Editor's Report

‘Unpacking’ the Papal Visit

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What a week it was! Excuse me for that “bit” of exuberance, but I’m a New Yorker. You may have heard that the Holy Father referred to us as an exuberant bunch on the papal plane trip back to Rome. And you know, he was right. For once, we shook off our cosmopolitan ways and paid close attention to a short-time visitor from out of town.

Pope Francis deserved every bit of the excitement we were all expressing. Heck, he caused most of it.

I knew this papal visit to New York was going to be of a little different order when I first arrived at St. Patrick’s Cathedral for the opening-night vespers last Thursday. The members of the media were transported over hours ahead of time, before the priests, deacons, religious sisters and brothers and lay people arrived. That’s the way it goes with these trips, you hurry up to get to the media hotel and then you wait—for your credentials, for your name and group to be called, to be loaded on buses and then to walk through the inevitable magnetometers once you get near your destination.

Arriving early allowed plenty of time for interviews before the 6:30 p.m. service in our beautifully restored cathedral was even close to beginning.

Catholic New York staffers always seek to find at least one person from the archdiocese to interview. In my case, the first two people I approached were a Nigerian-born nun from Queens and a consecrated virgin from Brooklyn. Both had great things to say, but I still had to keep scouting for someone from our side of the East River.

Then I found Sonjia Madera, a smartly dressed laywoman from SS. Peter and Paul parish in the Bronx. She told me how blessed she felt to be present. Her ticket, given to her by a niece, had come through only that morning. “You are the one who deserved the ticket,” she quoted her niece as saying.

As we spoke, Mrs. Madera told me how she had been married in the Church at her parish church only the weekend before. She and her husband had been civilly married for 27 years.

She said she has found Pope Francis offers a different set of values in contrast to society’s, which render people for “what you have, not for what you are.” The pope is telling Catholics and the larger society that “there has to be a balance in life,” she said.

“He’s helping people to settle their lives,” said Mrs. Madera, a native of the Dominican Republic.

Boy, that evening prayer service was a revelation. Everyone was so excited they stood at the sight of the pope when he appeared on the cathedral’s video monitors moving along Fifth Avenue in his popemobile. By the time he got near, the cathedral’s bells were ringing, people were cheering and the service hadn’t even begun.

Perhaps even more impressive was the fervent prayer by each member of the congregation that night. Msgr. Robert Ritchie, the cathedral rector, had encouraged all attending that evening prayer works best when there is full participation in prayer, both spoken and sung. The message got through loud and clear.

I had received two tickets to the vespers. One went to my wife, and we gave the other one to our brother-in-law, Luis, a native of Mexico and a fairly recent U.S. citizen. After the liturgy, he told me what an incredible experience it had been for him, especially when the pope delivered his homily in Spanish.

Everyone, I’m sure, has their own special memories of this visit. As you unpack them over the next weeks and months, do so carefully. A visit like the one to New York and the United States and Cuba was finished in a little over a week. What Pope Francis left behind is a treasure that is yours to fully discover. We should all spend some time in prayerful reflection and in conversation with others about what we witnessed and what it means to us as Catholics.