John Paul II pressed a secret buzzer and our meeting ended
POPE Francis’s visit to Ireland this weekend brings back fond memories for me of meeting his two predecessors. My first was in 1979 when Pope John Paul II addressed approximately 300,000 people in a field in Killeneer near Drogheda, Co. Louth. Shortly before his visit I had been elected – for the first time and at the tender age of 24 – to Louth County Council.
I can still remember being particularly delighted that my first official function, as councillor, was to attend the Pope’s address. And even better, my invitation meant that I was in the very front row of seats close to the stage.
Alas, the downside of being up at the top of the crowd was that I was one of the last to exit the field. It took me hours to get home! I recall that there was a lot of negative comment about the arrangements for getting the crowd away after the finish.
Hopefully, this weekend will be a better experience for the tens of thousands attending the various events.
John Paul II’s most memorable message from that event was to appeal to the men of violence: ‘On my knees I beg you to turn away from the path of violence’. Sadly, they ignored his appeal over the following few decades.
Pope John Paul II did not visit the North then mainly because of the Troubles, which were at their height, but also because it would have created problems politically within the North and between the Irish and UK governments too.
My next contact with John Paul II was as a TD on a parliamentary trip to the Vatican as part of the celebrations surrounding the beatification of Edmund Ignatius Rice in 1996.
Members of the delegation got to meet John Paul II for a short time. At that time, there were some suggestions that he was suffering from ill health but he was in fine form during our meeting. T HEN, as Minister for Foreign Affairs in 2004 as part of events in Rome to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the opening of diplomatic relations between Ireland and the Holy See, I had a private audience with John Paul II in his chambers in the Vatican.
There had been grave worries about the state of his health. He had been diagnosed in 2001 with Parkinson’s disease and I had been advised to expect that I would have difficulty communicating with him. And so it proved to be.
I was escorted by the Swiss Guard into a large room with nothing else in it but two chairs: his throne and a chair for me. For the 15 or so minutes I spent in the room on my own with him, I found myself doing most of the talking!
It was clear to me that he was having difficulty speaking. The only sentence from him I could make out during all my time in the room was a question: ‘Limerick, is it near Dublin?’ Answering, I thought to myself that I must mention this interaction to Willie O’Dea on my return home. John Paul II obviously had some recollection of his previous visit in 1979 during which he celebrated the final Mass at Greenpark Racecourse near Limerick in front of approximately 400,000 people.
I remember feeling very sad for his obvious speech and health difficulties, but then something happened which made me wonder. I noticed one of his hands moving forward on the armrest of his throne. I then saw his finger pressing a bell concealed on the underside of the armrest. Within seconds, the doors swung open to signal that the meeting was over. He obviously was finished with me, and wanted the next visitor to be brought in! I was ushered out through another door, as the next group were being brought in.
One of my tasks on this visit, on behalf of the government, was to ask John Paul II to consider a return Papal trip to Ireland. Sadly, it was not to be as he died a few months later. D URING that visit to the Vatican, I also met the Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano who made it clear to me that he felt the Irish government should share liability for some of the potential compensation awarded to victims of clerical sex abuse. Naturally, I completely rebuffed his suggestion.
I also met Pope Benedict XVI in November 2007 during the installation of Archbishop Seán Brady as a member of the College of Cardinals. The occasion was attended by former president Mary McAleese, the then Northern Secretary to Northern Ireland, Shaun Woodward, and Stormont’s deputy first minister, the late Martin McGuinness.
That representatives of the three administrations on this island and the UK were present gave us a great opportunity to press Pope Benedict to visit both parts of Ireland.
We made the point that such a visit would be a symbolic one in that it would be a clear fulfilment of Pope John Paul II’s call, in 1979, for peace on the island of Ireland. However, Pope Benedict did not make many foreign trips unlike his predecessor. Though there were suggestions he would visit before he retired in the end he didn’t.
So, it is nearly 40 years since the last visit to Ireland by a Pope. In the intervening years, the Vatican must have wondered how a country, which it had historically regarded as a bastion of Catholicism, has changed so dramatically.
Maybe, if it wanted to help its cause here in Ireland, perhaps it should have ensured that its pontiffs visited here more frequently.