Nowy Targ, 8 June 1979

Podhale found its place in the programme of John Paul II's first pilgrimage to Poland on the day after the visit to Kalwaria Zebrzydowska. The Mass took place on 8 June 1979 at the airfield in Nowy Targ. This was not the original idea: according to IPN documents, the security services considered a meeting at the shrine in Ludźmierz, close to the Pope's heart, but the idea was rejected for security reasons. Instead the mountain people were advised to travel to Kraków. At the end of March a decision was made to hold the Mass at the Nowy Targ airfield.

The answer to one of the questions raised in this connection is therefore simple: in 1979 the Pope did not go to Ludźmierz. He flew into Nowy Targ in the morning and celebrated Mass there for the highlanders (górale).

How many people came: two orders of magnitude

The number of participants is disputed. The IPN states that official estimates spoke of 220,000-240,000 people, while participants recalled as many as a million. The portal Gość Krakowski, on the anniversary in 2024, wrote of a million of the faithful. Both figures appear side by side in accounts of this Mass.

The visit was monitored by the state security service. The IPN describes an operation code-named “Lato 79” (Summer 79), in which, besides local officers, more than 1,700 additional officers from neighbouring voivodeships were deployed.

The Gaździna of Podhale in the homily

In his homily the Pope referred to Our Lady of Ludźmierz, known as the Gaździna of Podhale (the Mistress of Podhale). He also spoke of the human right to work and of the family as the basic cell of social life. The passage quoted by the IPN reads: the nation depends on what the family is like. According to accounts, the same homily included words about the beauty of the Tatra landscape, in which people seek communion with nature and renewal of strength, also through tourism and skiing.

Ludźmierz, which the Pope did not visit on 8 June, is a religious centre for Podhale. The Marian shrine in Ludźmierz holds a statue of Our Lady of Ludźmierz, crowned in 1963 by Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, and in 2001 the church was raised to the rank of minor basilica. Beside the basilica a rosary garden has been laid out with a sculpture of the kneeling Pope.

The shepherds' hut on Turbacz and the Shepherds' Chapel

Wojtyła's acquaintance with the Gorce was much earlier than 1979. According to Gorce National Park, in September 1953 he celebrated Mass in a shepherds' hut in a mountain meadow below Turbacz, standing facing the faithful, which is described as an early example of such an arrangement of the liturgy. Since 2003, Mass has been celebrated there on the third Sunday of September at the Shepherds' Hut Altar.

In 1979 the Gorce appeared in the Nowy Targ visit in a different dimension. In the Rusnakowa clearing the Shepherds' Chapel was built, with the inscription “Pasterzowi pasterze” (“Shepherds to the Shepherd”). According to the national park, the Pope did not consecrate it in person during the visit, but he received its keys.

A reminder of the future Pope's mountain trips is also the Museum of Mountain Culture and Tourism on Turbacz, a PTTK (Polish Tourist and Sightseeing Society) facility operating since 1980 and devoted to the history of tourism in the Gorce.

Traces of the visit in Nowy Targ

The visit is recalled by the Podhale Museum in Nowy Targ, housed in the former town hall. According to the museum's entry, an exhibition on John Paul II's ties with the town has been open there since 2011, while Gość Krakowski writes of a permanent exhibition devoted to the 1979 visit. The sources thus describe this exhibition slightly differently, so the scope of the display is best checked at the museum.

In the town itself the papal dedication is borne by the Church of St John Paul II in Nowy Targ: in 2008 a foundation stone brought from St Peter's Basilica was laid, the church was consecrated in 2011, and since 2021 it has had the status of a shrine.