Viewed from his hometown of Wadowice, Poland, Pope John Paul II could be styled as the last and greatest expression of the Habsburg spirit, meaning a a broadly tolerant, open and cosmopolitan view of the world that saw national pride and loyalty not as a threat of imperial cohesion but one of its sources.
John Allen skriver slik om pave Johannes Paul og verdensungdomsdagen:
From the beginning, Catholicism in principle has been a universal, global faith, addressed to “the nations” in every corner of the earth. In many ways, however, it was John Paul II who made the Church truly global in practice, first by being the first non-Italian pope in 500 years, second through his staggering commitment to foreign travel – 104 foreign trips covering three-quarters of a million miles, more than three times the distance from the earth to the moon – and third, through his foundation of World Youth Day.
Because of John Paul, Catholics tend to think in more global terms about their Church, realizing that the experiences and priorities of believers in, say, Chicago and London, are not always those of Catholics in Jakarta, or Mumbai, or Riyadh.
Anyone who watched John Paul II during the eight WYD celebrations over which he presided, including Argentina, Poland, the United States, the Philippines, Spain, France, Canada and Italy, was always struck by the delight he took in seeing young people waving the flags of their countries and projecting pride in their cultures. Those instincts resonated with John Paul, because he took such fierce pride in his own Polish roots. … …