“I'm sorry to tell you the Holy Father won't be able to receive us in audience,” the archbishop said.
For us attending a meeting at the Vatican last month, the announcement was an obvious letdown. But there was worse to come. Next day Pope John Paul II was whisked off to Gemelli Hospital for his second emergency visit in barely three weeks.
I'd stood in St. Peter's Square the Sunday before, staring up at the Pope's white-clad figure framed far above us in a window of the Apostolic Palace and listening uneasily while he struggled through his noontime Angelus message, his voice weak and sepulchral as he gasped for breath. Was it really a good idea, I wondered, for him to be sitting at an open window on a raw, cold day like this? As soon became agonizingly clear, it was not.
As this is written, Pope John Paul is out of the hospital and recuperating at home. But questions about his health continue to trump everything else at the Vatican. You can't be around the place and not sense the uncertainty that prevails. People are waiting to see what happens next — and nobody knows what that will be.
Rumors will keep flying as long as the Pope's health is precarious. That might be a long time — or it might not. As a friend and I strolled out of the Vatican one day, unaware that the Pope would soon be heading off to the hospital, an ambulance sped past us, siren blaring. “I wonder if it's the Holy Father,” my companion remarked. His mild attempt at humor didn't seem funny a short time later, but it captures the mood.
Even so, the work of the Church gets done — bishops are appointed, resignations are accepted, people are moved to new posts. Spanish bishops making ad limina visits passed through while I was there. Meetings are held. The bureaucracy continues to grind away. The stream of pilgrims and tourists never stops.
But major decisions and projects unavoidably are deferred. After a papal document on the Church and communication came out last month, a colleague expressed hope for a fullfledged encyclical on the subject. “It won't happen in this pontificate,” I predicted. He agreed.
As an interim response to an obvious need, however, the new apostolic letter addressed to communicators is an adequate stopgap. In some ways it seems unduly cautious and hedges its bets, even by comparison with earlier statements on the media emanating from lower levels of the Vatican. Yet it does put the papacy on record more fully than ever before in support of positive engagement with the world of contemporary media.
Pending something stronger and more substantive from the Magisterium, that's a step in the right direction — and it is John Paul II's step, a small but not unimportant part of his legacy to the Church.
Should the Pope resign? The chattering class began hammering at that question as soon as John Paul's health faltered. Admitting to some uncertainty, I think the answer is no. Resignation would set a worrisome precedent and, on the assumption either that the Pope can still function or doesn't have much longer to live, serve little practical purpose. If one thing or the other isn't so, the answer is not so clear.
For all that, there's talk now about the naming of new cardinals, and John Paul's trip to Cologne for World Youth Day next summer remains on the papal calendar. One thing about this man — he doesn't give up easily.
Russell Shaw is a freelance writer from Washington, D.C. You can email him at RShaw10290@aol.com.
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