“I hope that ‘Nine Days That Changed the World’ will remind people that they are always capable of changing the world and that if they will open their heart to Christ and if they will simply follow their heart as witnesses to the truth they will, in fact, change the world,” Gingrich said.

Gingrich credited the pope’s popularity with the Polish people and his impact as impetus for overthrowing communism.

He said that during the visit, that when the pope said, “Let the face of God touch this earth,” the crowd responded by chanting, “We want God.”

“It was a decisive start,” Gingrich noted.

Gingrich’s words impressed those in attendance.

“It was a profound discussion of Pope John Paul II and what he did to battle that communism, that secularization, during his time, and it’s a great example of authentic, Catholic grassroots activism,” Pap said.

“To have the presence of a man like that walk the same earth that we walk on today, and then have someone who is a convert, like the speaker is, relay that back to us as cradle Catholics, and to be able to get reinvigorated and to help to come back and renew our Church, and to renew the movement we are asked to represent, is inspiring,” added Carvalho.

The former House speaker also shared details of his conversion to Catholicism with friends gathered in Boston that Thursday. Gingrich was raised a Lutheran but converted to Catholicism earlier this year.

Gingrich began attending Mass with his current wife, who is in the church choir at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, he had been speaking to the basilica’s rector about the influence of secularism on American society.

However, it was seeing the current pope, Benedict XVI, which led him to convert.

Gingrich saw the Holy Father when he attended vespers at the national basilica.

“I found him to be utterly different than the news media’s original projections,” Gingrich recalled. “This was not ‘God’s Rottweiler.’ This was not some German intellectual who was aloof and austere.”