We performed “The Pope of the People, the John Paul II Musical” last night at Living History Farms. This is a show about a Catholic Pope. I’m intrigued by what happens after each performance. Protestants come up to me and tell me how much they loved the show.
Regular readers of Quiner’s Diner know that I was raised Protestant and converted to the Catholic Church thirty years ago. I have tremendous love and affection for my Protestant brothers and sisters despite some differences in our Christian beliefs.
As a convert, I appreciate the challenges Protestants have in coming to grips with these differences between our faiths. And yet I’m intrigued at the way Protestants appreciate my musical. (For the record, so do Catholics.)
I’d like to think it is because it tells a compelling story in an entertaining way. I’d like to think it’s because they like the songs and beloved characters in The Pope of the People like JPII himself and Lech Walesa.
All of those things may be at work. I hope they are.
There’s another element at work, though, the same one that inspired me to write this musical. It’s what happened on June 2nd, 1979. If you recall from my previous post, JPII said Mass before a million people in Victory Square in the heart of Warsaw, Poland. In the middle of Mass, the gathered faithful broke into a Polish folk song, “We Want God!” They interrupted his homily for 14 minutes.
They expressed so simply, yet powerfully, what is in the heart in all of us, whether we’re Catholic, Protestant, Jew, or Muslim: our thirst for God.
We want God.
[The Pope of the People continues its Fall Tour with its next performance this Sunday, October 9th, 3PM, at St. Boniface Catholic Church in Waukee, Iowa. Order tickets online: www.thePopeofthePeople.com]
Readers of this blog know I am passionate about politics, religion, and music.
The three come together tonight in a musical I wrote called “The Pope of the People, the John Paul II Musical.” It will be performed at 7PM in the Church of the Land at Living History Farms on this, the 32nd anniversary of JPII’s trip to Iowa.
Pope John Paul II has become a huge influence in my life. I was there when he came to Des Moines on a chilly Autumn day. I was a Protestant at the time with no clue that one day I would join the Church and write a musical about a Pope.
JPII had just been elected the year before on the day that my mom died. As you might guess, I was pretty distracted and didn’t pay a lot of attention to the news of this first Slavic Pope.
The next year, Pope John Paul II made it clear that he was a Pope the likes of which the world hadn’t seen before. He said he wanted to return to his homeland, Poland, on a spiritual pilgrimage. Poland had a communist government, a puppet of the Soviet Union.
The commies faced a dilemma. If they didn’t let the Pope come, they’d look like they were intimidated by him. If they let him come, there was concern that he would stir up the restless citizenry who were so unhappy with the sorry state of their economy and lack of liberty.
They said he could come.
On June 2nd, 1979, Pope John Paul II said mass in Victory Square in the heart of Warsaw, Poland. A million people showed up! To put this amazing number into perspective, we “only” had 350,000 show up at Living History Farms later that year to see him.
As their communist overlords looked on, JPII told the gathered faithful that Poland belongs to Christ, that Poland had belonged to Christ for one thousand years. Even more, he said that the Blessed Mother, Mary, was the Queen of Poland!
In the middle of Mass, the crowd broke out spontaneously singing a Polish folk tune: ”We Want God!”
We want God! Can you imagine such a response in a country that imposed atheism on its people!
This primal truth erupted from the souls of a Polish nation that had been hammered by twentieth century politics. Millions had been killed by Nazism and Communism in this nation alone.
That moment unleashed the Force that would change the geo-political structure of the world.
That moment is the critical scene in The Pope of the People. It is performed and sung masterfully by KIOA radio personality, Maxwell Schaeffer, who plays the part of the Pope. You can hear a brief excerpt in the YouTube movie above.
The rest is history. The newly elected Reagan administration joined forces with The Vatican to provide each other intelligence on communist activity behind the Iron Curtain. They both lent support to the emerging Solidarity Labor Union that agitated for more freedoms for Poles.
The forces of Evil tried to kill the Pope and Ronald Reagan. Both miraculously survived. These two men felt that the forces of Good had a plan for them, and that their mission was to fight the godless scourge of communism.
They asked God for direction, support, and courage in taking on this seemingly impossible battle.
He listened.
He acted.
They won.
This strange mix of politics and religion led to the fall of communism. Ten years after the Pope said Mass in Victory Square, Poland held free elections.
The winner? Some would say it was Lech Walesa, the newly-elected president and leader of Solidarity.
The faithful simply smile. The winner was God.
When people cry out “we want God,” they have a captive audience of the One who created them, the One who loves them, the One who responds to their needs with Godly Wisdom.
The Pope of the People has it all. Politics, religion, music.
I hope you can come tonight. You can order your will-call tickets online at www.thePopeofthePeople.com. Or call us at 515-276-9266. If you miss tonight’s show, we have four more coming up, including this Sunday in Waukee, Iowa, at St. Boniface Church.
Tom Quiner holds up the newly-released Pope of the People CD and DVD
Tomorrow I’m celebrating the release of the CD and DVD of The Pope of the People, the John Paul II Musical.
You’re invited to the celebration.
The album-release party takes place at Divine Treasures Bookstore at 5701 Hickman Road. It runs from 10 AM to 2 PM. Stop in and say hi. We’re serving some fabulous treats including kolache and Polish Papal Cream Cake (Pope John Paul II’s favorite dessert).
As you know, I get a little fed up with Hollywood’s offerings and the bias in the mainstream media. This is my small way to fight back, by writing and producing a musical with good, family values, one that isn’t afraid to proclaim God’s sovereignty in our lives.
The Pope of the People is more than entertaining, it is historical. John Paul II and Ronald Reagan made a formidable team. The bad guys tried to kill them, but God intervened, and communism fell in Easter Europe.
Stop in and buy a CD or DVD if you’re so inclined. Or out-of-town readers can order online at www.thePopeofthePeople.com.
To readers of this blog whom I have not met in person, I’d love to meet you tomorrow. Stop in and share a kolache with me!
WHERE: Divine Treasures Bookstore (5701 Hickman Road, Des Moines, Iowa)
WHAT: Album Release Party for The Pope of the People, the John Paul II Musical
The Pope of the People, the John Paul II Musical, premiers at 8 PM next Friday, April 1st, at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in West Des Moines. Written by Tom Quiner, it dramatically presents the historic events of JPII’s first ten years as Pope.
You can find the complete performance schedule here.
[I was interviewed this morning on KWKY AM radio station about the new musical I am writing and producing, "The Pope of the People." We begin rehearsals next week. Below is an excerpt from another interview on the subject. In addition, I am re-running the piece I wrote for the Des Moines Register last summer upon which much of the musical is based.]
It began on June 2nd. The year was 1979 when the Alitalia jetliner set down in a land that time forgot for 123 years of its thousand year history. A Man in White with kind eyes stepped onto the tarmac. He knelt and kissed the earth.
What was he thinking? How did it feel to be back in his motherland?
His next nine days in Poland would change the world. For objective reporters on the scene, he would spark a revolution with 37 well-crafted speeches and sermons, delivered with the intelligence of a scholar and the heart of a poet.
To the man on the street, it was more than just the words. It was the power behind the words. It was the power defined by their shared religion, language, and literature. It was the power of the Polish culture.
It was the power of hope.
What was this culture like? A gathering of local Polish-Americans here in Des Moines shared memories of their life in Poland with me. In every instance, their Catholic heritage was in the forefront.
Artur Golebeiwski owns the Best Western Inn & Suites in West Des Moines. He told me how Catholic masses were scheduled all day long on Sundays in Poland. And they were standing-room only. He said you wouldn’t even think of getting married in the month of May. The churches just weren’t available because of all of the first communion masses taking place throughout that month.
Ewa Domagala Pratt, a professor at DMACC, talked about how everyone walked to Sunday mass. Few owned cars and mass transit didn’t run on Sundays. The scene on Sunday mornings was pedestrian-packed streets with the same destination: the Catholic church.
This is the culture that animated Poland when the Man in White, the son of a soldier, arrived at Victory Square in the heart of Warsaw on that fateful day in 1979. Victory Square is the site for the Tomb of the Unknown soldier. It is revered in Poland.
Pope John Paul II vs. the President of Poland. Can you sense the President's discomfort with the Holy See?
All in attendance for the Mass about to be said had most likely walked to get there, all one million of them! Needless to say, the Communist government was concerned. In anticipation of large public gatherings, they put in place 67,000 security forces. Interestingly, 20,000 of them were undercover.
George Czerwinksi was in the Polish Air Force then, living in Krakow. (Today he’s a corporate pilot for Meredith Corporation here in Des Moines.) He related to me that he saw a military truck drive past him. Leaning out the window was an undercover security agent dressed as a priest!
All that security wasn’t to protect the Man in White, but to protect the communists from the people. They feared an uprising.
If you were a Pole standing in the crowd of one million that day at Victory Square, your heart was in your throat. Your beloved friend was home, and his words astounded.
In the heart of Godless communism, he said: “To Poland the Church brought Christ, the key to understanding that great and fundamental reality that is man. For man cannot be fully understood without Christ.”
Even more, he said that “Poland has become nowadays the land of a particularly responsible witness.” And with his kind eyes ablaze, he said, “Christ cannot be kept out of the history of man in any part of the globe. The exclusion of Christ from the history of man is an act against man.”
Days of endless applause followed. Despite the Communists best efforts to suppress his schedule, the crowds swelled to three million by the time he reached Krakow a week later. There, he invoked Poland’s rich thousand year history and culture.
The summer of hope continued. Ten years later, almost to the day, Lech Walesa, a member of the Solidarity Labor Union, was elected President of Poland as communism began to crumble.
The summer of hope continues today. While America celebrated its Independence on July 4th, Poland elected a new President, Bronislaw Komorowski. Poland today is a stable democracy.
Ask any Pole. They’ll tell you World War II ended and communism fell on the same day, June 2nd, 1979, the summer of hope. That was the day Karol Wojtya, also known as Pope John Paul II, came home.
