Prologue
In July
1978, when Pope Paul VI was leaving the Vatican to go to the papal summer
residence in the hills at Castel Gandolfo, he bade farewell to Archbishop Giuseppe
Caprio – his closest collaborator – with the sad words: “We will go, but I do not know whether we will return to Rome - or how
we will return.”
The 80-year-old Paul knew his physical state. Giovanni
Battista Montini had been an intellectually brilliant but very frail youth, and
throughout his service to Pope Pius XII in the Vatican of the 1930’s ‘40’s and
50’s, his famously long work days sometimes resulted in periods of exhaustion.
During his fifteen years as Pope, beginning in 1963, he suffered from cancer of
the prostate and painful, crippling osteoarthritis. He had recently shared with
a group of pilgrims: “The clock of time
moves inexorably forward, and it points to a forthcoming end.”
Paul also knew his own spiritual weariness and
pain.
He had succeeded the immensely popular John
XXIII; he guided the Church through the final, often contentious sessions of
the Second Vatican Council and through the tumultuous time that followed. Paul
was attacked – from outside the Church and from within – over his 1968
encyclical letter “Humanae Vitae”; for the rest of his papacy, he did not issue
another encyclical. Critics called him “our Hamlet” – unable to decide. He
lamented that “ from some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered the temple
of God. Doubt, uncertitude, disquiet, dissatisfaction, confrontation…these
have entered our consciences, and entered by windows that should have been open
to the light.”
Nevertheless,
Paul faithfully ministered to a flock he encountered throughout the world. He
traveled as a “Pilgrim Pope” to Jordan and Israel in 1964 (the first time a
reigning Pontiff had traveled in an airplane, the first Papal pilgrimage to the
Holy Land, and the first Pope to leave Italy in over a century); to Lebanon and
India in 1964; to the United Nations (“No
more war! War never again!”) and New York City (with Mass at Yankee
Stadium) in 1965; to Fatima and to Turkey in 1967; to Colombia and Bermuda in
1968; to Switzerland and to Uganda in 1969; and – in 1970 – Pope Paul’s longest
Papal trip took him to Iran, Pakistan, the Philippines (where he escaped a
dagger-wielding assassin dressed as a priest), Samoa, Australia, Indonesia,
Hong Kong and Ceylon.
On the first day of August 1978, Paul
suddenly decided to be driven from the summer residence to the town of
Frattocchie to pray at the tomb of Cardinal Giuseppe Pizzardo, who had been –
all those decades ago – his personal patron on entering Vatican service. By the
time of the Council, however, Paul and Pizzardo had come to oppose one another
many times. (Yet, it is said that in the 1963 Conclave that elected Montini as
Pope, one lone, dogged vote had been cast for Pizzardo at each ballot – Montini’s
own vote for his long-ago mentor.)
As Paul left Pizzardo’s tomb in the village
church, he told a gathered crowd that he hoped “to see the Cardinal again … after death, which for us cannot be far
away.”
Pope Paul Vi’s final trip, that short drive from Castel Gandolfo through the Alban Hills, brought ”Papa Montini” full circle, back to the early days of his priesthood. Thus began the last week of his life – and the historic seventy-eight days that would see three Popes.
Sunday, August 6, 1978
By that Sunday morning, the Feast of
the Lord’s Transfiguration - and 33rd the anniversary of the atomic
bombing of Hiroshima - Pope Paul had developed a fever. (After praying at
Pizzardo’s tomb, he had been driven home in an open car.) The Pope called for his secretaries –
Monsignors Macchi and Magee. His breathing became labored; his doctors were
summoned and diagnosed a serious bladder infection. Paul's rising temperature
added to the pain of his arthritis.
The Pope would not be able to lead
the Angelus from his window overlooking over the Castel’s gardens. The reason
given publicly was brief. Yet modern communication was putting an end to the
old Roman adage: “No Pope is sick - until
he is dead.”
Antibiotics were given and oxygen applied,
but Pope Paul’s condition deteriorated. In the midday heat, one of the nuns
brought him a bowl of broth and some cool lemonade. His blood pressure became
elevated and his physicians termed his condition “very serious”. The priest
secretaries notified Monsignor Jacques Martin, Prefect of the Apostolic
Household – who in turn telephoned the Cardinal Secretary of State, the
Frenchman Jean Villot; as was custom, Villot contacted the Cardinal Dean, the
Cardinal Vicar of Rome, and members of the Montini family. The communist mayor of Rome arranged for
police to escort them the sixteen miles from the city to Castel Gandolfo.
By midafternoon, Paul was only
semi-conscious. His heart rate was fluctuating wildly. He asked his secretary
Monsignor Macchi to offer Mass at 6:00 pm; as Monsignor Magee grasped his hand,
Paul repeated several times during the Creed: “Credo .. in unam, sanctam, catholicam
et apostolicam ecclesiam (I believe in one, holy, Catholic and apostolic
Church)”. The Pope received
Holy Communion as Viaticum under both
forms.
Near the end of Mass, Paul suddenly clenched
Magee’s hand and became agitated; the Pope had suffered a massive heart attack.
As Paul fell back onto the pillow, Cardinal Villot asked if he wished to be
anointed. The Pope whispered, “Subito. (Quickly.)” He continued to
pray to the end. There were no final
messages. His last words were an unfinished “Our Father.” Finally, at 9:41 p.m. the chief physician
said to those in the room, “The Pope is dead.”
Interestingly, at that moment, the
Pope’s old Polish-made alarm clock – which he had kept at his bedside since the
1920’s – began to ring.
The Vatican Press Office notified
the world: Pope Paul VI died this evening
at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo. The Pope had received the sacrament
of the anointing of the sick and Viaticum. With profound anguish and great
emotion we invite all to pray for the eternal rest of the great Pope, in
remembrance of what he has achieved in more than fifteen years of pontifical
service, as reviver of communion among the entire people of God, as witness of
charity among men where Jesus Christ called him to lead the church, and as strenuous
defender of peace.
Saturday, August 12
While the body of Pope Paul VI laid
in state at Castel Gandolfo on Monday and Tuesday (over 30,000 people paid
their respects there), the Cardinals in Rome fixed the date for the Papal
Funeral Mass for Saturday, August 12 at 6:00 PM. The hot August winds, the ferragosto, had sent most of the
Cardinals out of the city; throughout the week, they arrived from around the
world. .Together, they handled the day-to-day matters of the Church, under the
leadership of the 85 year old Cardinal Dean, Carlo Confalonieri – who had
participated in four previous conclaves.
On Wednesday afternoon, after the
Cardinals had, according to tradition, defaced Pope Paul’s ring and the seals (so
that they not be used to produce any “false” papal documents) the late Pope’s
body was transferred “in worthy and fitting manner” to the Vatican Basilica. Cardinal Villot arranged for a motor hearse
into the city; it made a brief stop at the Pope’s own Cathedral - St. John
Lateran. Along the route, the crowds were smaller than usual, perhaps because
of the ferragosto. Security was tight
because of the recent murderous acts by the “Red Brigade”. Yet plastered on the
walls of the city were posters reading, “The communists of Rome express sadness
and grief at the death of Paul VI.”
Thursday and Friday
saw more 100,000 people each day wind their way into St. Peter’s. Paul’s body
was dressed in a white alb, red chasuble, and scarlet slippers. The pallium, the
woolen symbol of his universal pastorate, rested around his shoulders. On his
head was a gold and white mitre; in his hands, a simple crucifix and a
rosary.
And at his side lay his distinctive Bishop’s crozier. At the
head of the coffin a single Paschal candle burned. “As I close my eyes on this sad,
dramatic and magnificent earth … I want my funeral to be as simple as possible,”
his will stated.
Uniquely, the papal Funeral Mass was celebrated outdoors in
the piazza, to accommodate the largest possible crowd. On Saturday evening, twelve sediari – the men who had carried the
Pope’s chair aloft so many times – placed the closed cyprus coffin on the
ground, on a large carpet on the steps of the Basilica, while the Requiem Aeternam was sung.
One hundred and twelve Cardinals concelebrated the Mass. Three of them had been named by Pius XII;
eight by John XXIII; and 101 by Paul himself – by far the largest number ever
and the most international, as Paul had planned.
Also present were dignitaries from over one hundred nations (including
First Lady Rosalynn Carter and Sen. Edward Kennedy) along with large numbers of
ecumenical and inter-faith representatives.
Around the world, hundreds of millions watched on television and heard
from the Book of Revelation (“I saw a new
heaven and a new earth…”) and from John’s Gospel (Jesus’s words to Peter: “Feed my lambs…tend my sheep”). Paul had expressly stated that no eulogy was
to be given, but rather a homily on the sacred scriptures. Over 150 priests
distributed Communion.
The Mass was offered in Latin, but
the Final Commendation was prayed in Aramaic, Jesus’ own language.
At the end, the Magnificat was sung and the Litany
of Saints chanted – with an added invocation to “Mary, Mother of the
Church” as Paul had named her during the Council. The body was carried back into the Basilica,
where the cypress coffin (for simplicity)
was enclosed in a lead coffin (for durability)
and then finally in an oak coffin closed with gold nails (for dignity). Paul had requested, “I
want neither a tomb nor a special monument.”
He was buried among the Popes in the
Vatican grottoes, not in a marble
sarcophagus or elaborate tomb, but in the
earth.
Thursday, August 24
The Cardinals decided that the conclave to elect a new Pope would begin on Friday, August
25. The nearly two weeks between funeral and conclave gave them time
to “get to know one another.” The
secular press – sometimes using the model of a presidential election - opined
that there was “no clear favorite” among them.
In the days before the Cardinals entered the conclave, Humberto
Cardinal Medeiros of Boston clarified to the media: “I come here to Rome as a believer, as a member of the Church, as a
priest, as a bishop, as an elector of the Holy Father. I have absolute trust
and faith in the Holy Spirit, who has a hand in this.”
“This is not just human politics...”
“We’d love another Pope John. We’d
love another Pope Paul.”
The first conclave of 1978 would choose a Pope who was both John and Paul.
Coming next month: “The September Pope”
Rev. Msgr. John T. Myler, STD
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