Pope John Paul II made nine visits, or pilgrimages, to his homeland of Poland during his momentous, twenty-six-year leadership of the Roman Catholic Church that began in October 1978. This work covers the first four, those of June 2–10, 1979, June 16–23, 1983, June 8–14, 1987, and June 1–9, 1991. The first three came while Poland was under communist rule. The fourth took place in the early months of the newly created post-communist, democratic third republic.
Professor James Ramon Felak, a historian who holds a named professorship in Catholic Christianity at the University of Washington, mentions only one of the five Papal visits that followed. It came in August 1991, just two months after his fourth pilgrimage. For several days he was in Częstochowa to preside at the Church's World Youth Congress, the first event of its kind in a former communist-run country. (John Paul II's subsequent visits were in...