Since his earliest childhood, John Paul II wanted to visit Madeira?

“I want to visit Madeira”, he said at one point to Teodoro de Faria, the Bishop of Funchal. In fact, John Paul II, the only pope to ever visit Madeira, kept an image of our island in his most emotional and most distant memory, since, in his childhood, at the request of his primary school teacher and as a school exercise, when he was still just Lolek (a family nickname of Karol Wojtyla), he had written a letter to Joseph Pilsudski (address of the recipient: “Madeira Island”), founder of the Second Polish Republic, who was here on vacation, between December 1930 and March 1931, staying at the Quinta Bettencourt.

Since then, the island of Madeira had never left his mind as an emblem of virginal and paradisiacal nature.

He did come to visit, and to tremendous effect, in May 1991 and his presence was recounted with excellent photographs in a book that is worth reading: João Paulo II – Pastor Universal na Madeira (2011).

Text: Marcelino de Castro.

Cover of the book João Paulo II, Pastor Universal na Madeira.

Quinta Bettencourt

John Paul II in his visit to Madeira, Avenida Arriaga.

Cover of the book João Paulo II, Pastor Universal na Madeira.