Roman holiday

Commonweal, March 26, 2004 by Margaret O'Brien Steinfels

Wednesday, February 11, began in the Roman Residenzia as expected: coffee with no caffeine and breakfast with no fruit. I shared a table with two amiable Italians from Bologna, he a computer engineer, she a chemist. Just married, they had come to receive a papal blessing at an audience that morning. With my sparse Italian, I could only ask: Why a papal blessing? He smiled and conveyed his admiration for the pope, "a good man who ended communism in Eastern Europe." Then, with a shrug, he implied that such a blessing couldn't hurt.

But my journalistic mind whirred with more questions. What about their views on politics, the secularization of Europe, the pope's theology of the body? Alas, my questions went unanswered. The newlyweds rose from the table to dress for the papal audience. As I left the dining room, one of the tiny Italian nuns in charge popped out of the kitchen and handed me a blue ticket to that morning's papal audience. She assured me there was no obligation (and probably no danger). "You should go only if you wish."

A papal audience was not on my itinerary. To go or not to go? Instead of the Castelo San' Angelo? Another interview with a vaticanista? The Galleria Borghese? Someone has described these Wednesday audiences as pep rallies. Would it go on for hours? Would the presence of the pope prove emotionally overwhelming? Horrors! My only previous encounter with a pope taught me that world historical leaders may not be at their best during canned events. In 1962, the diminutive John XXIII was ushered into the audience room--really almost wheeled in--by two American monsignori. The pope urged our small band of Loyola University undergrads to study hard and obey our parents. Well, yes. Who could have guessed that he would shepherd the church through the opening of Vatican II and let loose the new spirit that the current pope has tried so hard to rein in?

John Paul II is a certified world historical leader. What would an audience be like? The only way to find out: Do as the pilgrims do. I joined a crowd wending its way past wooden barriers, metal detectors, and two Swiss guards giving perfunctory looks at the tickets and waving us on to the audience hall.

February 11 was the Day of the Sick (and also the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Lateran Treaty, which recognized the Vatican as an autonomous state). Italian custom prevailed: laughing and chatting overwhelmed the silence of the devout as people took their seats. A large TV screen off to the side showed a Mass in progress at Lourdes for the day's observance. A bit after 10:30, John Paul II was wheeled across the enormous stage on a platform with a chair and small desk-like tray equipped with a microphone--an indoor popemobile. He saluted the clapping and cheering crowd with a half-raised right arm. The TV screen now focused on him and an array of monsignori who in six languages recited the pope's words on sickness and suffering and then introduced the national groups in attendance. Some groups sang, some applauded, some stood in silence (a group of U.S. sailors from the USS Enterprise). One Polish contingent began playing Handel's Messiah on a small electronic organ, threatening to perform the whole oratorio. After some minutes, the crowd good-naturedly tried to applaud them into silence. After the monsignori finished speaking, the pope, reading from a text carefully placed before him, responded in French, English, German, Spanish, Polish, and Italian. His speech, impaired by Parkinson's, is garbled, but he plugged along. At last, the group of newlyweds, standing on the far side of the hall, was introduced and blessed by the pope. What did my breakfast companions make of the event? Of the relative anonymity and their distance from the pope?

What many once described as spontaneous and winning in the pope's audiences is now ritualized and restrained. What was once a teaching forum has become a recitation of his words by others--not a pep rally, but a visit to the sick. The most moving of the pope's statements was, in fact, that the sick should never be left to die alone. As the audience ended at 11:30, there was a press of people to the stage, seeking a touch, a word, a blessing.

Devotion to duty by the pope, and devotion to his person by those who rushed forward, are moving to watch. But as the Swiss Guards waved us out, the editor in me inevitably asked: While the Supreme Pontiff, with stiffened gestures, garbled speech, and surrounded by unsmiling monsignori, receives those who visit the sick, who is caring for the church?

Margaret O'Brien Steinfels is the editor of two volumes of American Catholics in the Public Square (Sheed & Ward).