By Robert Davis Chicago Tribune
The man previously known as Cardinal Karol Wojtyla had been in Chicago before, most recently in 1976, when he had visited a Northwest Side church as a little-known Polish cardinal. But by the fall of 1979, he had become John Paul II, the first Polish pope in history, the 264th successor to the Apostle Peter, and head of the world's 700 million Roman Catholics. His visit this time would make him only the second pope to visit the United States and the first ever to come to Chicago.

The city held a double attraction as a stop on his first American tour, made less than a year after he became pope. With 2.4 million Catholics, the Chicago archdiocese was the largest in the country at the time. And, with some 500,000 residents of Polish ancestry, after Warsaw it was home to the second largest Polish community in the world. His stay in Chicago would last all of 40 hours, but it became one of those unique events that brought the city together, regardless of race, ethnicity or belief.

Large, joyful crowds greeted him wherever he went, from his arrival at O'Hare International Airport on the evening of Oct. 4 to his departure on the morning of the 6th.His schedule included an address to 350 American bishops at Quigley Preparatory Seminary South, where he said the Church under his leadership would continue to oppose abortion, extramarital sex, homosexuality and divorce.

Then he traveled to Grant Park for the largest mass ever celebrated in Chicago. "The skyscrapers of Chicago's Loop resembled cathedral spires as they soared over the crowd," reported the Tribune, which described the gathering of an estimated 200,000 people as "festive yet solemn, happy but devout." Many wore ethnic clothes, and worshipers of all ages, races and even religions came to see the pontiff. In his homily, John Paul II said, "Looking at you, I see people who have thrown their destinies together and now write a common history. . . . This is the way America was conceived; this is what she was called to be. . . . But there is another reality that I see when I look at you. . . . your unity as members of the People of God."