Culture

Cardinal Karol Wojtyla and Cardinal Humberto Medeiros greet children from St. Adalbert Parish, Hyde Park, during Cardinal Wojtyla's 1976 visit. Pilot photo/courtesy Archdiocese of Boston Archives

From the Archdiocesan Archives

Cardinal Karol Wojtyla's 1976 visit to Boston

Friday, August 7, 2026Culture

Many faithful in the archdiocese still remember the visit of Pope John Paul II to Boston on Oct. 1-2, 1979, particularly the rainy outdoor Mass on Boston Common. Others will recall that he first visited our archdiocese in 1969, when he was still Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, Archbishop of Krakow. Next week, Aug. 14-16, marks the 50th anniversary of his 1976 visit to Boston as the guest of Cardinal Humberto Medeiros.
Cardinal Wojtyla traveled to the United States for the 41st International Eucharistic Congress, held in Philadelphia from Aug. 1-8, 1976. He was joined at this momentous event by over 1.5 million people, including Cardinal Medeiros, Mother Teresa, Archbishop Fulton Sheen, and President Gerald Ford. Here, at a Mass for Freedom and Justice, Cardinal Wojtyla gave a homily about the need for religious freedom, citing the oppression of Catholics in his native Poland.
Later, in Boston, Cardinal Wojtyla celebrated local Polish families and communities. With Cardinal Medeiros, he celebrated Mass at Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. School in Hyde Park for archdiocesan women religious of Polish descent. And, as in 1969, he visited St. Adalbert Parish in Hyde Park, celebrating a Bicentennial Mass for Polish Americans there, also with Cardinal Medeiros. The program included a procession, a presentation of flowers, and words of welcome by parish children in traditional dress.

Originally a Protestant town, Hyde Park was annexed to the city of Boston in 1912. Around this time, Polish immigrants began arriving to work in the mills along the Neponset River. Initially, Fathers John Chmielinski and Francis Jablonski of South Boston would travel to Hyde Park to celebrate Mass for the Polish Catholics there. These priests, particularly Father Chmielinski, were instrumental in the establishment of St. Adalbert Parish in 1913. Within the first few years, the parish had a church building, rectory, and Stations of the Cross. They would later establish various groups to bring parishioners together and meet their social, cultural, and liturgical needs, such as a St. Vincent de Paul Society, a Polish National Alliance Group, a Catholic Youth Group, and a Rosary Society.
As local demographics changed during the 20th century, St. Adalbert began welcoming non-Polish Catholics but maintained its Polish identity. A 1992 profile of St. Adalbert Parish describes the "distinct honor" of welcoming Cardinal Wojtyla and other Polish prelates on different occasions, noting that these visits "cement(ed) the bond between the Church of Poland and the Church of Boston."
On Oct. 16, 1978, Cardinal Wojtyla would begin his papacy as Pope John Paul II, the youngest pope and the first born outside Italy since the 16th century. His election to this role, and especially his 1979 visit to Boston, stirred a range of emotions among locals of Polish descent. Diane Dumanoski, reporting in The Boston Globe on Oct. 1, 1979, identified the emergent emotion as "vindication for people whose history has been one of war, occupation and persecution" and "for a culture that has survived and . . . Been strengthened by the efforts of conquerors to wipe it out."
But even before he became Pope John Paul II, his presence was meaningful, a bolster of identity for Boston's Polish community, which traces its roots back to the founding of Our Lady of Czestochowa Parish in South Boston in 1893. Increased immigration at the turn of the 20th century led to the establishment of numerous other national Polish parishes in the archdiocese, in Brockton, Cambridge, Chelsea, Ipswich, Lowell, Maynard, Lynn, Norwood, Haverhill, and Salem. In "The Polish Community of Salem," authors Felicia L. Wilczenski and Emily A. Murphy note that "Catholicism was an especially important aspect of Polish identity" in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and many rites and ceremonies, such as weddings, confirmations, and May processions were significant community events. However, Polish communities were outnumbered by other immigrant groups, such as the Irish, Italians, and Canadians. To welcome a Polish prelate, particularly one so outspoken in national pride, was a distinction that evokes the vindication Ms. Dumanoski identified in The Globe in 1979.
Cardinal Wojtyla's 1976 visit received less news coverage than those in 1969 and 1979. His photo appeared on the front page of The Pilot on Aug. 20, 1976, with the caption "Polish Cardinal Visits" and an overview of his itinerary. In 1979, his presence garnered markedly more attention: David Nyhan, reporting in The Boston Globe on Oct. 1, 1979, mused, "On this tour, the Pope is a star." For this tour introduced the charisma, enthusiasm, and "ability to project joy, warmth, and resolve to huge numbers of people" that Polish Catholics already knew so well to a broader, more secular audience. But Pope John Paul II, for all his energy and national pride, was also a deeply pious man. He embodied a Polish folk saying, "Kto do tanca, ten do rozanca," which roughly translates to "A man who can dance can also say the rosary."
John Paul II was pope from 1978 until his death on April 2, 2005, one of the longest-serving popes in history. He was beatified in 2011 and canonized in 2014 as St. John Paul II. His feast day is Oct. 22, the anniversary of his papal inauguration in 1978.

REBECCA MAITLAND IS AN ARCHIVIST OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF BOSTON.