Newspaper Page Text
Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta
Vol. 16 No. 35
Thursday, October 5,1978
$5 Per Year
Pope John Paul — Last Days
THE BODY OF POPE JOHN PAUL I lay in state in
St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican prior to the funeral
on Wednesday, October 4. A description of the papal
tomb appears on page 7.
THE LONG WAIT - Thousands wait in line in St.
Peter’s Square to view the remains of Pope John Paul I
lying in state in the Vatican. 100,000 attended the
funeral on Wednesday.
VATICAN CITY (NC) - The last two
days in the life of Pope John Paul I were
very full, even for the spiritual leader of
700 million Roman Catholics. Not
everything that happened during those
two busy days has yet been made
public. But the principal activities
included:
WEDNESDAY SEPT. 27
The pope rose as usual before dawn,
shaved with his electric razor and
offered Mass, with his two private
secretaries and four housekeeping sisters
assisting.
Due to the large number of people
holding tickets for the weekly
Wednesday audience, Vatican officials
decided to hold one audience for the
German-speaking in St. Peter’s Basilica
at 11 a.m. and another audience for the
others at 11:30 in the modern audience
hall.
The meeting with many thousand
German-speaking pilgrims and tourists
marked the first time that Pope John
Paul I had presided at any public
ceremony within the huge basilica.
It was also the first time that he
spoke publicly as pope in his halting
German. A week earlier at the general
audience, he had confessed that he was
very bad at speaking foreign languages
and said he often made a fool of himself
when speaking a foreign tongue in
Venice. At the general audience in the
Nervi Hall, the pope gave a four-page
talk from memory in Italian. Then,
again for the first time, he read a
summary of his Italian talk in French,
English and Spanish.
He entered and left the modern hall
in the sedia gestatoria (portable throne).
The pope had ordered the chairbearers
to walk more slowly than they had in
the past so that the crowds could see
him better
The audience in the modern hall was
spirited. The pope’s theme was charity,
and to make a point about Christian
love, he called a fifth-grader up from the
crowd to answer questions.
The pope, who once said that he
visted with 2,000 school students each
week as patriarch of Venice, wasn’t
taken aback in the least when the
student, Daniele Bravo, gave a totally
unexpected answer to his questions.
After the audience the pope met
with Melkite-Rite Patriarch Maximos V
Hakim of Antioch and Archbishop
Joseph Tawil, Melkite bishop of
Newton, Mass., for 20 minutes.
Patriarch Maximos said that the pope
was laughing and smiling “in a child-like
way” throughout the audience.
The pope restated to the patriarch
his desire that Lebanon remain a free
country and place of dialogue between
religions.
Not much is known of what
happened Wednesday evening.
THURSDAY SEPT. 28
Pope John Paul began the work day
with a series of private audiences. He
received African Cardinal Bemardin
Gantin, president of the Pontifical
Justice and Peace Commission, together
with several high officials of the
commission.
The visits were part of a series of
getting-to-know-you meetings between
John Paul and heads of departments of
the Roman Curia. The pope met with
the cardinal and the officials until about
10:30 a.m.
He then received the papal nuncio to
Brazil and the nuncio to the
Netherlands. The nuncios gave the pope
a rundown on the situation in those
nations.
That same morning the pontiff
received Cardinal Julio Rosales of Cebu,
the Philippines, and eight other Filipino
bishops. He gave them a formal speech
in English on the importance of working
for social improvements without playing
down the church’s mission to preach
“higher goods.”
After one more private audience that
morning, the pope broke for lunch.
He started reviewing papers after
lunch and signed his last official letter, a
Latin letter to Bishop Hugo
Aufderbeck, apostolic administrator of
Erfurt-Meiningen, East Germany, on the
700th anniversary of the construction
of the Church of St. Severus at Erfurt.
At 7:30 p.m. Secretary of State
Cardinal Jean Villot went to the pope
with normal business. The cardinal later
said that the pope showed no signs of
fatigue or ill health.
At 9 p.m. Pope John Paul spoke by
phone with Cardinal Giovanni Colombo
of Milan. “He spoke with me personally
for a long time in a very normal voice,”
said the cardinal afterwards. “There was
no sign of fatigue in it or of physical
illness.
“He asked me as he said good-bye to
pray for him. He was full of serenity,”
said Cardinal Colombo.
Just before 10 p.m. the pope’s
Venetian secretary, Father Diego
Lorrenzi, told the pontiff that a young
Roman communist, Ivo Zini, had been
shot dead as he read the party paper,
L’UNIT A, on a street corner.
“Even the young are killing one
another,” the pope reportedly told his
secretary.
With those thoughts the pope walked
toward the large, austerely furnished
papal bedroom on fourth floor of the
palace.
He had chosen to sleep in Pope Paul’s
old bed - a white hospital-like metal
bed.
The large wooden bed of Pope John
XXIII still stood in the bedroom. Pope
Paul never wanted to move it out and
his successor had left the bed there, too.
Pope John Paul lit the light, entered
the bed and picked up some of his
personal papers for the last time.
Archbishop’s Statement
“In his loving wisdom God gave the Church Pope John Paul. In him we
found a leader who possessed warm, human qualiities and who joined to
obvious sanctity gifts of humor, openness and pastoral concern. He captured
the hearts of all who met him and the imagination of those who only saw or
heard him. In that same loving wisdom, after so short a time, God has taken
the Holy Father to Himself.
“In our sorrow we weep. But even as we mourn our loss, we give assurance
of our prayers for his soul invoking upon him the joy and peace of new life in
Christ.
“The hope and trust of the Church have always rested in the guidance of
the Holy Spirit and the continued presence of the Risen Saviour as its source
of life and love. So even as we mourn, we keep ourselves in tranquil hope for
Christ is with us all days.”
r
A Time To Smile
BY FATHER NOEL C. BURTENSHAW
There was no time to achieve.
Destiny gave him 800 hours in the historic Chair of
Peter. It was insufficient to make a mark on the pages
of precious scrolls. There will be no collector's volumes
sold in his memory; no coins struck in his honor; no
library built in his name.
There was no time for jets to wing him to waiting
welcomes. Or for diplomats, in penguin suits, to come
with greetings to his Vatican palace. There was no time
for his tears, cleansing the woes of his world, or for
words that would encourage and console. There was
just no time.
Time disqualified him from refereeing the aftermath
of Camp David. It barred him as mediator to those
claiming the holiness of Jerusalem or the sovereignty
of Lebanon. It stopped the steady stream of good will
building for the shutaway Christians behind the Soviet
curtain.
There was no time for the onward march of renewal
to which he was sworn or for fulfilling the dream of
John whom he loved or Paul whom he served. There
was time alone merely to accept the honor, fill the
Fisherman's Shoes, don the cassock of white - AND -
smile.
S.
He made time to smile. His days were filled with
smiles. He laughed and widely grinned on and off
camera. He enjoyed the burden. He loved the load. He
looked like a lasting instant replay of smiles. And the
cautious watching world was caught in the trap of that
winning happy face.
The seal of his month-long adventure was stamped
with the word "Humility." It would teach him to
practice it, he grinned. And the burden of projecting a
Papa! image unruffled him, since he knew nothing
about "this job." The rest of us grinned.
Pomp and circumstance was summarily dismissed, it
no where fitted his tiny frame. The triple decker crown
he shyly shelved. A simple badge would be its
substitute. But the best badge of all remained that
flashing, catching, watched-for smile.
He raced against the clock to do his best work. And
it was done high above St. Peter's Square. His
magnetic, pied-piper presence mysteriously filled the
famous Roman Square. And there, locked in the trance
of mutual communication, his Apostolic message was
wildly cheered. The message was always the same - he
smiled.
His 800 hours were magical moments of Papal
remembrance. Just a short time. Just a brief time.
And it was a time to smile.
Pope John Paul I received Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan a week before the pontiffs death