Pilgrimage to Rome 2010
Fr. Steven Boguslawski, O.P.

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Fr. Steven Boguslawski, O.P., recently went on Pilgrimage to Rome, to remember friends of The Pope John Paul II Cultural Center at Masses at different sites in Rome.

In November 1946, shortly after being ordained a priest, Karol Wojtyła was sent to Rome to study theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, commonly known as the Angelicum. Father Wojtyła’s doctoral dissertation was on St. John of the Cross, the Spanish Carmelite mystic. This was Wojtyła’s first time out of Poland, and he was able to spend some time learning about the city that would eventually become his home.

The Basilica of Santa Sabina sits high over the Tiber on the Aventine Hill. This ancient church, built in the 5th century, was entrusted to the Dominican order in the year 1219. Among those who have lived in the monastery next to the basilica are St. Dominic, St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Hyacinth. Pope John Paul II kept the ancient custom of attending Ash Wednesday services here.

Magnificent St. Peter’s Basilica was built on the site of the tomb of St. Peter the Apostle, the rock on whom our Lord said he would build his church. It was from the balcony of St. Peter’s on October 16, 1978, that the election of Cardinal Wojtyła as Pope John Paul II was first announced to the world. During his 26-year pontificate, John Paul presided at numerous Masses both inside the Basilica and outside in St. Peter’s Square.

On April 8, 2005, after a funeral Mass attended by the largest gathering of heads of state in history and some four million mourners, the earthly remains of Pope John Paul II were laid, as he wished, in the “bare earth” of the crypt of St. Peter’s Basilica. As befits the successor of Peter, he was buried less than 100 feet from the tomb of the apostle. Thousands of the faithful come here each day to pray at the tomb of their beloved John Paul II.