The real breakthrough in my work was the Jubilee Year 2000. At that time, one of the previous main drivers of John Paul II retired and just after that, by virtue of an official letter from the Prefecture of the Papal Household, which I still keep as a valuable souvenir in a drawer full of family documents, I was appointed to his place.
Since then, Pietro Cicchetti was side by side with John Paul II. And, the Pope did not let him forget about himself, among other things, because of a certain spontaneous gesture…
It all began at the meeting (already the second, after the memorable first in 1986) of the Holy Father with the leaders of other world religions in Assisi. It was January 24, 2002. The common ecumenical prayer for peace around the world just four months after the attacks on the World Trade Center that shook the world was particularly poignant. John Paul II felt the need to convene the Pellegrinaggio di Pace – Pilgrimage for Peace, which before the whole world was to be an expression of unity in the diversity of religions and ways of thinking. But, for the Papal driver, this trip to the Italian region of Umbria also had – as it turned out quite unexpectedly – a very personal dimension.
– The Holy Father for this meeting with representatives of other religions in Assisi left by train from the railway station behind the walls of the Vatican. I had set out the day before; we transported the papamobile and other cars needed on the spot and I was waiting for the Pope at the Santa Maria degli Angeli station. When John Paul II with the secretaries and the entire entourage reached the station by train, we went by car to the mountains, to Assisi. After the great interreligious prayer, the Holy Father entered the small church of St. Francis, the famous Porziuncula, located today inside the Basilica of Our Lady of the Angels. In front of the church we were given large baskets with specialties from Umbria. As it quickly turned out, in addition to local delicacies, there was a small live dog: white, all in patches, looked like a bundle of wool. Father Stanisław Dziwisz ordered me to take all the baskets with gifts on a truck in which cars used in Assisi were transported back to the Vatican.
Magdalena Wolińska-Riedi “It happened in the Vatican”
Znak Publishing House. Kraków 2020
Pages: 236 – 238
