Bishop John Flack: Excerpts from a Diary of Life in Rome
Episcopal News Service. April 9, 2005 [040905-2-A]
Friday, April 1
We hear that the Pope has suffered a cardiac arrest and is very seriously ill. I spend the morning on the telephone getting information from "Vatican sources" and passing it on to staff in Lambeth Palace. By evening the crowds are building up in the Piazza San Pietro and along all the roads leading to the Vatican. I decide to join them. I pass the banks of cameras in the press enclave outside the Castel Sant'Angelo, and the sight of my distinctive anglican purple shirt attracts some Press interest. The "News of the World" reporter asks me to explain why hundreds and thousands of people are coming to Rome -- why is it so important! Soon I am live in front of the Sky News Cameras with a famous presenter explaining why John Paul II was so much loved by Anglicans. Back in front of St Peters, groups of young people are sitting in circles with candles in the middle blowing in the night breeze, praying for the Holy Father in his last hours. It is all intensely moving. No buses or taxis around by the time I leave St. Peters at 2.15 a.m., and so I walk.
Saturday, April 2
Every two hours the Vatican issues new bulletins, so my computer is on all night and all day to keep up with them. They carefully describe the Pope's last hours -- the last one at 7.30 p.m. says "the Pope is now beyond all hope of recovery and is losing consciousness." It is estimated that there are now over half-a-million people surrounding the Vatican, waiting for that final bulletin. It comes at 9.50 p.m: "the Pope passed peacefully away at 9.37 p.m. this evening." A huge groan goes up from the crowd, followed by silence. People form in groups holding hands -- bearded men, willowy youngsters from Scandinavia and Germany, young nuns from the Far East, priests of all ages and sizes and nations. A moment of history that none of us will ever forget.
Back in my office I am on the telephone for ages, briefing London and speaking to news agencies.
Sunday, April 3
I struggle out of bed in time to preside and preach at the Anglican Eucharist in St. Pauls American Episcopal Church in the Via Nazionale. Wearing a purple cassock in Rome everyone assumes you are a cardinal, which is helpful when you are in a hurry. The church is crowded with people of all nationalities (and creeds, I guess) like many churches in Rome this morning. In my sermon I try to weave together the readings for the Second Sunday of Easter with a thanksgiving for the remarkable life of Karol Wojtyla, Pope John Paul II. Afterwards there is prosecco and nibbles in the sculptured churchyard of St Pauls in bright Roman sunshine. After lunch I fall into 3 hours of blissful sleep, catching up on two nights of nothing. Refreshed by evening I go up to the Vatican again. Immediately I find myself in front of the cameras of CNN, who ask me for an appraisal of the life of the late Pope from an Anglican perspective. Emerging from their stand I am picked up by Radio Five Live, where I describe for listeners the amazing scenes in front of the Vatican -- thousands upon thousands of people. Why are they drawn there, when nothing new will happen this evening?
Monday, April 4
I'm up and out by 6.00 a.m. this morning, and taken to the temporary studios of CNN, in a tent such as that used by the crusaders, on top of the Janiculum hill. At 6.45 a.m. I watch amazed as a red dawn fills the Roman sky and the incredible beauty of this city is laid out before me. CNN's morning presenter Richard Quest interviews me. His gravelly voice and very quick mind make me concentrate. He asks me who I want as the new Pope. I give a cautious reply and he says "diplomatically put, Bishop." I am conscious that via CNN I am being watched by millions across America and hundreds of thousands of people across the world in hotel bedrooms. Later in the day the time of the Pope's funeral is confirmed -- Friday 8th at 10.00 a.m., so I am then in a flurry of diplomatic activity with London, finding out who is coming, where they will stay, what the protocols will be, what transport can be provided etc etc. And what are we going to do about the diary clash with the Royal Wedding? The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Prime Minister clearly cannot be in two places at once.
Tuesday, April 5
By 6.15am I am in Five Live studios again -- how the media loves an early call! It has the advantage of being able to get a bus or a taxi up to the Vatican without any difficulty. After breakfast on the way home, I hear that the Royal Wedding has been moved to Saturday, so there is no clash. In Rome this is seen as a wonderfully generous gesture on behalf of the British Royal Family. It will go a long way towards making Prince Charles and Camilla enormously popular in Italy and -- I guess -- with Catholics round the world. Most of the rest of the day is taken up with diplomatic work, hardly time to eat. I am just sitting down to an excellent dinner in one of my favourite restaurants when the BBC phones. They want me live on BBC 1. I leave my rigatoni alla carbonara half eaten and make my way up to the Via Conciliazione. But when I get there the carabinieri will not let me through their check point because I have not got a press card. And without the purple cassock I am not viewed as a Cardinal! In the end I have to eat humble pie with the BCC and return to the remains of my carbonara.
Wednesday, April 6
The day begins with a 7.00 a.m. disaster courtesy of Vatican Radio. I have arranged to broadcast live for BBC Radio 2 from there, but Reception at Vatican Radio knows anothing about it and send me to Paulo Sesto, a Vatican pilgrim's hostel where there is a temporary studio. But when I reach Paulo Sesto no-one has ever heard of BBC Radio 2. In the meantime the BBC Radio 2 presenter Sara Kennedy is saying live "We have lost a big Bishop." I go back to Vatican Radio and this time they are full of apologies and take me to a 4th floor studio. After the 8.00am BBC News there is a Don MacLean track and then I am live, describing the amazing scenes from the studio window. As my piece ends on a "reverent" note, Bach's "Air on a G String" fades me out. BBC2 is very inventive! As I leave the studios I look with amazement at the queue for the Pope's lying-in-state. It is now over a mile-and-a-half long. Here are people from every country in the word, with their national flags and banners and thousands of young people – part of Karol Wojtyla's legacy. A priest's voice comes over the outside speakers reciting the "Hail Mary" in ten different languages. Much of the rest of my day is spent getting the Anglican Centre ready for the invasion which will happen tomorrow. The place is cleaned from top to bottom, extra beds occupy any available corner, menus are worked out. I am enormously grateful for the dedication of the staff. Meanwhile e-mail messages of suport begin to arrive from family and close friends, and from the two Diocese in England where I served -- Wakefield and Ely. Thi support means so much to me.
Thursday, April 7
By 9.00 a.m. I am back in the Via Conciliazione. The queue for the Lying-in-state is still there, though shorter because the carabinieri have sent thousands home disappointed, for safety reasons. Emily Jane of BBC TV1 is waiting for me, and we do a "crowd piece" in which I talk with Emily Jane and with an Irish lady from Kilkenny and a young Polish woman from Cracow, the Pope's home town. The Roman sun is already warm, foreheads and arms are reddening quickly, sun bloc everywhere, the water sellers have stopped selling water and are simply giving it away. Italian generosity is everywhere, carabinieri are helpful and chat with the crowds.
Back at the Anglican Centre people start arriving -- Archbishop Peter Carnley from Australia, Canon Kenneth Kearon and Canon Gregory Cameron from the Anglican Communion Office in London, Bishop Geoffrey Rowell of the Anglican Diocese of Gibraltar in Europe and his suffragan Bishop David Hamid, and their Chaplain the Rev. Jonathan Goodall. My wife arrives from UK, having undergone an adventurous journey from UK via Pisa and train to Rome. By 5.30 p.m. I am at Fiumicino, Rome's international airport, waiting in the VIP Lounge for the arrival of the Archbishop of Canterbury and his chaplains. With me is Father Don Bolen, who runs the English Desk in the Vatican, who has done a wonderful job in the last few days making it possible for an Anglican delegation to be part of the Pope's funeral. It is a special moment when Don and I are taken out on to the tarmac and there is the Archbishop, bearded and be-cassocked, with hand outstretched to greet us. We are straight into Vatican cars with police outriders and go at high speed from the airport down the Via Aurelia and immediately to St. Peters for the lying-in-state. We are met by the His Eminence the Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, head of the English Roman Catholic Church. Entering the great Basilica by a side door the party of 8 Anglicans are allowed inside the sanctuary to pray close by the body of Pope John Paul II. It is a moment I shall always remember -- several thousand people inside St. Peters and yet, a profound, deep silence. After Supper we all assemble in the Venerable English College, a Roman Catholic seminary for English students, whose history goes back to the 14th century. Night Prayer is sung by the students, and the Archbishop preaches a memorable sermon. At the end of the service we are all brought to tears as the Archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster walk out side by side, part of the healing of a rift which has gone on for nearly five centuries.
Friday, April 8
The alarm wakes me at 5.20 a.m., and by 6.15 a.m. our party, now grown to 11 by the addition of my wife Julia and the two Anglican parish priests in Rome, Jonathan Boardman and Michael Vono, are in taxis heading for an hotel on the Aurelia Antica. There we meet with what seems like a hundred Eastern Orthodox bishops, their different headgear indicating which Orthodox church they represent. To our delight there are also representatives of the British Reformed churches, leading Methodists in colourful stoles and leaders of the Church of Scotland and the Salvation Army. And there is a beautifully arrayed Bishop from the Polish National Catholic Church and the Archbishop of Utrecht from the Old Catholics. Our Archbishop, energetic as always, manages to greet everyone. Then in coaches ( called "Pullmans" in Italy) to St. Peters, entering by a side door again and then to our seats on the north side of the Altar, atop the steps in the Piazza San Pietro. It's not often I'm in my seat two hours before a service starts! The next two hours are fascinating, watching the Heads of States arrive -- they sit on the south side opposite us. Here are the King and Queens of Spain and of Sweden, here are three Presidents of the USA -- two Bushes and Bill Clinton, here is Tony and Cherie Blair, and then the Prince of Wales, on what should have been his Wedding Day. By this time the crowds are back beyond the end of the Via Conciliazione and the press are billing it as "the biggest funeral ever" and they are probably right. In the run-up to ten o'clock final preparations are made, sanctuary carpets blown up by the wind are nailed to the ground and the Easter Candle is repositioned for the sixth time. The Funeral Mass begins as 114 cardinals process in. Cardinal Ratzinger presides at the service in his role as the Dean of the Colleg of Cardinals. He preaches a simple yet profound sermon. Without idolising the dead Pope he links a long life and a priestly vocation to the words of the Gospel, John 21 "Simon son of John do you love me" "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you" "Feed my sheep." There could be no better description of the calling of a Roman Pontiff than those last three words. The service comes to and end, and we are out on the tree-lined courtyard known as the Canonica, saying our farewells to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is returning to London immediately for the Royal Wedding. The rest of the day is lost in a haze of sleep and telephone calls, arrangements for our guests to fly home, and in drawing a line under one of the most memorable days in a lifetime.