I was allowed to enter the conclave, officially not closed yet, so I was able to greet my former Archbishop. He spoke to me, smiled, whispering into my ear a humorous, unreliable saying in the Roman dialect about the Cardinals who chose him. And, I was totally stunned. I asked myself if it was all true. I came back to the Vatican the next day. After the Holy Mass with the Cardinals, Pope Wojtyła took me aside: “You cannot go back to Krakow. You have to stay here. You have to help me… “. What could I say?
The Secretary of state, Jean-Marie Villot, came to accompany him to the Papal apartments. Karol Wojtyła went there for the first time. He looked around a little, curious, but not too much. For his inner world, the outside world had a little meaning, even if that was the third loggia of the Apostolic Palace. He thanked Cardinal Villotus and sat at the desk of the pontifical cabinet to write a homily for the inauguration of his pontificate. Of course, he wrote it in Polish, from his head, with some small amendments. After translating it, as a practice, he read it in Italian in the presence of his butler Angel Gugel: “Don’t worry. Just tell me when I will make a mistake, as I have problems especially with accents… “
At the permission of Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz – “At the side of the Saint”
St. Stanislaus BM Publisher, Kraków 2013
