The Role of Religious Songs in the Public Speeches of John Paul II during his 1st Pilgrimage to Poland

Abstract

The aim of this article is to examine the functions and circumstances of reli­gious hymns and songs that accompanied the papal speeches during John Paul II’s 1st pilgrimage to Poland. The paper is not about the musical set­ting of the liturgy, or the songs sung, for example, while waiting for the start of a meeting with the Pope, but about those songs that were performed during his speeches, sometimes interrupting, and sometimes complementing them. The research question is: what role did religious songs play in John Paul II’s public speeches during his first pilgrimage to Poland in June 1979? In order to answer this question I analyzed available video (https://jp2.tvp.pl) and audio materials from that pilgrimage. Three homilies were used as research mate­rial: the homily delivered in Warsaw at Plac Zwycięstwa on 2 June 1979 and the homily given in Częstochowa on 6 June 1979, during the Mass for pilgrims from Upper Silesia and the Dąbrowa Basin, in addition to the homily delivered in Auschwitz-Birkenau on 7 June 1979. This is followed by the speech deliv­ered at Lech Hill in Gniezno on 3 June 1979, the speech addressed to young people gathered at the Krakow Skałka on 8 June 1979, and, finally, conversa­tions with young people gathered under the window at Franciszkańska 3 in Krakow.