That title is a euphemism used to explain that someone has converted to Catholicism. However, I’m using it because I actually got to cross the Tiber on my way to Vatican City.
I took a quick side trip down to Rome, my first. The Eternal City. A cross roads of history. I wasn’t there very long. In fact, I saw next to nothing except the main event I came to town for: Mass with Pope Benedict XVI at St. Peter’s Basilica. A Chicago friend, Br. Kevin O'Malley, happened to be in town as part of a larger European trip. He invited me to attend a Papal Mass today. I jumped on a train and met him at the main house of the Passionists, an order of priests within the Catholic Church founded by St. Paul of the Cross. Turns out Br. Kevin was friends with Bishop Paul Boyle, a Passionist who was the first bishop assigned to the Diocese of Mandeville in Jamaica and who founded the Mission Society with whom I volunteered there. The Almighty doth work in mysterious ways.
This was the second time in my life I have attended Mass said by the Pope, the first being with John Paul II in Denver in 1993. No big questions, revelations or musings on this one. Just a fun side trip. Now it’s back to school and a mountain of work.
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