Des Moines, Iowa, Sep 28, 2009 / 19:24 pm
Thirty years after Pope John Paul II’s visit to Iowa, residents are remembering the event when an estimated 340,000 pilgrims, the largest crowd in Iowa’s history, gathered on the grounds of Living History Farms in Urbandale.
Mary Jane Pray, 92, sang in a choir that day.
“When I was a child, Catholics were seen as a far-out people who wore horns,” she told the Des Moines Register. “I think it softened a lot of people's hearts, especially if you were not Catholic. He was just a simple priest.”
Joe Hays, 69, a farmer from Truro, brought the Pope to Iowa with a handwritten request. After learning of John Paul II’s visit to America, he wrote to the Pope and said that the strength of the Catholic Church in America is found in its rural people.
A month later, a response arrived and Hays was called to an August 29 news conference announcing the visit.