c. 2008 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Baseball is often rhapsodized as a religion in America. It makes sense then that Yankee Stadium is a stomping ground for popes.

The only two who have set foot on U.S. soil have celebrated Mass in the Bronx, in the most famous sports arena this side of the Colosseum.

On April 20, Pope Benedict XVI will be the third.

Pope Paul VI was there in 1965, Pope John Paul II in 1979. Benedict is expected to pack the place with at least 80,000 people.

And if Benedict’s stadium visit is like those of his predecessors, it will be remembered less for the homily than for the spectacle of the Successor to Peter presiding where Joe DiMaggio once chased down fly balls. And, of course, just for a chance to see a pope in person.

Joe Dougherty was there on Oct. 2, 1979. He and his wife expected the stadium to be in a state of quiet reverence, a la St. Patrick’s Cathedral, when he arrived early at his upper-deck seats on the third-base side.

“The atmosphere,” recalled Dougherty, a former Queens resident who now lives in a suburb of Jacksonville, Fla., “was almost like a concert or a sporting event not that it was a rowdy kind of atmosphere. But there was this buzz, an electricity in the air, a lot of excitement.”

When John Paul arrived _ an hour late _ he electrified the crowd, Dougherty remembered.

“You got a sense of the exuberance that this man had,” Dougherty said. “You got the sense that people saw him and felt different about him than they had about past pontiffs.”

Indeed, on that entire trip to the United States, made just a year after he became pope at 58, John Paul captivated Americans with his joyful, vibrant personality.

Kathy Pallotta of Morristown, N.J., was also at the Yankee Stadium Mass. She remembers rain. Lots of it, for about an hour before John Paul arrived. She remembers people praying in a group to try to make it stop.

“When the pope came out, came onto the field, the rain really, truly stopped,” she said. “I might be exaggerating this point but my memory really tells me the rain stopped.”

John Paul, who also visited poor neighborhoods in the South Bronx not far from the stadium, made his homily on the importance of serving the poor.

“There are many poor people … around the world. There are many in your own midst,” he said. “Be faithful to that tradition of generosity you have established, in keeping with your vast possibilities and present responsibilities.”

Paul VI’s visit to Yankee Stadium was the first papal Mass in the United States, coming on the first day a pope _ any pope _ had visited this country. That same day, he made a celebrated anti-war plea in French at the United Nations: “Jamais plus la guerre! Jamais plus la guerre!” (“Never again war! Never again war!”)

In his Yankee Stadium homily that day, which was mainly about peace, Paul also praised “the day which, for the first time, sees the pope setting foot on this young and glorious continent! An historic day, for it recalls and crowns the long years of the evangelization of America, and the magnificent development of the church in the United States!”

The crowd that day was larger _ 90,000 _ than for John Paul, because the ballpark had 10,000 more seats before mid-1970s renovations.

If tradition continues, the Knights of Columbus will dedicate a plaque commemorating Benedict’s visit as they have done for the previous two papal Masses. (Trivia: The Knights owned land under Yankee Stadium from 1953 to around the mid-1970s.) The Yankees plan to transfer the plaques to the new Yankee Stadium when it opens in 2009.

The papal Masses haven’t been the only significant “sermons on the mound” at Yankee Stadium. In 1958, a Jehovah’s Witness Convention drew 123,707, the stadium’s largest crowd. In 1957, the Rev. Billy Graham drew 100,000.

Stadiums are quite common venues for popes. John Paul also preached at Shea Stadium, Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, and Mile High Stadium in Denver. Benedict, in April, is also scheduled to preside at Mass at the new Nationals Park in Washington, D.C.

“It simply means these are the biggest public facilities available,” said George Weigel, whose book “Witness to Hope” is considered the most thorough biography of John Paul. “Nobody’s suggesting that Benedict approves the re-signing of A-Rod by going to Yankee Stadium.”

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Weigel, a Baltimore Orioles fan who despises the Yankees, said the massive scale of crowds can actually make for a more spiritual experience. He recalled hearing John Paul celebrate Mass in Poland in 1997 for 1.2 million people gathered for a canonization.

“When you have 1.2 million people being dead silent and listening to someone’s words … that’s reverence,” he said.

Of course, for many, the thrill of seeing a pope will stay with them longer than the homily. Three decades after John Paul’s 1979 visit, Dougherty said he hardly recalls what the pope said that day. But he’ll never forget the experience.

“It was the one and only time I ever got to see any of the popes,” he said. “I certainly look at it as one of the highlights of my life, being able to see this man. And we didn’t even know at the time what he would mean to people all over the world.”

(Jeff Diamant writes for The Star Ledger in Newark, N.J.)

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