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One reporter's notebook on the travels and triumphs of John Paul's pontificate.
I arrived in Rome for Pope John Paul II's 10th anniversary, so actually we'll be celebrating together this October. He'll be marking 25 years in the Eternal City, and for me it will be a much more modest 15.
As I look over those years, I see that there was a lot I missed in the first decade of a high-energy papacy. A colleague told me that on a grueling papal voyage 20 years ago, the press corps in the back of the pope's plane actually sent a note on a cocktail napkin to the first-class section asking if they could have the following day off. They didn't get it.
I have enjoyed a front-row seat for a good part of this pontificate. My highlights are certainly quite personal, and others will see things differently. I don't mean to make a historical review of the past 15 years, but simply to point out some moments, trips and experiences I found compelling.
World Youth Day in Santiago de Compostela in August 1989 was an eye-opener. About a half-million youth from all over Europe descended upon this beautiful town in northern Spain. There were music, late nights and lots of fun. It was a combination pilgrimage, sock-hop and retreat. Just about 20 years after Woodstock, the pope was showing he could draw crowds of youth searching not for free love but for one love.
Later that year, I saw the pope receive Soviet leader Mikhail Gorba-chev at the Vatican. That was history happening. I'm still waiting for John Paul to go to Russia, but that looks like a tall order these days. I won a bottle of wine betting against the pope with a colleague who was sure John Paul would make it to Russia in 2002. But putting limits on his travels is usually not a winning wager. This pope tends to surprise you.
I've made several overseas trips with John Paul, including a 10-day tour in 1995 that took us to the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Australia and Sri Lanka. I always call it the "Thrilla in Manila" because of the size of the Mass in the Philippine capital, where some
5 million people gathered.
Cuba in 1998 was also a great trip, with Fidel Castro and company trying their best — but not very successfully — to use John Paul to their advantage.
The pilgrimage to the Holy Land during the Jubilee Year 2000 had to be one of the most moving of John Paul's 100-plus voyages. His visit to this hot spot had a lot of political repercussions, but it was above all a personal pilgrimage. He asked for extra time to pray at the grotto of the Nativity and the Holy Sepulchre.
On the world political front, I was impressed when John Paul jumped into the fray before the 1994 U.N. Confer-ence on Population and Development in Cairo. It was a battle largely about abortion and population control, with the pope denouncing a "totally individualistic" view of human sexuality. Although he did not attend the conference, he did make several statements leading up to it in an effort to shape the debate and sent a top-notch delegation. It was a sign that the Holy See would not be on the sidelines during some of the great moral debates of the day.
I was able to attend one of the pope's private Masses with my father one morning, and I did the first reading. That was a spiritual high. As John Paul knelt alone in front of the chapel before Mass you could sense the intensity of his prayer and the weight on his shoulders.
A couple of years ago 14 journalists each wrote one of the Stations of the Cross for Good Friday, and we were able to greet the pope at the end of the ceremony. You never know what to say on these occasions — at least I don't. I just introduced myself and mumbled something about having written the Fourth Station.
He just smiled and said, "Thanks, Greg." That made my day, and made my Easter.
Greg Burke writes from Rome, where he is the Vatican correspondent for FOX News.
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