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| You could see a lot from our porch. |
You know how I am about anniversaries. You also know that I am getting to be old enough that what passes now for “historic events” overlap with my own lifetime, and sometimes even involve my participation. With the turning of the calendar and the effort to write the correct year whenever I date something, all that ‘2025’ reminds me that twenty years ago this month began the historic year 2005, historic especially for the Church, and historic especially in Rome. You know where I was then, don’t you?
2005 began peacefully enough for me, another year in the service of Cardinal Baum as his priest secretary. I will say I was getting the hang of it, though I wouldn’t suggest I was getting good at it. In previous years we had returned to Washington for Christmas, since the work the Cardinal was involved in generally was suspended for the long holiday. This year, however, we had returned there for the funeral of Cardinal Hickey, who had died in late October, then remained at the Washington residence through Thanksgiving. Cardinal Baum resided locally in Cardinal O’Boyle’s former house in Tenleytown, behind the old Immaculata High School. We were back in Rome for Advent.
Commercial, cultural Christmas is not one of the things that Rome does particularly well, with fake trees and evergreen garlands, red bows and lights looking desperately out of place among the piazzas and palms of that gracious city. The Vatican, of course, is another matter. Saint Peter’s Square featured an enormous nativity scene, under construction since All Saints Day, and a six-story fir tree trucked in from some cold and mountainous part of Europe – was it Slovenia that year? – decked with silver and gold and lights. This practice, which now seems so normal, had been introduced by Pope John Paul II to much acclaim and some dissent, as old-time Italian curialists could still be heard muttering about Quel’ Polaccaccia – that Polish horror.
The Holy Father was increasingly infirm and in pain but would celebrate Mass unless under doctor’s orders to stay in bed. I am not certain, but believe I went to Saint Peter’s Basilica for the Pope’s Christmas Eve Mass. It would have been easy enough, as we lived just across the Piazza and I had standing admission to the good seats for any Papal events, even if I was not with the boss. My Cardinal would not have gone to a late-evening event because of his own infirmities. There is a special chalice that the Pope only uses for Christmas, and I seem to recall seeing it. John Paul would enter and leave the Basilica on a rolling platform with a chair, since walking that far, or even standing that long, was now impossible for him.
Our household would have had Mass together in our chapel. That included not only Cardinal Baum and me but also Monsignor James Gillen, who had served the Cardinal as his secretary since 1974, and because he was born the same year as the Pope rather needed a helper himself, so that was the other part of my job. Every Sunday, we watched the Pope’s Angelus address from his office window in the Apostolic Palace, but on Christmas Day he gave the Urbi et Orbi greeting – to the city and the world – from the central loggia of the Basilica. While it was blaring from the televisions of my older housemates, I preferred to go out onto our balcony to see with my own eyes and receive unmediated the papal blessing.
We had a Christmas pranzone, a grand midday dinner, for several Cardinals and Archbishops in the service of the Holy See, some American, some retired. It was a most festive occasion, and I realized what a privilege it was to sit at the edge of that remarkable group, several of whom had first met as helpers at the Second Vatican Council, all of whom had seen and participated in great events of the Church. Cardinal Baum always treated me as a friend and equal in those conversations, but I knew my role was more like that of a subaltern, and helped with the table, and listened.
While the meal was cordial and festive, I do recall that one of the participants raised an observation that was troubling, dark forces and contrary wills even then at work in the heart of the Church. All grew serious for a while in addressing the phenomenon, then the holiday humor returned even though I was left a little rattled.
After Epiphany we settled into the routine of another year with meetings, Masses, and visitors. Cardinal Baum already ‘enjoyed poor health’ as the old saying would have it, with the effect of spinal surgeries and macular degeneration compounding the challenges of age. But then in mid-February he developed a case of shingles – on his face. It was awful and he was in agony. We booked a Monday flight to Washington and his local doctors. The day before our departure, from our balcony to his window for the Sunday Angelus would be the last I would see Pope John Paul II alive.
2025 will be a year of anniversaries.
Monsignor Smith
