We’re off to see the pontiff
Despite 18 months of fundraising, this summer’s World Youth Day in Australia remained out of reach for the teens at St. Paul of the Cross in North Palm Beach. But even as economic realities were closing the door on the youths’ hopes of seeing Pope Benedict XVI in person, the Vatican’s travel planners were opening a window.
“When we heard the pope was coming to New York we moved on it,” said St. Paul youth minister Paul Chesnes. The group has raised nearly $15,000 and will use it for a “family pilgrimage” for about 30 children, parents, grandparents and young adults during the pope’s mid-April visit to the United States, he said.
They will be among scores of Floridians heading to Masses, meetings and other events in New York and Washington, D.C., during Benedict XVI’s first papal trip to the United States April 15-20. Each diocese and archdiocese in the state received an allotment of tickets to papal Masses in Nationals Park and Yankee Stadium, which diocesan officials could distribute as they wished. Many of those tickets went to youth and young adult or campus ministry groups, but others went to individual parishioners on a first-come, first-served basis. Some Floridians were invited to participate in more intimate settings with the pope, including a gathering of Catholic educators at The Catholic University of America in Washington and an interfaith meeting at the nearby John Paul II Cultural Center. A number of Florida priests and deacons were invited to concelebrate Masses, and the state’s religious sisters and brothers will be well-represented at a Mass especially for them at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.
Seventeen youngsters from the Archdiocese of Miami felt fortunate to be among those who received tickets for the April 20 Mass at Yankee Stadium. The group — fifth- through eighth-grade girls who comprise the chamber choir of St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in Miami — got even more excited about their trip to New York when they learned it would also include a chance to perform at Carnegie Hall.
“I think it is important that the pope is having a Mass and event that is available for so many Americans instead of just a select few. We’re facing difficult times and having a large-scale Mass on American soil is encouraging,” said Carol Planos, who directs the choir.
She said the Carnegie Hall performance at 8 p.m. the following evening came about because the choir’s accompanist, Jacky Perez, is a friend of Giselle Rios, director of vocal studies at Barry University.
“Giselle was looking for some school choirs to perform at Carnegie Hall. We decided to take up this venture because it would be the first time anyone from our school, St. Thomas the Apostle, has had this wonderful opportunity.”
Young adults from the Diocese of Palm Beach’s campus ministry also plan some extracurricular activities while in New York for the Yankee Stadium Mass.
“There are 11 in the group — a mix of (Florida Atlantic University) students from the Boca Raton campus, Palm Beach Atlantic students in West Palm Beach and FAU students from the FAU Mac Arthur campus in Jupiter,” said Terence McCorry, director of the diocese’s campus ministry.
While in New York, the students will visit St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Ground Zero and perform ministry work, including in Midnight Run, a project to feed the homeless on the streets of New York City.
Individual parishioners who were lucky enough to get tickets to either of the two the papal Masses also planned to make the most of their trips.
Leila Souza of Tampa was first on the list for the combined 90 tickets the Diocese of St. Petersburg received for the New York and Washington Masses.
Souza received four tickets. She is bringing her daughters, ages 14 and 22, and her 73-year-old mother, Aleia Souza. Leila Souza said she started looking for ways to see the pope as soon as she found out he was coming to the United States. She learned the diocese would have tickets back in January. She often goes on pilgrimages and twice saw Pope John Paul II. She said seeing a pope is a great blessing.
“This is something you’re never going to get to see in your whole life,” Souza said. “We are very, very blessed.”
Bernice and Francis O’Grady of St. Joseph Parish in Bradenton will see the Holy Father at the April 17 Mass in Washington.
“Before I die, I wanted to see him,” Bernice O’Grady said. “It is immaterial where we sit. I just appreciate being there. It’s something I have always wanted to do my whole life.” She had taken several trips to Rome, but the Holy Father (Pope John Paul II) was not in the city at the time. When she returns from the trip, she plans on discussing what the pope said with everybody at church.
Likewise, Sister Roberta Schmidt, Diocese of Venice superintendent of schools, is eager to hear what the pope will have to say at an April 17 invitation-only meeting with Catholic educators from around the country. School superintendents Sister Joan Dawson and Susan Jones Mueller of the dioceses of Palm Beach and Pensacola-Tallahassee, respectively, and Christian Brother Richard DeMaria, executive director of Christian formation for the Archdiocese of Miami, also are looking forward to the meeting.
“I just love this pope. He’s a teacher,” Brother DeMaria said. “I think I’ve read everything he has put out. I just think (his writings) are a tour de force.”
Rabbi A. James Rudin of Sanibel has been invited to meet with Pope Benedict XVI later that day at an interreligious gathering at the Pope John Paul II Center. Rabbi Rudin is the American Jewish Committee’s senior interreligious adviser and a founder of the committee’s Saint Leo University Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies on the university campus near Tampa. Rabbi Rudin first met the pope as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 1995 at an international conference in Israel, and had 10 meetings with the late John Paul II.
Among the Florida priests who will concelebrate the Yankee Stadium Mass will be four from the Archdiocese of Miami. The Diocese of Palm Beach will send eight priests to concelebrate at Nationals Park.
Sisters and brothers from throughout Florida will attend a Mass for religious at St. Patrick’s Cathedral April 19. Msgr. Edward Moretti, vicar general of the Diocese of Venice, also pastor of Ss. Peter and Paul the Apostles, will concelebrate there.
“I’ve met six popes: Pius the XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I (only as cardinal), John Paul II and now pope Benedict XVI,” Moretti said. “Anytime you are going to meet a pope, it is still going to be exciting because of what he represents. He is the successor to Peter the Apostle. Just to be there to concelebrate with him will be very special,” he said.
ENDNOTE: Ana Rodriguez-Soto, Daniel Soñe, Linda Reeves, Peggy DeKeyser, Janet Shelton, Bob Reddy and Denise O’Toole Kelly contributed to this story.