As I write this article, I am still coming down from the high of such a Transfiguration moment. I continue to process the events of the phenomenal fifteen days that my husband and I spent in Rome in late April and early May.
We began planning our trip to the Eternal City last November when I was invited to participate in a symposium for a project called Inclusive Governance in a Synodal Church, which three-day event was held on the Rome campus of the Catholic University of Australia from April 28 to April 30. Our departing flight from Dulles International Airport was set for April 24, and we planned to spend an extra ten days in Rome on vacation following the symposium. I had pre-arranged several guided tours and excursions for our visit, and we expected our trip to offer a relaxing get away from the busy-ness of life.
Let me backtrack for a moment and mention that in late February CLSA President Fr. Patrick Cooney, Vice-President Dr. Diane Barr, and I departed for Rome as the CLSA’s representatives on the biennial visit to Rome. We visited fifteen dicasteries/tribunals during our visit. Pope Francis had been hospitalized shortly before we flew to Rome, and each day we waited to hear status updates about his health. We were delighted that his health improved, and we had an amazingly successful trip; we were warmly welcomed by officials at each of the venues. Little did we know at the time that one of those visits would take on special importance a few weeks later.
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L to R: Donna Miller, Dr. Diane Barr, Cardinal Robert Prevost, Fr. Patrick Cooney, OSB |
Returning to my April trip, three days before our flight was to depart, my husband and I learned the sad and unexpected news of the passing of Pope Francis.
We knew without a doubt that our trip would be impacted, but we had no specifics when we departed from Dulles on the same flight as several US prelates and clergy who were making the trip to attend Pope Francis’ funeral. When we landed in Rome at noon on Friday, April 25, we rushed to drop our luggage at our apartment and then headed for St. Peter’s Square. After waiting for almost an hour to go through security amid a sea of teenagers who had gathered in Rome to experience the Jubilee of Adolescents and the canonization of Blessed Carlo Acutis, we entered the piazza and found the waiting line to enter the basilica. After two hours of wending through an ever-growing queue with a dozen twists and turns, we were honored to be able to enter the basilica and view the mortal remains of our Holy Father Francis, whose life and ministry touched so many in his thirteen years as the Roman Pontiff. It was the first of many memorable occasions that were yet to come.
The following day we providentially were in front of the Colosseum awaiting the start of a pre-scheduled tour of that ancient structure (along with the Forum and the Palatine Hill) when Pope Francis’ casket was driven past the crowd of thousands of mourners gathered along the route following his funeral; that second Francis-encounter was equally memorable and as emotional as seeing him at St. Peter’s.
Our third-Francis encounter came a few days later when, thanks to our pre-scheduled tickets to tour St. Mary Major, we were able to skip to the front of the long line of hundreds of people waiting to enter the basilica. Seeing the simplicity of the burial place where our late Holy Father is interred was profound, and we felt blessed to have that chance before proceeding to our tour of the archaeological excavations beneath the Marian basilica.
That same afternoon we hiked from Mary Major over to the Basilica of St. John Lateran to complete our visits to all four of the Jubilee Year holy doors. Although I had been in the basilica in two prior visits, I had not been aware of the statue that honors Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, whom canonists recognize as the driving force behind the 1917 Pio-Benedictine code. The statue honors Gasparri for that monumental task and also for the role he played in 1929 as a signatory on the Lateran Treaty, which was signed in the Lateran Palace by Mussolini and Gasparri, as Secretary of State.
There were numerous other memorable moments over the next few days. In planning our trip, I had requested tickets last December to the Necropolis and the Tomb of St. Peter, an experience that I had twice before been privileged to have. There was no response from the Vatican office until April 9, two weeks before our departure, and we were informed that our visit was set for May 7 at 3:30 pm. When it was eventually announced that the Conclave would start on May 7 at 4:30 pm, we thought our scavi visit would be pre-empted. But we confirmed our plans the day before, and we were able to gather with four other participants and our guide at the appointed time outside of St. Peter’s Basilica. From our vantage point outside the Ufficio Scavi, we caught a glimpse between buildings of several dozen cardinals as they walked to the back of the basilica—presumably from the Domus Sanctae Martae—to prepare for their procession into the Sistine Chapel. It was electric!
It was impossible not to think about the historic Conclave that was about to begin as our Italian guide led us down to the ancient underground streets that once saw families bringing meals to picnic alongside or atop the burial sites of their dead family members. (If you have never had this privileged experience of touring the Necropolis when visiting Rome, I cannot recommend it strongly enough.) At precisely 4:30 pm Rome time, we were at the burial place of St. Peter, and we all knelt on the grated platform to pray for the cardinals who were gathering above to elect the next successor of St. Peter. It was another moment that prompted emotions and inner stirrings that I will never forget. Words cannot express it.
Jumping ahead 24 hours to Thursday, May 8, my husband and I were back at our apartment after sharing lunch with an official from the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development (the one dicastery that Fr, Patrick, Diane, and I had not been afforded a visit). I forgot to mention that during the Conclave, the Vatican had jammed the airwaves around the basilica so that no internet access was available—for privacy purposes—and that the jammed airwaves had extended to our apartment a quarter of a mile away. But in late afternoon when a few text messages from friends and family in the US began pinging my phone in the late afternoon, we were alerted to white smoke that was arising from the Sistine Chapel. If those text messages had not snuck through on my phone (thanks to Verizon wireless), we may not have realized what was happening in time to make the jog back to St. Peter’s Square to be among the burgeoning crowd for the announcement of the new Pope.
After going through security, we were squeezed into the piazza like proverbial sardines as we awaited the appearance of the new pope on the loggia.
As the cardinal electors came out onto the four balconies that flank the central window, I recognized several of them who had been in “the running,” and it was clear only then that those front-runners had not been selected. When Cardinal Protodeacon Dominique Mamberti appeared from between the burgundy drapes, it was a bit surreal because Fr. Patrick, Diane, and I had met with him and members of his staff at the Apostolic Signatura just a few weeks earlier. When he said, “Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum,” and spoke those well-known words—“Habemus Papam”—the cheering around us rose to a new level. It was so loud that I was not sure that I was actually hearing correctly when he said in Latin: “Robertum Franciscum Sanctae Romane Ecclesiae Cardinalem Prevost qui sibi nomen imposuit Leo XIV.” I heard only “Robertum Franciscum” and said to my husband, “It’s Cardinal Prevost—he’s an American!” But when Cardinal Mamberti stepped aside and no one came immediately onto the loggia, I doubted what I had heard.
Later I learned from others (who were not in Rome) that the various media who were broadcasting the event were putting pictures and information about the newly elected pope on the screens for television viewers. But whether the airwaves were still jammed or there were just so many people trying to message and call, we could not access any internet or receive/send text messages. So for eight minutes we stood there waiting for the new Holy Father to make his appearance. When he finally did, he was greeted with a mixture of applause, shouts, and silence, as he had not been one of the front-runners going into the Conclave. However, having just met with him on February 28, I recognized him and said to my husband, “It’s him, it’s Cardinal Prevost, he’s an American!” Others around me—mostly Italians—began spreading the word as well, and “Americano!” was soon reverberating through the throngs. One woman behind mistook my emotion and patted my shoulder and asked, “Familia?” I could only shake my head and laughingly say, “No, not my family, he’s American!”
I could go on and on about what I see as graced moments during our visit and how the Holy Spirit put us in the right place at the right time during this once-in-a-lifetime trip. But as I reflect on the papacy of Pope Leo XIV and the fact that he is a canonist with his familial roots in the United States, I am overwhelmed with emotion and a sense of hopefulness. I had not reflected until now on how the Church’s Magisterium being centered in Rome has created an unfortunate divide of sorts for many Catholics in the United States. Pope Leo XIV has a chance to bridge that divide and bring the Church “home”; my prayers in these early days of his papacy are for him as Supreme Pontiff to be a holy and successful pontium constructor.
My hometown newspaper--founded and run by one of my former students at our Catholic grade school--wrote an article after he and I talked about mine and my husband's experiences. Go to https://the-hendersonian.com/former-henderson-resident-holy-name-teacher-and-local-attorney-meets-with-the-pope-before-he-was-the-pope/.
