Meeting the Pope

encountering the holy father

by Fr. Daniel McCarthy

I was astounded when the Holy Father reached out to me and invited me to meet him personally, however briefly. He wanted to express his personal support to me and to each of us Benedictines and our friends in what we are doing. Specifically we were commemorating the 125th anniversary of the founding of Sant’Anselmo. We walked from Sant’Anselmo to the Circus Maximus (think Ben Hur) where we boarded several coaches for the journey across the Tiber. Having arrived at St. Peter’s and passed through security, we reported to the bronze doors and saw before us the scala regia, the royal stairway leading from the papal apartments to the square in front of the basilica. This stairway is large enough for the pope to be carried aloft seated on his portable chair. Before we could scale the royal stairway, we were called back and redirected to a sidestairway no less grand. I am especially fond of the bronze sculpture of a heron sanding at a fountain at the base of this stairway. We were invited to assemble in the Clementine hall, a large and richly ornate room where the Holy Father receives larger groups such as the Roman Curia. According to the Latin inscription over the grand fire-place in front of us, construction of the hall was begun by Pope Sixtus V and completed by Clement VIII in the year 1595. The Abbot Primate, Gregory Polan, formerly from Conception Abbey, Missouri, spoke in honor of the occasion. In response, the Holy Father said:

“I would like to express my greatest respect and gratitude for the important contribution that the Benedictines have made to the life of the Church, in every part of the world, for nearly fifteen hundred years.” He encouraged us specifically in educating people:

“I urge you to give students, along with the necessary ideas and knowledge, the tools for them to grow in that wisdom which drives them to seek God continually in their lives; that same wisdom which will lead them to practice mutual understanding, as we are all children of God, brothers and sisters, in this world that thirsts so much for peace.” After their speeches, the Holy Father stood to receive each one of us personally, taking our hand, hearing our requests and finally imparting his apostolic blessing on us, our communities, and our works. I was grateful to have even a brief personal moment with the Holy Father to say what I wished. I asked for his blessing and prayers for the people I work with, the Abbey and Mount communities in Atchison, our liturgy institute and the monastic communities at Ealing, Farnborough and Stanbrook, England, and another in Leuven, Belgium, and now for my students and colleagues at Sant’Anselmo. After greeting the Holy Father, I met briefly with Msgr. Georg Gänswein, who accompanies the Holy Father daily. I mentioned to him the inscription that Fr. Reginald Foster, OCD, my esteemed colleague in Latin letters, wrote in honor of Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) for the dedication of a fountain set up in the Vatican gardens in honor of Joseph, the husband of Mary. Msgr. Gänswein of course remembered fondly the now retired Latinist and expressed his interest in our publications on how to teach the Latin language. With blessings in our hearts and renewed enthusiasm to teach, study and listen to one another with the ear of our hearts, we set out from this encounter to run with the light of life. The Scala Regia is a flight of steps in the Vatican and is part of the formal entrance. It was built by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger in the early 16th century to connect the Apostolic Palace to St. Peter’s Basilica, and restored by Gian Lorenzo Bernini from 1663 to 1666.