NEW YORK - More than 50,000 rain-soaked people greet Pope John Paul II at Shea Stadium in New York during his 7-day visit to the United States in October 1979. The pope gave sermons at two other baseball stadiums during his trip, repeating his theme: ''Be not afraid - God is with you.'' (AP File Photo)

The global pilgrim

efore the 1960s, few popes had traveled outside of Italy. Paul VI, who reigned from 1963 to 1978, pioneered the role of pontiff as global emissary for the church, visiting the Holy Land, India, the United States, Africa, and Southeast Asia. John Paul II made travel a hallmark of his lengthy tenure, visiting 129 nations in 104 trips. Intractable disputes, however, prevented him from visiting Russia or China. Throngs greeted him wherever he went, and he frequently celebrated Mass in vast outdoor arenas, addressing people in words of their native tongues. Some of his 100-plus trips involved religious diplomacy, such as when he (twice) addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York. But it was his religious missions that invariably provided the most memorable spectacles. These travels, he said in 1980, were designed ''to announce the gospel, to consolidate the church, to meet the people ... They are voyages of love, peace, and universal brotherhood.'' The immense crowds that greeted him, he added, were evidence of the spirit of St. Peter ''at the crossroads of the world.''

Where John Paul traveled

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Japan

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Fiji

From TV to e-mail, an ancient message by modern means

By Sam Allis, Globe Staff | April 3, 2005

''The papacy must be a glass house.''

John Paul II uttered this astonishing statement in the mid-1980s, according to Rome-based Associated Press correspondent Victor Simpson, who covered all of his papacy.

It never approached glass house transparency, but John Paul did revolutionize Vatican relations with the media and, in doing so, what it means to be pope. None of his predecessors approached his open style: the manic traveling, availability to reporters, choice of a savvy press secretary. No previous pope understood and exploited the value of television as he did.

''I compare it to Vietnam,'' says Philip Pullella, a Rome-based Reuters correspondent, who also covered the entirety of John Paul's papacy. ''That was the first war brought into people's living rooms. This was the first papacy brought into people's living rooms. Something happened, and you knew about it right away.''

His predecessor, John Paul I, who died after a mere 33 days in office, managed in that time to decline an invitation to visit Guadeloupe, Mexico. Upon assuming the papacy, John Paul II immediately accepted, traveling there in January 1979. ''There was never any question that he wanted to make news from the opening bell,'' says Simpson. ''And he opened up the papacy as never before.''

John Paul grasped the potency of linkage between place and message. In the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, recalls Pullella, he gave a Mass in 1979 in Manhattan's Battery Park in which he used that monumental symbol to pump his message: Don't close your borders to immigrants. Ronald Reagan's media savants could have done no better.

How much of this success stemmed from his earlier incarnation as an actor in Poland is debatable. What is not was the ease with which he appeared before thousands, at times millions, of people. His early press was incredible. Time Magazine ran a cover proclaiming: ''John Paul Superstar.''

Traveling was a huge part of his media strategy. As of December 2003, he had made 104 foreign trips. (Paul VI, by contrast, was a distant second with nine.) And for most of his papacy, John Paul walked to the back of the Alitalia 747 and talked to reporters, something previously unheard of. In the early years he would give each reporter a question to wow the editors. He understood the need to make news upon arrival, and the wire-service reporters would race to the phones from the plane to send feeds with meat on them.

And he would take on all comers. On the way to the United States in 1986, when there was incessant talk of a schism between the American Catholic church and Rome, he repeatedly fielded questions on abortion, birth control, and gay rights. Later in his papacy, John Paul would stand in the front of the media section of the plane and take questions for 15 or 20 minutes. Near the end, due to his health, he discontinued the Q & A sessions; his last was in 1999 on his second trip to India. But this man harbored no fear of the media.

His papacy also coincided with an explosion of technology. In 1994 an American nun named Judith Zoebelein led the creation of the Vatican website (www.vatican.va). In 2000 John Paul sent out the first papal message via the Internet, to the people of Oceania. In 2002 the family of a murdered Swiss Guard held a press conference in Rome at 6 p.m. By 6:30, recalls Simpson, the Vatican was replying on its website. In January 2003 part of the Vatican Library was put on line.

That said, John Paul was never comfortable with the Internet. TV was his medium of choice. There was no Vatican television when he began his papacy. In 1984 the Vatican set up a modest production studio, where interviews and features were made and then sent as cassettes to Telepace, a Catholic network, and other Catholic channels around the world.

Also in 1984, John Paul hired the first professional as Vatican press secretary — Joaquin Navarro-Valls, a Spanish journalist. Most people assume he was the first non-priest to hold the title, but Federico Alessandrini was the first, under Paul VI. Alessandrini, who had only limited access to the pope during his tenure, was succeeded by Romeo Pancirolli, a priest known to the Vatican press corps as ''Mr. I don't have anything on that.''

Navarro-Valls was the first to understand the media, to know the dance between off- and on-the-record. He spoke the same language as the press corps. He knew how reporters think. He came to the job as a Rome-based correspondent for ABC, a sizable Spanish daily, and was a former president of the foreign press association there. What he did, quite simply, was globalize Vatican coverage. And while the pope didn't micromanage him, he clearly approved of this strategy.

''Navarro realized very early on that a well-placed story in the New York Times was light years more beneficial to the Vatican than something in any Italian newspaper,'' says Pullella. ''He branched out and gave space and access to non-Italian media.'' Time Magazine, for example, enjoyed a prominent position at the front of the media section of the plane. Such a placement guaranteed it one of the first questions.

At issue now is whether the next pope will pursue the open media strategy of John Paul. Could he shutter the Vatican from scrutiny once again? Doubtful. John Paul dragged the Vatican out of the dark into view, and that legacy will be hard to erase. The effort is one of his lasting achievements.