By Richard C. Dujardin
Providence Journal
May 1, 2011
http://www.projo.com/news/content/JOHN_PAUL_REMEMBERED_05-01-11_THNR0SR_v17.10aa49b.html
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| Journal reporter Richard Dujardin presented greeting cards from his children to Pope John Paul II in 1987. |
The only time that the Rev. Michael A. Sisco encountered the pope in person he called the pontiff a potato.
It's not that Father Sisco, who is about to become the pastor of the soon-to-be-renamed Blessed Pope John Paul II parish in Pawtucket, meant to say it that way.
It was 1996, and Sisco was visiting Rome just after being ordained a deacon for the Providence diocese. As luck would have it, the Westerly native found himself next to the pope's lane of travel as he was going through St. Peter's Square.
"The pope was looking directly at me when I shouted 'Viva la Papa,' " he recalled the other day. "He gave me a quizzical look."
The Rev. Dean Perri, another Rhode Island priest traveling with him, asked if he knew what he had just said.
If you meant to say, "Long Live the Pope," you should have said "Viva il Papa," he advised.
"What you said was 'Long Live the Potato.' "
Father Sisco, whose new parish is being created out of a merger of St. Cecilia and St. Leo and may be one of the first in the country to be named after Blessed John Paul, says he told John Paul in prayer recently, "I hope you're not holding it against me that I called you a potato."
He's confident that he can engage in such conversation because, as with millions of other Catholics who feel a deep connection to John Paul II, he is convinced that John Paul already is with God in heaven, even though not yet canonized, and that John Paul is perfectly capable of taking petitions from people on earth.
For fans, Sunday's beatification ceremony is just one of the formalities that the church has to go through before declaring the man a saint.
A new Marist poll released last week suggests that his fans are legion, with 43 percent of all Americans, 73 percent of Catholics and 87 percent of practicing Catholics saying the late pope had an impact on their spiritual life. A full 82 percent of Catholics also rank John Paul II either the best or one of the best popes the church has ever had.
As a reporter who covered Pope John Paul for The Providence Journal in dozens of venues over his 27-year pontificate, I saw first-hand the tumultuous welcomes he'd receive in city after city, even when he punctuated his visits with stern and hard messages.
It was particularly true at World Youth Day celebrations and other meetings with young people, where he was enormously popular. Visiting the Superdome in New Orleans in 1987, he told youths not to be deceived by the slogans of the world and to "live lives of purity."
He never seemed to base his teachings on what he thought people wanted to hear, but rather on unchanging moral principles. America's greatness, he would say, depended on its willingness to look out for its most vulnerable.
Though some critics now accuse him of being too unbending, and of closing his eyes to aspects of the clergy sexual-abuse scandal, former Providence Bishop Robert E. Mulvee saw it differently. He reported that, at a meeting with American bishops in 2004, John Paul made clear that "we cannot forget the victims."
For some Rhode Islanders, the encounters with the man they refer to as John Paul the Great were deeply personal.
Claire and Catherine Norton, 83-year-old twin sisters from Cranston, recalled how after meeting with him when he was still archbishop of Krakow, they corresponded with him even after he became pope. In one letter, they asked that he pray for their father who had suffered a stroke and was no longer able to feed himself.
Days after they sent the letter, their father removed the tubes and began eating again. They then got a letter from the Vatican saying the pope wanted them to know he was praying for their father.
Later, the two sisters met the pontiff in Rome and informed him of their father's recovery. "That is good," he said. "That is good."
Contact: rdujardi@projo.com
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