 1993, I regretfully declined traveling with my church’s youth group to see him at World Youth Day in Denver. No more regrets this time. I wasn’t going to miss his beatification for anything.”

They had begun their pilgrimage on Saturday, April 30 by touring some of the major sites in Rome, then having dinner with their travel group. Their plan: catch a couple of hours of sleep, then gather at 4 a.m. to head for St. Peter’s Square for the beatification. But on their way back to the hotel, the plan changed.

How did our plans change? And what did we encounter over those next several hours with a million plus other pilgrims gathered for the Beatification Mass of Blessed Pope John Paul II? Read on, friends! If you are a registered parishioner in the Diocese of Des Moines, the May issue is being delivered to your mailbox now. For those outside the diocese, The Catholic Mirror is available for online reading.