Today is the feast day of John Paul II, the first since his beatification last May 1, and also the anniversary of his elevation to the papacy in 1978. Every such anniversary revives in me memories of a person who exhumed charm and was as humble as he was human, with a keen sense of humour.
When in May 1984 John Paul II initiated the Youth Jubilee during the Holy Year in Rome, I became involved with Cardinal Eduardo Pironio, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, so that a number of my scouts of St Aloysius College were invited to participate in the various ceremonies, including the Palm Sunday celebration in St Peter’s Square. Two of the boys, Adrian Grima and Jonathan Shaw, were chosen to walk up to the pope to present him with gifts, a silver paper knife and blotter bearing a Maltese cross and a book on Malta signed by all the scouts. His Holiness patted the boys on the head and asked them a number of questions on Malta, saying “I bless you and through you I bless the Catholic people of Malta and I bless your country”.
His secretary later wrote to the college rector to say the Pope “wishes you to know how appreciative he is of this thoughtful and devoted gesture”. When later the Pope was shown at his desk in the Vatican there in front of him were this knife and pad and a later gift from us, a silver filigree inkstand.
This first encounter with young people was such a great success that the Pope initiated the periodical encounters which have been held in various parts of the world, the latest being held last August in Madrid.
In 1984 the Labour government was involved in a bitter dispute with the Church in Malta over the future of its schools in a campaign orchestrated by Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici on behalf of Dom Mintoff who later gave up the leadership of the Labour Party and elevated him as his succcessor as prime minister, although he had not contested an election. One of the first acts of this inexperienced politician, ardently determined to imitate his mentor, was to enforce a ban on travel to Italy as his reaction to what he considered a delay in Italian financial aid to Malta.
We had again been invited by the Vatican to participate in the next youth encounter with the Pope for Palm Sunday 1985 but the new Prime Minister banned the boys from travelling to Rome. I refused to take this lying down, being determined that Malta would be represented at the Easter ceremony so arranged for a scout from Sliema Group, Simon Rossi, who was in Rome at the time to go to the Vatican with a note from me to explain the situation to the Pope.
Mr Rossi was then contacted by the Vatican and told to attend the ceremony on St Peter’s Square when the Pope would give him Holy Communion. He was also told that the Pope wanted to make a statement in Maltese at the gathering and was given a sentence in Italian which he translated as “saħħa liż-żgħażagh ta’ Malta u ta’ Għawdex li minkejja d-diffikultajiet kollha ġew Ruma” and which the Pope read before a crowd estimated at 60,000 in St Peter’s Square and millions on television around the world. Undaunted, we still went to the Vatican later in July, flying to London and from there to Rome, thus bypassing the government’s ban, and again met the Pope.
I was to meet the Pope on several other occasions, as far afield as Denver in the United States for the youth jubilee of August 1993. But before then there was a particular meeting a few days before Christmas 1987.
I had asked the Papal Nuncio, Pier Luigi Celata to arrange a papal audience for the Maltese contingent to the World Scout Jamboree in Australia, which I was leading, while transitting through Rome to Sydney but he was reluctant to do this. So I got in touch with a friend in the Vatican who spoke to the Pope. I was given a telephone number at the Vatican and told to ring when we arrived at Rome airport. This I did and was told the Pope would be waiting for us if we made it at the double to the Vatican. His Holiness was waiting for us and the scouts were assembled in the Hall of St Ambrose where the Pope shook hands and talked with each of the 36 members of the contingent.
Talking with me and Keneth Demartino, Pope John Paul expressed a wish to visit Malta, of which I immediately informed the Prime Minister, Eddie Fenech Adami, by phone after the audience to say the Pope wished to be invited but at the same time wanted the visit to be in the nature of a pilgrimage to the island of St Paul.
The Pope eventually came to Malta for his first visit in May 1990 when I had another brash encounter with Mgr Celata who refused to give the Pope a large photograph of him kissing the ground on his arrival at Luqa airport to sign, saying His Holiness did not do that sort of thing. Behind his back, I handed the photograph to my friend who was accompanying the Pope, who said “Of course I will sign it for him”. He later sent me holy medals and rosaries to give to the scouts.
It was sad to see his health deteriorate, a glimpse of which I realised when near him at Denver when he could not grip the notes of his homily at the open-air rally in August 1993. On his second visit to Malta in May 2001 he was too sick to meet but he did not fail to send me rosaries blessed by him.
After the first youth jubilee in 1983 John Paul entrusted with hope a large wooden cross as a symbol of redemption to the young people which has been carried at every subsequent international encounter. The cross he himself was to bear has inspired and will continue to inspire generations.