How Covering Pope John Paul II’s 1999 Visit To St. Louis Changed My Journalism Career
Pope John Paul II waves as he departs a Jan. 26, 1999, youth rally and prayer service in St. Louis. The Polish-born pontiff’s final trip to the U.S. followed a five-day visit to Mexico City. (Photo by Amy Sancetta/Associated Press)
OKLAHOMA CITY — From a young age, I’ve loved Jesus and journalism.
I never intended, though, to become a religion reporter.
My career trajectory changed 25 years ago when — to my surprise — editors of The Oklahoman assigned me to cover Pope John Paul II’s Jan. 26-27, 1999, visit to St. Louis.
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At the time, I was a 31-year-old education writer for Oklahoma’s largest newspaper, which had a weekday circulation of 213,000 and a Sunday circulation of 300,000. I dreamed of covering important news like national politics.
The Godbeat? It fell nowhere on my bucket list.
After a decade as a reporter, I knew how to chase fire trucks and police cars and burn the midnight oil with city councils and school boards. And I played a key role in The Oklahoman’s award-winning coverage of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
But I had scant knowledge of the Roman Catholic Church. I had no clue about the difference between a bishop and a cardinal. I had heard of the pope.
A Church of Christ preacher’s son with a journalism degree from a Christian university, I worried initially about reporting on a faith different from my own. In retrospect, I realize how naive my concern was.
Despite a mild case of fear and trembling, I researched the basics of Catholic theology and prepared to handle the assignment. I was pleased to discover I could maintain the traditional standards of journalism and strive to treat the faith of others with respect while not compromising my own beliefs.
On Jan. 24, 1999, readers of The Sunday Oklahoman awakened to two front-page stories with my byline. My in-depth piece on the school voucher debate — the first of a three-part series — appeared below the fold. But my preview of the pope’s trip to St. Louis ran at the top of Page 1.
Perhaps religion was bigger news than I realized?
The top of the front page of the Jan. 24, 1999, edition of The Sunday Oklahoman. (screenshot via The Oklahoman’s archives)
Scene in St. Louis
A quarter-century ago, the internet had not yet decimated the size of newsroom staffs or print readerships.
At the time, even a regional newspaper such as The Oklahoman could afford to fly a reporter 500 miles — the distance from Oklahoma City to St. Louis — to pursue the local angle on an international story.
Today, the same publication no doubt would rely entirely on wire services.
When I arrived in St. Louis on Monday, Jan. 25, 1999, I was just one of more than 2,500 reporters and photographers who received media credentials to cover the pope’s every blink.
After checking into my downtown hotel, I mixed business with pleasure — interviewing locals about the pope’s “monumental” visit while enjoying a ride to the top of the 630-foot-tall Gateway Arch.
This was the lede on my front-page story on Tuesday, Jan. 26, 1999:
ST. LOUIS — Craig Bell had big plans Monday night.
The airport shuttle driver was headed to his local grocery store to buy ham, cheese, lettuce, bread, mayonnaise and a couple of six-packs.
Soft drinks, of course.
"If the traffic gets all backed up, I'll just eat me a ham-and-cheese sandwich and sit there and watch everybody going crazy," Bell said.
Crazy is one way to describe this Midwestern city on the Mississippi, as St. Louis prepares to welcome Pope John Paul II, hundreds of thousands of adoring Catholics — and traffic jams of biblical proportions.
"It's just unbelievable how they have rearranged the whole city for him," said Martha Anderson, a news and gift shop clerk. "I just hope he's safe, and he gets out of here all right."
Even before his scheduled 1 p.m. arrival today, the 78-year-old pope is everywhere in St. Louis.
He's smiling across interstate billboards and hanging atop downtown light poles. He's on $19.99 T-shirts, $5.99 refrigerator magnets and $6.99 coffee mugs.
"The pope is the biggest thing to happen to St. Louis," said shuttle driver Bell, who has lived here for 30 years.
So big was the visit that three popemobile motorcade parade routes were planned. John Paul was, of course, the first pope to use a popemobile.
In those days, The Oklahoman had three weekday editions.
The two-star edition that was trucked to the farthest reaches of Oklahoma had the earliest deadline, roughly 6:30 to 7 p.m. for reporters. The one-star edition, which sold in stores and newsstands outside the Oklahoma City metro area, went to press an hour or two later.
And the final edition (with no stars by the masthead, indicating the later printing) was delivered to driveways and markets in the state capital and its suburbs. That edition had the latest deadline — midnight or even 1 a.m. depending on the importance of the breaking news. In those days, we typed stories on simple Tandy laptops and transmitted the text via dial-up internet connections.
I mention those deadlines because John Paul II’s first big event in St. Louis happened Tuesday night, Jan. 26, 1999. For the next morning’s first two editions, The Oklahoman relied on Associated Press coverage of President Bill Clinton, a Southern Baptist, greeting the pope in St. Louis.
But I filed my story in time to make Page 1 of the final edition, the one received by about three-quarters of subscribers.
The top of the front page of the Jan. 27, 1999, edition of The Daily Oklahoman. (screenshot via The Oklahoman’s archives)
This is how I opened that report:
ST. LOUIS — By 4:56 p.m. Tuesday, the arena where the St. Louis Blues play hockey seemed loud enough to drown out a few thousand jet engines. But this was no sporting event.
As an all-day party neared its crescendo, 20,000 arm-waving, hip-shaking, foot-stomping young Catholics jammed to the ear-busting lyrics of dc Talk, a superstar contemporary Christian rock group.
"What will people think when they hear that I'm a Jesus Freak?" the group sang, as the beat of drums and the strum of electric guitars reverberated throughout the Kiel Center.
Amid a gigantic kaleidoscope of flashing cameras, fluorescent crosses and "JP II, We Love You" banners, it appeared this place couldn't get any noisier.
Then again, that was just the warm-up act.
The main attraction on this night was a white-haired, 78-year-old man with a hunched-over neck — a solemn-looking fellow dressed in white with a gold cross hanging over his heart.
If it was loud before, the decibel level exploded at 6:36 p.m. That's when Pope John Paul II rode onto the arena floor.
On Wednesday, Jan. 27, 1999, I covered the pope’s 30-minute homily before 104,000 worshippers at the Trans World Dome and the adjoining Cervantes Convention Center. I recall witnessing the Mass from a press box high above the stage.
My Page 1 story the next day focused on John Paul II’s call for Christ followers to be “unconditionally pro-life.”
But my report highlighted, too, the refusal of Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, a Catholic, to endorse the pope’s call for ending the death penalty. (Three years later, I traveled to Dallas to report on Keating’s 2002 appointment to lead a national review board charged with monitoring U.S. bishops' handling of clergy sexual abuse.)
The top of the front page of the June 15, 2002, edition of The Daily Oklahoman. (screenshot via The Oklahoman’s archives)
The St. Louis trip turned out to be the last of John Paul II’s seven U.S. visits during his nearly 27-year pontificate.
The Polish-born pope died April 2, 2005, in his Vatican apartment at age 84. He was canonized in 2014, becoming St. John Paul II.
Igniting a passion
Once back in Oklahoma, I returned — for a while anyway — to my previous journalistic focuses.
As 1999 progressed, I reported on deadly tornadoes that struck the Oklahoma City area, earned a two-month Education Writers Association national fellowship to investigate school choice issues and wrote a travel piece on my first visit to Washington, D.C.
The travel section cover of the Oct. 10, 1999, edition of The Sunday Oklahoman. (Screenshot via The Oklahoman’s archives)
But intentionally or not, the editors who dispatched me to St. Louis ignited my passion for religion journalism.
When The Oklahoman’s religion editor position came open in early 2001, I departed the state news desk — where I had transitioned from the education beat — to report full time on Mormons, Muslims and many other faiths.
I left the Oklahoma City paper the next year to join The Associated Press in Nashville, Tenn., and then Dallas. But I stuck with the Godbeat.
Two-plus decades and thousands of stories later, I still cover religion.
I’m amazed at all the places this beat has taken me, from disaster zones to major-league ballparks to a Southern Baptist Convention president’s cattle farm. I’m indebted to all the sources who’ve trusted me with their stories, from refugees to sex abuse victims to survivors of an antisemitic hostage standoff. I’m blessed by all the friends I’ve made — some people of faith like me, others not — in the religion writing community.
As a young journalist, I thought my big dreams might take me inside statehouses and even the White House (and occasionally, they have). But I discovered my niche inside houses of worship and everywhere faith is manifested.
My unexpected story assignment a quarter-century ago turned out to be divine.
Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for ReligionUnplugged.com and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle, based in Oklahoma City. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 18 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.