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Future pope visited county 26 years ago

By BONNIE BRESSERS
Special to The Gazette
(Editor's Note: Bonnie Bressers was a reporter for the Stevens Point Journal when she covered the visit of Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, now Pope John Paul II, to the area. She is now an assistant professor in the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan.)

"He shook so many hands, he could have been the President of the United States. Or the Pope."

That was how a story in a local newspaper began after Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, then a top church leader in Poland, spent two days visiting the Stevens Point area on Aug. 23 and 24, 1976.

Two years later, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla was the pope. Taking the name John Paul II, he was the first non-Italian pope in 455 years and, then 58, the youngest in more than a century.

Now, as John Paul's health clearly deteriorates, the small central Wisconsin community that promised never to forget him, never has.

"The community remembers," said George Rogers, a former editor of the Stevens Point Journal and now a contributing writer to The Portage County Gazette. "There's a whole generation of people for whom his visit is hearsay, but I'm sure they are told about it by the people who were there then. It's well-remembered."

Mary Jane Zdroik, who has long been active in Annual Lectures on Poland, still has the bread that her mother baked for the cardinal's arrival. It was given to him at the Stevens Point Municipal Airport in observance of the Slavic tradition of giving a guest bread and salt, two essential staples of life.

Zdroik and her now-late husband, Maynard, hosted a picnic lunch for the cardinal at their home near Rosholt. She vividly remembers an approachable, caring, man-of-the-people with whom she and Maynard maintained a relationship for many years to come.

Indeed, it was on that picture-perfect day on the farm that about 100 people of Stevens Point had their closest - and most memorable - contact with the man who would lead the Roman Catholic Church into the 21st Century. The Zdroiks invited about 50 or 60 people, Mary Jane Zdroik remembers, "but it was a little like the multiplication of loaves and fishes."

With piercing blue eyes, a soft smile, and a remarkable gentleness of nature, Wojtyla mingled comfortably with the people, shaking hands; carrying children; speaking effortlessly with one person in Polish, the next in English. He visited both with community leaders and with women cooking in the kitchen, whom he thanked for their work on his behalf.

When Mrs. Zdroik asked him to bless her home, he did. He said it was twice blessed - he had blessed it on his own without the asking.

But Wojtyla could show displeasure, too. During a news conference held at the Zdroik home, a reporter asked a question about the political situation in Poland that Wojtyla thought was impossibly broad, and Wojtyla gently chided the reporter for not doing his homework beforehand.

On that day golden with sunshine, seated on the grassy expanse under large shade trees or circulating with ease among the people of central Wisconsin, Wojtyla presented an image of almost palpable holiness and spirituality that would be unforgettable in the decades to come.

He was, it seemed obvious to him and to us, destined.

Among other things, Wojtyla toured the rural countryside; visited the two local nursing homes; spoke to parishioners at St. Peter's Catholic Church; visited the Felician Sisters of Polonia, whose order was started in Poland; and celebrated Mass at Stevens Point Area Senior High School. If there was a less memorable event, it was a speech on Catholic education in Poland that Wojtyla gave after a banquet held in his honor at the University Center. He had changed topics at the last moment and some people found the speech inaccessible and difficult to understand.

Several times during his visit, Wojtyla asked questions that showed his concern about the welfare of working people and people who were underprivileged. And wherever he went, people tried to touch his arm, his shoulder, as if some of his aura would be conveyed by the touch. It was as if he and the community were old and cherished friends.

"He is a man for all people," Mary Jane Zdroik said. "That is what he is today and that is what he was then."

During the evening of the banquet, someone suggested Wojtyla would be the next pope, a prediction he dismissed with an impatient wave of his hand. But earlier, a member of his entourage had made a similar prediction by asking this reporter if she realized she had met the next pope. Despite the obvious unlikeliness of such a outcome, it was startling that, after Pope Paul VI died on Aug. 6, 1978, a different cardinal - Albino Luciani - was elected to the papacy. Tragically, Luciani, who took the name John Paul I, served for only 34 days before his death in September. Cardinal Karol Wojtyla was elected the 264th pope on Oct. 16.

"There was such community pride," Mary Jane Zdroik said. "People were elated. It was a dream come true."

Wojtyla's visit to central Wisconsin was largely due to the efforts of the late Waclaw Soroka, a University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point history professor who knew Wojtyla from their school days in Poland in the 1930s. Wojtyla was to be in the United States at the International Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia, and Soroka invited him to central Wisconsin as a guest of Annual Lectures on Poland. When commercial airlines were unable to accommodate the cardinal's tight schedule, Soroka asked the late John Joanis, then chairman of Sentry Insurance, for the Sentry jet.

Among the traits Wojtyla exhibited during his Wisconsin visit - and in the quarter of a century that followed - was his ability to captivate even people who had deep and abiding religious differences with him. Wojtyla inherited a church in transition after the Second Vatican Council, and he never relented in his opposition to married priests, female priests, contraception and abortion.

John Paul was a man of the times, what the church needed in a period of transition, Soroka said 10 years after the 1976 visit.

Indeed, John Paul moved the church from the more liberal policies of Pope John XXIII, said Jim Schuh, then general manager of WSPT AM and FM and now a contributing writer to The Gazette, who met Wojtyla on the night of the banquet and Mass.

"For me, who happens to be liberal, I had higher hopes that we would continue with more of the church doors open, and it really hasn't happened quite that way," Schuh said. "But I understand the church isn't worried about the time frames of the rest of us. Time is almost irrelevant in its eyes."

Clearly, history also will remember John Paul as an international figure who traveled to more than 115 countries during the last 20 years, exercising subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle diplomacy worldwide. It may well be that history will credit John Paul, rather than former President Ronald Reagan, as exerting the most profound influence on the downfall of Communism.

But, to the people who met him on those sunny August days in 1976, he was - and always will be - "Stevens Point's pope," who left what he called "the green America" with a pledge never to forget its people.

(Aug. 2, 2002)



	Future pope visited county 26 years ago By BONNIE BRESSERS Special to The Gazette (Editor's Note: Bonnie Bressers was a reporter for the Stevens Point Journal when she covered the visit of Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, now Pope John Paul II, to the area. She is now an assistant professor in the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan.) "He shook so many hands, he could have been the President of the United States. Or the Pope." That was how a story in a local newspaper began after Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, then a top church leader in Poland, spent two days visiting the Stevens Point area on Aug. 23 and 24, 1976. Two years later, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla was the pope. Taking the name John Paul II, he was the first non-Italian pope in 455 years and, then 58, the youngest in more than a century. Now, as John Paul's health clearly deteriorates, the small central Wisconsin community that promised never to forget him, never has. "The community remembers," said George Rogers, a former editor of the Stevens Point Journal and now a contributing writer to The Portage County Gazette. "There's a whole generation of people for whom his visit is hearsay, but I'm sure they are told about it by the people who were there then. It's well-remembered." Mary Jane Zdroik, who has long been active in Annual Lectures on Poland, still has the bread that her mother baked for the cardinal's arrival. It was given to him at the Stevens Point Municipal Airport in observance of the Slavic tradition of giving a guest bread and salt, two essential staples of life. Zdroik and her now-late husband, Maynard, hosted a picnic lunch for the cardinal at their home near Rosholt. She vividly remembers an approachable, caring, man-of-the-people with whom she and Maynard maintained a relationship for many years to come. Indeed, it was on that picture-perfect day on the farm that about 100 people of Stevens Point had their closest - and most memorable - contact with the man who would lead the Roman Catholic Church into the 21st Century. The Zdroiks invited about 50 or 60 people, Mary Jane Zdroik remembers, "but it was a little like the multiplication of loaves and fishes." With piercing blue eyes, a soft smile, and a remarkable gentleness of nature, Wojtyla mingled comfortably with the people, shaking hands; carrying children; speaking effortlessly with one person in Polish, the next in English. He visited both with community leaders and with women cooking in the kitchen, whom he thanked for their work on his behalf. When Mrs. Zdroik asked him to bless her home, he did. He said it was twice blessed - he had blessed it on his own without the asking. But Wojtyla could show displeasure, too. During a news conference held at the Zdroik home, a reporter asked a question about the political situation in Poland that Wojtyla thought was impossibly broad, and Wojtyla gently chided the reporter for not doing his homework beforehand. On that day golden with sunshine, seated on the grassy expanse under large shade trees or circulating with ease among the people of central Wisconsin, Wojtyla presented an image of almost palpable holiness and spirituality that would be unforgettable in the decades to come. He was, it seemed obvious to him and to us, destined. Among other things, Wojtyla toured the rural countryside; visited the two local nursing homes; spoke to parishioners at St. Peter's Catholic Church; visited the Felician Sisters of Polonia, whose order was started in Poland; and celebrated Mass at Stevens Point Area Senior High School. If there was a less memorable event, it was a speech on Catholic education in Poland that Wojtyla gave after a banquet held in his honor at the University Center. He had changed topics at the last moment and some people found the speech inaccessible and difficult to understand. Several times during his visit, Wojtyla asked questions that showed his concern about the welfare of working people and people who were underprivileged. And wherever he went, people tried to touch his arm, his shoulder, as if some of his aura would be conveyed by the touch. It was as if he and the community were old and cherished friends. "He is a man for all people," Mary Jane Zdroik said. "That is what he is today and that is what he was then." During the evening of the banquet, someone suggested Wojtyla would be the next pope, a prediction he dismissed with an impatient wave of his hand. But earlier, a member of his entourage had made a similar prediction by asking this reporter if she realized she had met the next pope. Despite the obvious unlikeliness of such a outcome, it was startling that, after Pope Paul VI died on Aug. 6, 1978, a different cardinal - Albino Luciani - was elected to the papacy. Tragically, Luciani, who took the name John Paul I, served for only 34 days before his death in September. Cardinal Karol Wojtyla was elected the 264th pope on Oct. 16. "There was such community pride," Mary Jane Zdroik said. "People were elated. It was a dream come true." Wojtyla's visit to central Wisconsin was largely due to the efforts of the late Waclaw Soroka, a University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point history professor who knew Wojtyla from their school days in Poland in the 1930s. Wojtyla was to be in the United States at the International Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia, and Soroka invited him to central Wisconsin as a guest of Annual Lectures on Poland. When commercial airlines were unable to accommodate the cardinal's tight schedule, Soroka asked the late John Joanis, then chairman of Sentry Insurance, for the Sentry jet. Among the traits Wojtyla exhibited during his Wisconsin visit - and in the quarter of a century that followed - was his ability to captivate even people who had deep and abiding religious differences with him. Wojtyla inherited a church in transition after the Second Vatican Council, and he never relented in his opposition to married priests, female priests, contraception and abortion. John Paul was a man of the times, what the church needed in a period of transition, Soroka said 10 years after the 1976 visit. Indeed, John Paul moved the church from the more liberal policies of Pope John XXIII, said Jim Schuh, then general manager of WSPT AM and FM and now a contributing writer to The Gazette, who met Wojtyla on the night of the banquet and Mass. "For me, who happens to be liberal, I had higher hopes that we would continue with more of the church doors open, and it really hasn't happened quite that way," Schuh said. "But I understand the church isn't worried about the time frames of the rest of us. Time is almost irrelevant in its eyes." Clearly, history also will remember John Paul as an international figure who traveled to more than 115 countries during the last 20 years, exercising subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle diplomacy worldwide. It may well be that history will credit John Paul, rather than former President Ronald Reagan, as exerting the most profound influence on the downfall of Communism. But, to the people who met him on those sunny August days in 1976, he was - and always will be - "Stevens Point's pope," who left what he called "the green America" with a pledge never to forget its people. (Aug. 2, 2002)