By Lois Rogers | Correspondent

On Oct. 4, American Catholics with long memories will mark the 50th anniversary of the first visit to this continent by a Roman Catholic pope.

I'm one of them.

For so many of us, this is a significant anniversary.

When thinking of it, especially during the papal visits to Manhattan that have followed, I'm always amazed at what the brief, 14-hour pilgrimage by Pope Paul VI to the “island in the center of the world” accomplished for the faithful of the United States.

When Pope Paul set foot on a landscape where some 45 million Catholics often felt marginalized, we had the first opportunity to see ourselves as a huge and diverse Catholic community, coalescing around our spiritual leader.

With the help of television and a good interstate public transportation system, we went from being often invisible, even despised, to becoming a demographic dynamo.

The experience remains unforgettable.

Back then, we students were, after all, eyewitnesses to the election of the first (and so far only) Catholic president. We were keenly aware that John F. Kennedy had to overcome real anti-Catholic sentiment to get to the White House.

We were also witnesses to his subsequent assassination.

In fact, the first big, televised “Catholic” event we ever experienced was JFK's funeral.

After a time of real sorrow, and in a world roiled by the Cold War and looming tensions over the war in Vietnam, the visit from Pope Paul came not only as balm in Gilead, but real hope for the future.

A junior in Montclair State College (now University), with a penchant for skipping classes so as to explore the wonders of Manhattan on the near horizon, all I needed was a mere suggestion from a friend and fellow Catholic student that we head over to New York to see Pope Paul.

Early in the morning, he and I headed for the number 66 bus that stopped down the hill from the campus on Valley Road (still the same number bus, by the way). Back then, a round-trip ticket was less than $1. Then we made for New York to join the throngs.

What drew us, I'm certain, was what even now motivated millions to turn out for Pope Francis: the desire to join with our spiritual leader in celebrating the universal Church in all its diversity.

Inspired by our faith and keen sense of history, we knew we would, that day in 1965, enter the annals of Church history if only in a very tiny way, becoming statistics: two of an estimated 55,000 lining Fifth Avenue as Pope Paul VI prayed at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

We were two of an estimated one million overall who saw the Pope on the first papal visit to America – and indeed, the first time a Pope had left Italy since 1809.

Outside of St. Patrick's Cathedral back then, just as with Pope Francis last week, most of us were too far removed to manage anything but a glimpse of the back of his conveyance – a 21-foot-long, custom-made limousine rather than a tiny Fiat.

But like Francis, he rejected the urgings of his security detail, put his faith in the protection of the Holy Spirit, and refused a bubble top on his 25-mile-long excursion through Manhattan’s boroughs. Commentators of the day wrote that his goal was to allow as many people as possible to see him - the same as Francis 50 years later.

This would be the first in a string of papal pilgrimage experiences I've been privileged to enjoy over the years.

What I most remember from that day has been typical of all: waiting packed together with people of all races from all over, and, in this case, buddying up with a group of folks from Paterson with whom we prayed the Rosary. We spontaneously formed a community, swapping insights on how we might catch up with the Pope after he left St. Patrick's and why we wanted to be here.

I distinctly recall one older gentleman (young by our standards now) who had been watching, reaching out to us with tears in his eyes. He thanked us for caring so much about God and by extension, country, in a time when a lot of young people started rebelling against authority.

When the Pope departed for the United Nations amidst a roar of cheers, we made a mad scramble to follow him. Again, time was not on our side. He departed just as we arrived.

With no iPhones to rely on, we turned to newspaper “extras” to read his case for “no more war, never again war. Peace. It is peace that must guide the destinies of all mankind” at the iconic building on the East River.

Fifty years later, it’s clear his whirlwind tour of Manhattan set the tone for all the papal visits to follow.

In 14 hours, he not only visited St. Patrick's and the UN, but Harlem during his 25-mile, multi-borough drive-through. There, Catholic school children wished him Godspeed while waving a sea of yellow and white papal flags.

He tucked in a trip to see the Pieta on display at the Vatican Pavilion of the World’s Fair in Queens and a telephone call to President Lyndon B. Johnson, before concluding this first American visit with Mass at Yankee Stadium.

In just those 14 hours, he would, like Pope John Paul II in 1979 and 1995, Pope Benedict in 2008 and now, Pope Francis lift us up in a time of turmoil, nourish us with faith and hope, encourage us to live the Gospel and, in the very best way, reveal us for who we are.