The mission St. John Paul II calls us to fulfill, 20 years after he left us

In the 1970s, you were more likely to have a spaceship piloted by an extraterrestrial land in your backyard than the leader of the Catholic Church.

The era of regular papal travel had not yet begun, but that was about to change. 

In 1979, John Paul II was already planning his first trip as pope to the United States when he received a two-page handwritten letter from Iowa farmer Joe Hays inviting him to visit America’s heartland. 

A few short months later, Living History Farms near Des Moines hosted the pope...