There continuously was movement around the Pope. John Paul II loved the people around him. Working for him in the palace, we didn’t even have a lunch break. Between 1:30 pm and 2 p.m. there was no longer – as before – free time to eat peacefully. We were eating something on the run and we were going to the third floor, in front of the door of the Papal apartment, because that’s where the dinner was ending, the guests were starting to slowly leave and we had to escort them to the exit.
The Pope almost always was seeing Bishops who were in Rome on an ad limina visit, from all over the world. He didn’t leave anyone out. I remember that the Brazilian Episcopal Conference was so numerous that it was divided into different groups and the Holy Father had lunch with the Bishops throughout the week. Every day only with a small handful group, of course each time different, in order to exchange a word with everyone. At one time there were no more than ten – twelve guests. They talked about everything: about the world, about their local Church, about their own nation. These ad limina visits never ended with John Paul II in an official audience. They were prolonged just for the time of dinner, and then the atmosphere was much more friendly, family, kind. In this way, it was easier for the Pope to get to know the problems of specific regions of the world. It was only around fifteen o’clock (3 p.m.) that the guests left the Papal apartment for good and slowly began – at least theoretically, because there were never enough surprises – a calmer part of the day.
Magdalena Wolińska-Riedi “It happened in the Vatican”
Znak Publishing House. Kraków 2020
pages: 39 – 40
