St. Louis welcomed Pope John Paul II last week, and some Ames residents were present to hear his message.

Ten members of St. Cecilia Catholic Church, 2900 Hoover Ave., made the journey to see the pope in Missouri.

“It was exciting. … You could feel energy,” said Randy Kin, who was among those making the trip.

Kin was overwhelmed by the “peace” that hovered over St. Louis.

“The thing that is always in your mind is that this man loves the people, and he’s just like an ambassador of peace,” he said. “You felt this sense of peace in the whole city.”

Kin said people came from all over the country and represented an infinite number of races and religions.

“When they saw him, they started yelling, hollering,” Kin said. “It was amazing to see the love that he has for people and for peace in the world.”

Kin felt that the pope was “connecting people to people.”

“There was a sense of this one man bringing it together and almost reconciling humanity,” he said.

Kin said the pope got his longest reaction during a homily in which he spoke about the family being the primary and most vital part of society.

“He said, ‘As the family goes, so goes the nation,'” Kin said, “and everyone applauded for probably five to seven minutes. They just went crazy.”

Kin said the other “touching” point the pope made was when he challenged the people of St. Louis and the whole country to put an end to every form of racism.

Mike Piwowar, assistant professor of finance, trekked to St. Louis with his wife and said the homily was “very inspiring.”

“He was really targeting the youth of the church and the future of the church after the year 2000,” he said.

Piwowar said the pope touched on issues of abortion, assisted suicide and capital punishment, and expressed his opposition to killing life in any form.

“His main message was ‘respect for human life,’ and he was consistent in his belief about respect for human life,” he said.

Piwowar was surprised by the intensive security, including metal detectors at every door and U.S. secret service agents surrounding the pope-mobile.

“But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense, given that there was an assassination attempt on him already, and he’s the leader of a nation-state,” he said.

Piwowar said there weren’t as many protesters as he anticipated.

“I expected a lot of pro-choice or anti-Catholic groups,” he said. “There was a little of that but not much at all.”

Luke Guthrie, an Ames High School senior, made the trip with Kin.

“I woke up at 5:00 and got dropped off at the Keil Center,” he said. “There were, like, 100,000 people there, and I had to wait for an hour and a half to get inside the dome. … There were just people everywhere.”

Guthrie said it was neat to see people from all over the United States and of different races.

“I didn’t go to the youth rally,” he said, “but I watched it on TV.”

Guthrie said he liked seeing the pope interacting with the younger crowd.

“It seemed like he was more alive when he was with the youth,” he said. “He was being personal; he even talked about Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, and he seemed like a real person. You don’t usually get to see that side of him.”

He said when he looks back on this experience, he will appreciate having the chance to see “one of the only non-Italian popes.”

“You know he’s not doing too well … and I know I’ll be glad I got to see him if he croaks soon,” he said.