The 1979 journey to Poland was later credited with helping to bring about the collapse of Communism.

More than 20 years later, the pontiff returned to Krakow. A 2002 open-air Mass there attracted an estimated 2.5 million people, KAI reported.

In 2023, Pope Francis celebrated a Mass for 1 million people in Kinshasa, the capital of Congo, during which he urged the country’s people to forgive those who committed “inhuman violence” against them.

Roughly half of Congo’s 105 million people are Catholic, according to the Vatican, which also cited local organizers for the estimate of 1 million people in the crowd.