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’He had an electrifying touch’: Pope's 1979 visit recalled

E-mail|Link|Comments () September 30, 2009 08:50 PM

Globe File Photo

A massive crowd filled the Common, hoping to catch a glimpse of the pope.

By Martin Finucane, Globe Staff, and Jack Nicas, Globe Correspondent

Susan McCarthy Grady remembers the garbage bags. Someone had realized they could make some money by selling the bags to the shivering people who had been waiting for hours in the cold rain and harsh wind to see the Pope at his historic 1979 visit to Boston Common.

Pope John Paul II, '79 Boston Common
(Copyright Rik Tinory Productions)

"Ours were green. I don't know the brand," she said.

Rik Tinory, who had been commissioned by the archdiocese of Boston to make a recording of the event and was running his equipment from the top of a subway kiosk, remembers the earth trembling when the crowd chanted, "Long live the Pope!"

"They started this chant. It built and built and built and the ground was shaking," he said.

Rev. Francis Strahan recalls that he was supposed to sing a hymn for the Pope, but the Pope had to take a rain check.

"There were sails covering the altar. They were taking on water," he said.

Thirty years ago Thursday, a vast ocean of the faithful gathered on Boston Common, despite gathering darkness, pouring rain, biting wind, and slippery mud, to see Pope John Paul II. The crowd, estimated at 400,000, some of whom had waited for hours, strained to get a glimpse of the pope as he celebrated Mass on a three-story-high wooden altar erected on Charles Street. His arrival had been trumpeted for weeks in the local media.

With the anniversary approaching, some of those who were there reminisced about the event today – and all agreed on one thing: It was a historic event imbued with a special feeling.

"It was just such a momentous occasion. We knew that the Pope's in Boston, Massachusetts, the United States of America. It was pretty cool," said Grady, 47, of Plaistow, N.H., a manager at an electrical supply company. "I just remember being very awestruck."

"He just really came across as a regular guy. He was happy to be there," said Grady. "You couldn't wipe the smile off his face or half the people who were there."

Nina Boucher, 47, also of Plaistow, a friend who accompanied Grady and her family to the event 30 years ago, remembered that "It was a dismal, rainy day and we waited there for a long time. But I don't remember any whining."

"We were all happy to be there," said Boucher, a production control worker at Raytheon. "I've heard whining at Grateful Dead concerts, but there's no whining standing around waiting for the Pope to do his thing."

Boucher and Grady, who were students at Timberlane Regional High School in Plaistow at the time, were among the young people interviewed by the Globe 30 years ago after the Pope gave a sermon challenging young people to stop shirking their responsibilities. Another of those interviewed was Christine Harrington, then a student at Framingham South High School, who was excited that the Pope might bring changes to the church.

Harrington, 46, now an online media executive in New York, said she was disappointed the church hasn't made changes on issues such as priestly celibacy, contraception, and the role of women. She noted that she now attends an Episcopalian church.

"That said, that day and the sense of community and hope and, really, love is still palpable in my memory. It was a terrific day, a great day," she said.

Tinory, a Cohasset-based musician, songwriter, and producer, said he was concerned about the rain and the wind, which ripped off the flimsy plastic canopy covering him and allowed water to pour into his Ampex tape recorders as he watched the event from the top of his kiosk. He was running two reel-to-reel machines simultaneously, he said, but concerned that all his tape would be ruined.

"The thing that frightened me the most was the fact that the machines would stop. This is not like one of these things, 'Take 2, Pope!', you know," he said, likening the pope to some of the musicians he has worked with in recording sessions.

He described the event as an emotional and intense experience.

"It will be forever before we get somebody with his charisma. This is the real deal. It really was," said Tinory.

Strahan, 76, a priest at St. Bridget's Parish in Framingham, said he had been in charge of the music, which included a 300-voice choir and musicians from the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

After his solo was canceled, he said, he was sure he would never get a chance to sing for the Pope again. But he did get another chance in 1985 when two priests, from New York and Boston, were being ordained as cardinals in Rome. He sang the song then that he was originally planning to sing on the Common, "Simon son of John."

Strahan, who was in a section reserved for the choir near the altar, said the Pope's arrival at the stage was heralded by crowds cheering in the distance.

After arriving at the Common, the Pope put on his vestments in the Common's underground parking garage before appearing on the stage.

"When he came up above and started to walk out on the altar, the roar of the crowd was incredible," he said. "He had an electrifying touch to him, everything he did, and the people responded to that."