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Need to get caught up on the diocese’s 40th anniversary blogs? Read “Phoenix at 40″ part 1 and part 2.

And if you’ve had a chance to read the 40th anniversary article in The Catholic Sun, you’re well prepared for part 3. The pope’s visit to Phoenix easily became the “preeminent event” for the diocese.

People shared with me so many more thoughts from that day than there was space for in the paper. Here are some of those thoughts:

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  Catholic Sun front page sept. 24, 1987

  It was Bishop Thomas J. O’Brien who lobbied to have Pope John Paul II visit Phoenix when the bishops were told he planned a trip to the U.S. Phoenix leaders — church, civil and lay — had 18 months to plan every papal moment and movement. Five photographers, many freelance, took some 4,000 pictures in 24 hours.

• Msgr. Richard Moyer, vicar general at the time, was in charge of logistics for the bishop and papal party for that “fabulous day.” He authorized the pope’s movement. “I had this box of keys that I had to give everyone for their rooms in the hotels,” he recalled of greeting the papal party at the plane. “The logistics of everything were just unbelievable,” he said. Msgr. Moyer also recalled some temporary confusion between a police officer and who turned out to be a Native American bishop. Authorities weren’t sure if he was on the approved access list.

• It was a massive project, one executed at  relatively little cost compared to other dioceses, said Fr. Tim Davern, who served as head of the site prep committee. “It was like the coming of age of the diocese. We got so many people that the whole community helped. I was so glad I had all these laypeople who knew what they were doing. It was a tremendous endeavor.”
• Beryl Kilroy Genevese, was working the ER of St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center when the Church’s supreme leader stopped by. “I had a dear, dear friend that was dying of cancer on the third floor” she recalled. “I knew that hospital so well that I was able to scramble up those stairs” and around guard dogs. She heard, but not saw the pope’s address. Her friend died a short time later.

For more reflections from laypeople and local church leaders on the impact of JPII’s visit, read JPII 20 years later from our 2007 archives.

Next up: Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted reflects on the Phoenix Diocese at 40 in a multi-part series in his Jesus Caritas column in The Catholic Sun.