22nd October 2019
Feast day memorial for Blessed Pope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II’s feast day is being celebrated by Catholics across the world today.
Blessed John Paul II was Beatified by his successor Pope Benedict XVI on May 1, 2011, six years after his passing.
October 22 date was chosen as John Paul II’s feast day each year in Rome and the dioceses of Poland to coincide the date in which he was installed as Pope in 1978. It is also an optional memorial day throughout the world. The feast day observation began this year with Masses on Saturday, and comments from those closest to the late Pope, who died in 2005.
Born Karol Wojtyla (pronounced Voy-ti-wah), Blessed John Paul II’s visited his native country in 1979 and told the Pole: “Do not be afraid.” The message was a call to action that continues today in the New Evangelisation.
Pope John Paul II visited Ireland from Saturday, 29 September to Monday, 1 October 1979, the first trip to Ireland by a pope. … It was one of John Paul’s first foreign visits as Pope, who had been elected in October 1978. The visit marked the centenary of the reputed apparitions at the Shrine of Knock in August 1879.