I love all popes, but my most favorite of all is St John Paul the Great. Perhaps it is because I was brought up in the Catholic faith while he was Pope. Do you know that John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope in 455 years?

I've been collecting silver that has St John Paul in it.

Vintage 1987 Pope John Paul II California

This was a commemorative silver art round. It was to commemorate his visit to California from September 15 to 18, 1987.

While in California, he visited Los Angeles, Monterrey, and San Francisco. This commemorative art round features the Basilica of Mission of San Carlos in Carmel.

Two and a half centuries after San Junípero held Carmel’s first Mass in a humble, one room shelter, or enramada, on the north bank of the Carmel River, the Mission continues to serve as an active and vital Catholic Parish. Located in one of the most beautiful areas of the Golden State, the iconic Mission Basilica, along with the San Carlos Cathedral (situated on the Mission’s original site in Monterey), are the oldest masonry structures in California, constructed during the last decade of the eighteenth century. These historic and sacred sites have both been listed on the National Register of Historic Places and are designated as National and State Historic Landmarks.

I have shown the above silver art round before. You can see it HERE.


What I failed to show you before is this next silver art round below.

Vintage 1987 Pope John Paul II /ARIZONA

St John Paul visited Arizona on September 14, 1987, and it is also commemorated in a silver art round.

And in the Memorial Coliseum of Phoenix, St. John Paul had a special message to the native peoples of the Americas. If you want to read that address, it is HERE. Met with roughly 14,000 Native Americans at Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

As part of his effort to promote greater understanding between nations and between religions, he undertook numerous trips abroad, traveling far greater distances than had all other popes combined, and he extended his influence beyond the church by campaigning against political oppression and criticizing the materialism of the West. He also issued several unprecedented apologies to groups that historically had been wronged by Catholics, most notably Jews and Muslims.¹

These are 37 year old rounds, 1 ozt, .999 fine silver souvenir of St. John Paul II visit to California and Arizona

I love St. John Paul II most of all! He was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his death in 2005. His pontificate of more than 26 years was the third longest in history.

John Paul II. He was beatified on May 1 and canonized on April 27, 2014.

John Paul II will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the greatest popes in the 2,000 year history of the Catholic Church. His ministry walked a narrow path between sterile traditionalism and facile accommodation to modernism in the pejorative sense. Neither conservative (opposition to death penalty, speaking truth to powerful dictatorships of the left and right, sophisticated critiques of unbridled capitalism) nor liberal (opposition to women priests and married priests, affirming the dignity of homosexual persons without blessing sodomy, eloquent spokesman for the rights of the unborn and the cognitively disabled), he challenged both extreme tendencies in the Church while reaching out to Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and secular humanists. In an age that saw the collapse of totalitarianism in its Communist form, he accelerated the process by defending the rights of the workers to nonviolently challenge the "workers' paradise", but then refused to become an apologist for heartless capitalism. Of course, he will not be the last great pope, but he will indeed be a hard act to follow. -- Tom Haessler

https://carmelmission.org/brief-history-of-carmel-mission/
https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/1987/september/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19870914_amerindi-phoenix.html
¹https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-John-Paul-II

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