In 2015, the late Pope Francis held an outdoor mass for an estimated 6 million to 7 million Filipinos gathered in a park in Manila. It was the largest papal audience in history and proved that a visit from the pope was still a major event around the world, even for non-Catholics. For most of the history of the Catholic Church, popes never traveled beyond Europe, says Christopher Bellitto a history professor at Kean University. The phenomenon of the international papal visit didn’t take off until the papacy of Pope Paul VI (1963 to 1978), who was the first pope to fly on a plane. His successor Pope John Paul II made 104 foreign trips. Here are five papal visits that made history. 1. Pope Urban II Visits France and Launches the First Crusade (1095) Pope Urban II, who was born in northern France, was one of the first popes to travel extensively in France during his papacy.…