I will never forget his words on Wednesday morning, September 12, 2001, on the St. Peter’s Square. The day after the attack on the World Trade Center. Before nine o’clock the Pope arrived by helicopter from Castel Gandolfo, where he was spending his vacations and I was waiting for him at the helipad in the Vatican Gardens to take him first by car to the place where the papamobile was waiting, then to the square – to the audience. I have before my eyes his aching expression, his anxious gaze, his sadly crushed figure as he descended the steps of the helicopter. He absolutely did not want us to go around the square, he did not want any applause from the faithful waiting for him. To express his pain and join the Americans in mourning, he decided not to get into the papamobile. I remember that a white jeep was standing at the back of the Vatican, behind the Bell Gate, and he firmly said that he did not want to change the car. At one point, someone from the immediate surroundings approached the car in which I was sitting behind the wheel, and the Pope in the back, and suggested that the Holy Father should put on a bulletproof vest. The same suggestion was also addressed to me and to Father Dziwisz, who was to sit next to him. The Pope, completely surprised for a moment, was speechless, refused categorically, and then looked at me and asked: “Pietro, are you afraid?” I will not forget his words. I replied: “No, Holy Father, if His Holiness is not afraid, what should I be afraid of? I’m with you.” He never wore this vest in his life, although it was feared that the next installment of the tragedy that had occurred earlier in the United States could be an assassination attempt on him. We drove a dark Mercedes with an opening roof straight towards the altar in the courtyard of the Basilica, John Paul sat in silence and this poignant silence filled the entire square. It was a very short audience. In fact, it was limited only to praying for the victims of that terrible attack.
Magdalena Wolińska-Riedi “It happened in the Vatican”
Znak Publishing House. Kraków 2020
Pages: 218 – 220
