The Holy Father came to bless us all and the entire new equipment. Of course, he was accompanied by his personal secretary, Father Stanisław Dziwisz, besides the Secretary of State Cardinal Jean-Marie Villot and the entire delegation. After the official speech, John Paul II went inside to visit the new interiors.
I led him upstairs, on a high-set special printing machine. He climbed on top of it, sat on a chair and began to press the individual keys, and I explained to him what and how to do it. I gave him color photos to print on large white cards: images of his face or his entire silhouette. The Pope smiled, he had a lot of fun with it. He began to press the top of the machine, so that the pictures jumped vigorously from the printer to a special attachment, faster and faster, and he grabbed his head, laughed loudly and said: “Oh, my poor head, all battered in this printer!” There was a lot of laughter. From the very beginning, the Pope broke the distance and loved to joke. To me, he was just one of us.
The extraordinary simplicity of the Holy Father and the ordinary human warmth that distinguished the entire Papal “family” were a wonderful lesson of conduct for other workers of the Holy See. In the so-called apartment worked: father Dziwisz; the second secretary – this functions for the last ten years – from 1995 until the death of the Pope – was performed by priest Mieczysław Mokrzycki, and apart from them the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, headed by the irreplaceable Sister Tobiana, and the butler – for years it was Angelo Gugel. Their discipline in action combined with humility and a smile on their face – this was for me in those days the definition of everyday life behind the Bronze Gate.
Magdalena Wolińska-Riedi “It happened in the Vatican”
Znak Publishing House. Kraków 2020
Pages: 73 – 74
