The Polish woman in the Vatican recalls the meeting with the Pope. “He said: My name is Francesco”
The journalist recalls the unusual first meeting with the Pope
Magdalena Wolińska-Riedi cites numerous anecdotes illustrating the human face of the Pope. The journalist's husband has been a member of the Swiss Guard for many years, which is why a Polish woman lives in the Vatican on a daily basis. Wolińska-Riedi recalls his first meeting with the Pope just after the conclave, when Francis was just moving to the Holy See.
– We were neighbors and before this neighborhood was very specific and very tangible, more than with its predecessors – he emphasizes.
– My first meeting with Pope Francis in Biała's robe occurred when I went with my daughters for a walk to the Vatican Gardens on Saturday noon. We went to shortcuts from the Swiss Guard barracks to the gardens through the Apostolic Palace, through the courtyard of St. Damazy. We sat on the stairs to eat a small snack – he says.
– Suddenly I look, Ford Focus enters. But we did not expect in life that Francis could be in this Ford. It wasn't a limousine. (…) I look and the pope is in the front seat. I didn't know what to do because we were completely alone. The protocol is valid here. You have to behave properly with the pope. I say [do córek]: “sit politely”, I look and the Pope nodded at us – he recalls.
– I say: I think it's to us, we're going. The Pope gave my little daughters hand and says that he will now live here, that he is a new neighbor and his name is Francesco – he says. – And it was such the first breaking of ice cream and for me evident proof of what amazing man is, what normal and simple in all this – he assesses.
Pope and coffee at midnight. “We weren't used to this”
Francis, a pope without a secretary who paid for his own bills and surprised with his availability, was not only the head of the church, but also a neighbor with whom a few words could be changed on a walk.
It was something that the journalist's husband particularly experienced. – My husband on duty in the morning comes to me after the night service and tells me: “Listen, well, the pope came late in the evening, he could not sleep, he came to make coffee. He knocks my shoulder, I turn around, the pope stands and it is not in a white cassock” – says Wolińska Riedi. “We weren't used to this before Pope Francis appeared,” he adds.
He also emphasizes that Francis' decisions often challenged the Vatican safety structures, and his stubbornness in traveling to places overwhelmed by conflict or pandemic was an expression of his deep solidarity with the suffering.
The Pope's visit to Poland during World Youth Day in Krakow will also be remembered as a time full of symbolic gestures and words. Wolińska-Riedi, being witnessing these events, drew attention to the deep stir of the Pope, who followed in the footsteps of John Paul II, paying tribute to her predecessor.
The last days of the life of Pope Francis, despite a serious illness, showed his steadfastness and the desire to be close to people. The journalist emphasizes that the decision to live in the House of Saint Marta, instead of in the Apostolic Palace, was a testimony to his needs of the daily community with others.
