Lex meets John Paul II

Pope John Paul II Last Summer at Castle Gandolfo

I met Pope John Paul II last summer. OK, I didn’t reeeally “meet him”. I saw him at Castle Gandolfo with several thousand other people. Castle Gandolfo is a 16th century Jesuit monastery about 10 miles from the Vatican. Popes use Gandolfo to escape the heat and hustle-bustle of Rome during the summer months. We happened to be in Rome so we hopped a bus to Gandolfo to see the Pope.

It was a rainy Sunday morning. We stopped on the way to the castle to buy umbrellas and ponchos. We also bought a small Saint Christopher’s medal to be blessed by the Pope. We got back on the bus and the rain really came down. Spirits were not all that high. On the bus I was lecturing my 7 year old about how solemn the ceremony would be and that it was important that he be on his best behavior.

When we got to Castle Gandolfo, not thinking it possible, it rained harder. We stood in the rain outside the castle with the thousands of others who had gathered to see John Paul and receive his blessing. The gates finally opened about an hour before the Pope’s scheduled appearance. The thousands of people rushed forward through the single entrance. I feared my son would fall and be trampled, but we were just rushed through the gates in the sea of people to a great position about 40 feet from where the Pope would deliver his message.

The court yard at Gandolfo is covered, but it leaks in about as many places as it doesn’t. We stood for about an hour in the mass of people. There were soccer teams, young men and women who were in the early stages of committing the rest of their lives to the church. They were singing, chanting and having a wonderful time in the pouring rain. Finally, right on time, the door cracked; the great man appeared; the crowd erupted, and the rain stopped.

What followed resembled a pep-rally – there was even a brass band - more than a solemn religious ceremony. The Pope had been made aware of the various groups that had come to see him. As he called them out, each group would do a cheer or sing a hymn for the Pope. I couldn’t understand any of it, but some of the cheers must have been funny as the Pope and the crowd laughed on queue at certain points. I had my son on my shoulders through most of the ceremony so he could see the Pope. He snapped the picture at the top. The Pope read a message, offered the blessing and returned to his living quarters inside Castle Gandolfo to the cheers of the crowd that lingered, they cheered and chanted as if fans at a rock concert begging for an encore.

Finally, we filed out; took a few pictures in the fog that had settled around Gandolfo and headed back to the bus. The ride back was totally different from the ride up. The bus was alive with conversation about what people had seen and their experiences in the crowd of people. I never thought that merely being in the presence of someone, not understanding a single word spoken, could affect my outlook on what started out to be such a crummy day. My son summed up his observation, “That wasn’t like church dad.”