Matt
and I were supposed to meet at St. Peter's around 5pm. But Matt,
following Italian custom, called my cellphone to tell me he'd be
roughly 90 minutes late.
Thankfully, I bumped into two guys who used to
air my tv show on Boston Catholic TV: Jay Fadden and Monsignor Paul
McInerny. So they invited me to hang out with them; we walked up to the
front of the piazza, found seats 8 rows from the front, and sat around.
It was nice being bored with other people for a change.
The smoke was supposed to come out around 7pm.
But suddenly, at about 5:50pm, smoke started flowing out. It was white.
No, seriously, it looked WHITE!
Now since we'd all been burned (literally and figuratively) by the
puffs of smoke before, we tried not to get too excited. And anyway, it
was tough
to see the smoke against the clouds in the sky.
Thankfully, John Paul II had instituted a new rule in electing a Pope:
if the smoke was white, the giant bell of St. Peter's would ring. But
the bell wasn't ringing...?
So was the smoke really white!?
No one knew what was going on - so I looked
back at the crowd, to see what
they thought.
Look at the priest on the
right. A classic Italian talking with
his hands, saying, "Come on, it looks white! Where's the bell?"
And then suddenly...the bell tolled. And the crowd went wild.
Unfortunately, the bell tolled because it was just 6pm. Another false
alarm.
But the white smoke continued to pour out!
And finally, at 6:05pm, the giant bell really did begin to toll. The
white smoke
really WAS white smoke. And finally, we let loose. We really do have a
Pope! Habemus Papam! People were yelling it in every language in the
piazza. And around the world.
There was laughing. Singing. Tears of joy. And, I have to admit, some
tears
of
sadness. Because we loved John Paul II, and we had just said good-bye
to the
man who, for many of us, was the only Pope we ever knew.
But now, within the hour, another successor to St. Peter would come
onto that balcony.
It was a wave of emotion.
But the excitement was real. The Holy Spirit had spoken. And we
were ready to welcome our new Holy Father.
