The State - News from Sept. 17, 1985

Pope John Paul II is expected to make an eight-day tour of the western and southern United States in 1987, officials of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco said. “We’re in the pre-planning stage,” said Father Miles Riley, director of communications for the archdiocese. “The U.S. Catholic Conference (composed of the nation’s bishops and based in Washington, D.C.) is working closely with the Vatican. . . . The only thing confirmed at this point is the Holy Father’s willingness and desire to come,” he said. Riley said the visit will be pastoral, not political, as in 1979, when the Pope went before the United Nations and asked the United States and Soviet Union to disarm their nuclear weapons.