St. Paul's and St. Peter's

Our morning at St, Paul's outside the Walls was very quiet but was not as low key as I expected. We had mass with Cardinal Harvey, who is in charge of the basilica, and was head of the Papal household for Pope Benedict and for the last seven years of Pope St. John Paul.  His homily was great.  But what really surprised me is that he invited us out for coffee and just spent an hour talking with us.  Cardinal Harvey is originally from Wisconsin and he knows all the guys at the NAC who are studying for the North Central region of the US (he probably knows more) and made the connection to us.  It really shows his great humility.

Always a good sign when the church is this empty.

The tomb of St Paul is behind the grill.

After that, we had a rather somber talk from Father Miranda of the Institute of the Incarnate Word,  He had spent two and a half years of the last three years in Aleppo as it was besieged by Syrian rebel forces. The siege is still ongoing but he had to leave out six months ago because the Institute had sisters there and someone had to escort them out. There are still priests there, and you could see the guilt he feels for not being there even as the situation continues to worsen.  He had a great heart for the people of God.  To be honest, it made me thankful to minister in an area where there has never been a conflict on that scale (yes we had the Dakota wars, but nothing like the situation in Syria).  The only thing I can contextualize the situation to is Sarajevo, and this looks worse (and there are martyrdoms going on in Aleppo).  And yet even in it, the faith endures.

On that bright note, in the early evening we visited our last institution of the Roman Curia, the Secretariat of State.  There are two departments there: essentially those who prepare and translate stuff for the Pope and those who work in the diplomatic corps.  Our contact, Monsignor Gallagher,  works on the translator side (he helps prepare the official Latin texts of written documents), but we got to see the door to the Papal apartments where the Pope normally lives and where Francis keeps his office. For some reason we didn't get to tour there, but it was still a good visit.

The Secretariat also has the best view sans Pope.

-Deacon John Powers