‘BESO-BESO’ WITH POPE FRANCIS
‘I took his hand and kissed it, looking for his papal ring. There was none. I froze’
In January 2015, I, with 13 other Philippine journalists, formed part of the Vamp, the Vaticanaccredited media personnel who covered the Philippine visit of Pope Francis to commiserate with victims of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” in 2013.
There were 72 Vamp journalists traveling with the Pope, but Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, head of the Holy See Press Office, made special mention of Philippine journalists on board the papal plane on the way to Asia.
“Something unique,” Father Lombardi told the Pope, “this time we have with us a good 14
Filipinos. This says something about the expectations from that country.”
We were on board the papal plane from Rome to Colombo, where the Pope canonized the Oratorian Fr. Joseph Vaz (16511711), Sri Lanka’s first saint, then on to Manila for the third visit ever to the Philippines by a pope.
Perhaps Vamp’s most memorable time with the Holy Father would be on the flights to and from Tacloban City, ground zero of the 2015 supertyphoon.
It was very memorable because time and climate seemed to have conspired to treat the Holy Father to a firsthand experience of what storms were really like in the Philippines.
It was Jan. 17, the third day of the five-day papal visit of the Philippines, and the weather bulletin wasn’t exactly welcome news: Typhoon signal no. 2 had been raised in Eastern Visayas, where Tacloban was.
The weather forecast indicated that the papal Mass would be a drenching affair. Ironically the local name of the typhoon was “Amang,” meaning “Father.”
Many of the Philippine Vamp members had thought the typhoon alert would be enough of a dampener for Warays and other Visayans traumatized by “Yolanda” to avoid the papal visit.
Carpet of yellow
When the Philippine Airlines Airbus A320 hovered above the Daniel Z. Romualdez Airport in Tacloban, Leyte, in preparation for landing, we saw what seemed like a carpet of yellow below.
When the plane finally landed, we found out that the carpet consisted of tens of thousands of people dressed in yellow plastic raincoats, patiently waiting at the papal Mass site amid driving rain.
In the airport, Vamp members were led to a huge tent where a buffet of hot breakfast items waited, and TV monitors enabled them to cover the Mass outside. Everything was cozy and dry.
But the canvas tent around us was flapping wildly, and we were think
ing that it would just be a matter of time before the storm would blow it away.
Outside, the Pope, dressed in a yellow rain poncho, celebrated the Mass and—discarding a prepared homily—spoke from the heart. “Father, you might say to me, I was let down because I have lost so many things, my house, my livelihood,” Pope Francis told the crowd. “Jesus is Lord, and the Lord from the cross is there for you. We have a Lord who cries with us and walks with us in the most difficult moments of life.”
At the Palo Cathedral, where the Pope was supposed to have lunch with survivors of “Yolanda” and the Bohol earthquake, also of 2015, Vamp learned that the Pope would cut short his trip because the typhoon was getting worse.
The lunch was canceled, and the Pope blessed the survivors and inaugurated the Pope Francis Center for the Poor, a facility in Palo funded by Cor Unum, the Vatican charity agency.
We hurriedly motored back to Romualdez airport, boarded the papal plane, departed for Manila at a little past 1 p.m. Leaving Tacloban amid stormy winds, we felt like we were in one of those disaster movies, trying to make a getaway. To our relief, we made a successful takeoff.
But a plane bearing Malacañang officials wasn’t that successful. Carrying executive secretary Paquito Ochoa and other presidential officials, the small plane skidded off the wet runway. No one was injured.
Back to Rome
On the papal plane back to Rome, the Pope told Vamp his Philippine visit was “challenging.”
“It was challenging, and as we say in Spanish, pasado per agua (it rained on the parade),” the Holy Father said. “[But] it was beautiful, and thank you very much for what you have done.”
Pope Francis praised Filipinos for their joy and enthusiasm.
“[It] is an enthusiasm that is not feigned, a joy, a happiness, a capacity to celebrate,” he said. “Even under the rain, one of the masters of ceremonies told me that he was edified because those who were serving in Tacloban, under the rain, never lost their smile.”
Pope Francis said Filipinos knew how to suffer.
“There’s a word that’s difficult for us to understand because it has been vulgarized too much, too badly used, too badly understood, but it’s a word that has substance: resignation,” he said. “[Filipinos are a] people who know how to suffer, and [are] capable of rising up.”
As a treat to Philippine members of Vamp, Father Lombardi told us the Pope would meet us one by one for five minutes.
Since I had covered several special Vatican affairs, I had known that it was typical of papal encounters for devotees to be dumbstruck and frozen, so I rehearsed a short greeting, the simpler the better.
“Your Holiness,” I greeted him, “we from the Philippines were greatly honored by your visit.”
The Pope nodded, and as a gesture to show how as a Catholic I recognized his spiritual paternity, nay, his magisterial or teaching authority (and to burnish pompously my Catholic credentials), I took his hand and kissed it, looking for his papal ring.
There was none.
I froze. It was only then I realized that I had kissed the Pope’s bare right hand. His bishop’s ring was on his left.
The hand was fleshly white, with a hint of sallow but sunny grandeur in it, the feel of Raphael’s Madonna, or perhaps Michelangelo in his Pieta, except that this was a man’s hand, not canvas or marble, but human flesh, tender but firm.
My lips had kissed the hand of the Vicar of Christ! I had been transported to Dante’s “Paradiso” and experienced nothing short of beatitude. (Or, in colloquial Filipino, “beso beso.”)
So I didn’t gargle after that. My lips had become a papal reliquary.