Two Popes and Me

VIEWPOINT

By LEN R. SMALL Special to the Palisadian-Post It’s 1982, and I’m standing in an anteroom at the Vatican, waiting for a private audience with Pope John Paul II. I remember what was going through my mind: Life is not fair. I have many Catholic friends, but I’m the one who gets to meet the pope. The event was unexpected. I was visiting Rome as the chairman of United Press International, a large news agency, when the phone rang in my hotel room the night before. Our bureau chief had wangled a meeting in honor of the 75th anniversary of the agency, which had a close relationship with L’Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper. Our bureau chief advised me to have comments ready, and to offer an appropriate gift to the Church. After some head-scratching, my colleagues and I decided to offer a wireless radio for a priest serving in a remote location, playing on the theme of communications. The next day, we met at the newspaper, and suddenly an ambulance appeared and stopped next door at the Vatican. We learned that the patient was a key aide to the pope, who had just collapsed following an exhausting tour of Spain. (The pope was fine, notwithstanding his being shot not long before.) That crisis cut short our meeting. While waiting in the anteroom, we learned that the cherubic ceiling paintings by Raphael had subtle distortions to please the eye in terms of perspective, as the ceiling was curved, and that the gold leaf came from Columbus’ treasure from the New World, by way of Queen Isabella. Suddenly a large door to our left opened and the pope came in. He greeted my associates and me quickly, with a thank you in English, giving us a rosary, while his official photographer, with lightning reflexes, got a good shot of each handshake. I was used to Italian popes, and was struck by his white-blond hair and blue eyes: Goodness, he looks Nordic, I thought. Then he was gone, and from the right-hand side came a large group of excited African priests, colorful in their splendid tunics, who were awaiting their visit with the pope. I also recall another pope, John XXIII, who fell mortally ill in 1963 when I was a young journalist in UPI’s London bureau, through which all communication flowed from Europe to the U.S., via a direct cable to New York. That pope was a down-to-earth, much-loved character who was supposed to be a caretaker, but changed the Church profoundly by calling an Ecumenical Council to reexamine doctrine and procedures. Several veteran journalists there had covered the Vatican for years, and regaled me with inside stories and political gossip. I can remember only one story. At one point in John XXIII’s career, an intoxicated priest came to him to give confession. ‘Remember who you are,’ John told him, changing the man’s life forever. I think John Paul II also remembered who he was, always. (Len Small is president of the Illinois-based Small Newspaper Group, which owns the Palisadian-Post.)