Hey everybody,
Twenty years ago this month — for 10 days in February 2005 — the world watched Rome’s Policlinico Gemelli hospital, as Pope John Paul II fought the flu.
He was hospitalized on February 1 that year, with breathing problems — spasms in his swollen throat. The pontiff spent the next 10 days in and out of critical condition.
By Feb. 10 he was well enough to go home. to the Apostolic Palace at St. Peter’s. But whatever his doctors tried there, he seemed still to fight for every breath.
He had been sick before — and had survived a bullet — but that time felt different. The Church knew what was coming for the Holy Father.
On Feb. 24, he was back at the Gemelli, where he got an emergency tracheotomy to aid his breathing, with a breathing tube inserted into his windpipe.
After that operation, the pope remained at the hospital for weeks. Crowds thronged the square below his 10th floor window, where he greeted them at the window, without being able to speak, on two Sundays in a row.
John Paul II went home from the hospital March 13. Knowing he was there, thousands of people stood in St. Peter’s Square, night after night, praying the rosary, holding signs and candles, chanting their affection for the pontiff:
From the Spaniards, Hispanics, and Latinos: “Juan Pablo, Segundo, te quiere todo el mundo!”
From the Americans: “John Paul II, we love you! John Paul II, we love you!”
From the more reserved English, apparently: “John Paul the Second, you’re highly reckoned.”
As for the Italians, well, they just chanted his name, Giovanni Paolo, as they clapped out a rhythm to show their affection.
People craned their necks to his small window above the square, wondering if the pope would make an appearance, wanting to feel close to him.
On Easter Sunday, he appeared at his apartment window, shaking and weakened. He couldn’t read the words of an apostolic blessing. As thousands watched, and as Catholics cried in the square, the pontiff silently offered his urbi et orbi blessing — to the city, and to the world.
Four days later, his fever spiked. His body began to collapse. Masses were offered in his room.
On April 2, the pope lay feverish in his bed. As the afternoon sun streamed in, he spoke in his native Polish: “Pozwól mi pójść do Domu Ojca"
“Let me go to the House of the Father.”
As darkness fell, a single candle was lighted in the room — a Polish custom for those sitting vigil at a deathbed.
Mass was offered. And just before 10:00pm, hours before Divine Mercy Sunday began, Pope St. John Paul II was dead. He returned to the house of the Father, as 70,000 people prayed outside his window.
—
Those weeks were the last time the Church kept vigil with a dying pope.
Benedict XVI died well after he resigned from office, and with far less acute warning, there were just a few days of waiting.
For his part, Francis is thought now to be towards the end — Cardinal Timothy Dolan said Sunday that Francis is “probably close to death,” and the chaplain at the Gemelli urged prayers of “hope against all hope.”
But nobody really knows, and reading the tea leaves of cardinals and hospital chaplains isn’t much to go on.
Perhaps he will recover, as John Paul II did during that February 20 years ago. But that might also be brief. Whether it’s days, or weeks, or more than a month, it seems probably that Francis is nearing the end.
Keep up the prayers. Death brings its own temptations: to despair, to fear of the unknown, to a sense of self-loathing for mistakes long past. Dying well isn’t easy. If it’s his time, let’s pray the pope has every consolation and strength.
And if it’s not yet his moment, let’s pray for the pope’s closeness to Jesus in the exercise of his sacred office.
The news
In fact, Michelle La Rosa on Monday chronicled a formidable roster of popes who survived brushes with death — including Pius XII, Clement VII who fled through a secret passage, and St. Peter himself.
The pope called Russia’s war against Ukraine “a painful and shameful occasion for all of humanity” — surprising language for a pontiff who has previously urged a negotiated peace, and been criticized for seeming unduly circumspect about Russian aggression.
So something seems to have changed. In an analysis, Ed asks whether the pope’s change is a response to the accelerated Trump timeline negotiating peace in Ukraine.
Francis and Meloni don’t see eye-to-eye on a lot, especially given the PM’s favor of strict immigration policies in Italy, and the pontiff’s view that countries should be broadly receptive to would-be immigrants.
But despite their differences, the two seem to have formed a personal friendship — and that might have impact on Meloni’s engagement with the rest of the Italian episcopate.
It’s called Razzouk’s, and it’s run by the Coptic Christian Razzouk family. Filipe d’Avvillez spent some time talking to them.
Thanks to the generosity of the Knights of Columbus, St. Bernard’s School of Theology and Ministry invites anyone anywhere to audit one summer course entirely free (a $375 value). Learn more about topics such as St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, Introduction to Biblical Studies, 20th Century Holiness, and more. Application deadline for Summer Session I is April 25th. Learn more here!
Speaking of Jerusalem: The Orthodox Armenian Patriarchate in the city is pushing back against an alleged property tax debt which the patriarchate says is “astronomical and illegal” — and a land grab against the church on behalf of the Jerusalem government.
The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, led by Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, has joined with other Christian leaders to push back, calling the alleged debt “legally dubious and morally unacceptable.”
Amid tensions in Jerusalem for Christian communities, leaders have banded together to avoid a similar fate. And in fact, they’ve pushed back on tax claims they say are illegal before.
All of that is happening amid an increase in the number and intensity of attacks against Christians in Jerusalem, and rising tensions between Christian communities and Israeli authorities.
The court found that Mincione’s engagement with the Vatican “fell below the standards… that could be described as good faith conduct,” but that — in its view — Mincione appears not to have broken any laws.
Mincione, the investment manager convicted in the Vatican financial crimes trial, told The Pillar Friday that he is 100% satisfied” with the verdict. You can read about the outcome, and Mincione’s reaction, here.
But there is an open question for Vatican-finance watchers. Mincione says he’s 100% satisfied with the outcome of his suit. But should he be? What does it mean for his criminal conviction in the Vatican? Ed Condon breaks that down, with an analysis that asks a basic question: Who won in the British court, Mincione or the Vatican?
Babies!
Two baby updates for Pillar readers — please note that they are not of equal importance.
First — and decidedly less important — attentive readers will recall that back in December, I told you about Wisdom, a 74-year-old Layson albatross, the oldest known wild bird in the world.
I was excited, you’ll recall, because at 74, Wisdom had laid a fertile egg, and was expecting a chick.
Well, guess what, readers?
Meet Baby Wisdom:
The little chick was born in Hawaii a few weeks back, in early February.
You can watch videos of him here. But you’ll notice, there’s no indication of the chick’s name. But he’s the child of Wisdom itself — surely we at the Pillar can come up with a good name for him.
Make suggestions in the comments, and Ed and I will pick a winner on the podcast this week.
And by the way, the presence of the bird video means that some U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service guy sent an email to the federal Office of Personnel Management, explaining that what he did last week was take videos of a baby bird and tweet them.
I hope they give that guy a commendation.
The other baby news is decidedly more important.
If you would, please pray in thanksgiving with us at The Pillar for the gift of new life. Our managing editor Michelle La Rosa had a beautiful baby boy last night.
She’ll be on maternity leave until sometime in May, I guess (we’re not exactly exacting managers, Ed and I).
Do pray for her.
Unfortunately, much as I begged, pleaded, and cajoled, Michelle has opted not to name her baby through a Pillar reader naming contest. We all make choices, I guess. Sorry if you were counting on it.
The search for America’s gold
President Donald Trump and factotum Elon Musk are headed to Fort Knox, they’ve told reporters this week “to see if the gold is there.”
“Cause maybe somebody stole the gold,” Trump said Monday. “Tons of gold.”
That remark comes after Musk began asking last week whether the country’s gold — supposed to be in the U.S. Bullion Depository — is “still there,” or whether it’s been “stolen from Fort Knox.”
There is $436 billion worth of gold in Fort Knox, according to the federal government, which — by my count — would amount to 334,772 gold bars.
Now, Trump’s own treasury secretary says the gold is all at the fort, and so does everybody else who’s seen it.
So why does the president say it’s not there? And why the road trip to Kentucky? And how would any burglar lift the gold from the world’s most secure facility?
Well, who can say, really?
But if Trump and Musk want to solve a missing gold mystery, I’ve got a better one for ‘em.
A British court opened trial Monday against three alleged thieves, who are charged with stealing a solid gold toilet from a mansion in the English countryside.
The commode — which actually functioned — was a piece of conceptual art, entitled “America,” and designed to satirize, I guess, our nation’s extraordinary wealth and the fabled aesthetic preferences of our 45th and 47th president.
It weighed 216 lbs and was worth $3.5 million back in 2019, when a team of burglars allegedly drove through a gate, smashed through a window, disconnected the toilet from the water line, and hauled out of there.
They got the job done in under five minutes, prosecutors say. The effort must have left them flushed.
At any rate, prosecutors charge that the thieves broke the toilet into pieces and tried to sell it, but I think that story is crap. The pieces haven’t been recovered, which means that “America,” the toilet, is still floating out there somewhere.
After years of searching, British police are obviously wiped by the endeavor. So who better to take a crack at it than Trump and Musk?
This is the duo-buddy comedy America has been waiting for. And I daresay, we can’t hold out much longer.
Please be assured of our prayers, and please pray for us. We need it.
And let’s all pray for the pope.
Yours in Christ,
JD Flynn
Editor-in-chief
The Pillar
Editor’s note: 20 years ago. Pope St. John Paul II died 20 years ago. Not 25, as this newsletter initially said. I am mortified. We miss Michelle already.
