Apostolic journeys were an extraordinary element of my work with the Pope. Participation in them was a privilege and a unique experience for me. At that time, I was responsible for ensuring that before the pilgrimage began, the Papal cars – both papamobiles and one or two ordinary cars – were transported from Italy to the country that the Holy Father was to visit. During the entire Jubilee Year 2000, when I became his driver, we did not go anywhere abroad, because it was a period of very intense activity of the Pope on the spot in Rome and the Vatican. But, immediately after that we went to the Holy Land, and then there was an unforgettable pilgrimage to Poland in 2002… It was his great, sentimental farewell to his homeland, a nine-day pilgrimage to all the places dear to him. The prayer at Kalwaria and the departure from Krakow itself stuck in my memory the most, when the Holy Father did not want to, it was difficult for him to leave his land and his nation.
Magdalena Wolińska-Riedi “It happened in the Vatican”
Znak Publishing House. Kraków 2020
Pages: 252
