The Second Secretary did not accompany the Pope on all pilgrimages. During his nine years of service, he says, he participated in eighteen pilgrimages. Sometimes he had to stay at the Vatican and oversee the office. But, when he flew with the Holy Father, he was the one who gave him documents during Masses and audiences. He made sure that the Pope arrives on time, prepared him to leave the house, protected from rain and crowds – a shadow man. It is difficult to find him even in the most extensive and famous Papal biographies. There is a first name, and a last name and that’s it. And yet, he was there and gave, cared, dressed, protected. When I ask him about the most beautiful memory from Papal pilgrimages, I hear that the pilgrimage to the Holy Land gave him the deepest experience. It was the Jubilee Year… For us, it was following the footsteps of the Salvation. Stepping on the ground on which our Savior walked. The Holy Father helped us to understand those great things that were ongoing in the Holy Land for two thousand years. He as Peter, as a Rock, came to the sources. He came to sites where the extraordinary acts of giving power to St. Peter took place. For me, the most beautiful moment of this pilgrimage was the holy Mass in the Upper Room, held there for the first time in several hundred years. After all, over there, during the Last Supper Christ instituted the Eucharist and the sacrament of the priesthood. Over there the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles. And then, in March of the Jubilee Year, in the same place, I saw the Holy Father celebrating the holy Mass along with twelve Cardinals and Bishops. Like Christ and His twelve Apostles. It was an extraordinary experience.
