Meeting John Paul II the Great in Grant Park

In the summer of 1979, the Vatican announced that Pope John Paul II would visit Chicago in early October. An outdoor Mass was scheduled to be held on the lakefront on Friday, October 4^th, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi. Our pastor Fr. James Dolan decided that he would use this opportunity to make it possible for me to receive a papal blessing. There was a raffle held among all the parishes in the Chicago archdiocese to determine which parishes could send a representative to receive Holy Communion from the Pope at the papal Mass. Our parish won one of the coveted places and Fr. Dolan chose my father as the parish representative with the intention that he should carry me up with him to receive Communion, and that the Pope would see me in my dad’s arms and give me a blessing. It was a great plan on paper, but in practice it proved to be impossible. First, there was the problem of security with over a million people attending the Mass, the hundred and fifty chosen to receive Communion were to be kept isolated and under tight surveillance. Because I still required frequent suctioning to clear my lungs, it was out of the question for me to sit with my father through the whole Mass. A doctor from our parish, a friend of my parents, offered to hold and care for me until Communion time and then pass me over the barrier to my father. That plan did not work because security would not allow it. In addition, the altar that was constructed for the Mass was built about three stories up from the ground so that the Pope could be seen from a great distance. The thirty steps that led up to the altar were extremely steep making it impossible for my father to carry me up without assistance so we faced the fact that getting me blessed at the Mass would be impossible. However, my parents did not give up.  A friend of my father had a friend who ran the outdoor advertising company that provided the snorkels used by the media cameras for the Mass. He came up with a plan that although, quite complicated, offered the potential of success so they decided to try it. Here is how it worked.
The Pope was staying at the cardinal’s house near Lincoln Park on the north side of the city. He was to leave Chicago and go to Washington early in the morning on the day after the Mass. He would be driven from the cardinal’s home in a motorcade headed by an echelon of motorcycle policemen and accompanied by cars filled with local dignitaries, the four or five blocks to the park and a waiting helicopter would then shuttle him to the airport where he would board his papal plane.  The route of the motorcade went two blocks from the cardinal’s house and then made a right angle turn onto the road leading into the park. The entire route was lined with policeman on both sides of the road, spaced about three feet apart. According to the plan, which had been worked out with the local police captain, my parents got me up at four o’clock in the morning and drove me into the city to the outdoor advertising company’s garage. When we arrived, we were transferred from our car to the president of the outdoor advertising company’s car, as his car was readily recognizable by the police authorities. We were then driven to the corner where the papal motorcade would make its turn, and there we waited until the Pope came out of the cardinal’s house and got into his limousine for the drive to the helicopter. Thousands and thousands of people were lining the route but the police had cleared one entire side of the road of everyone and required all the bystanders to remain on only one side of the road. They also cleared the entire corner where the papal motorcade was to turn. As the motorcade began, we were taken out of the car and positioned right on the corner with no one else there except the policemen. My mother was holding me in a seated position facing outward from her.  As the motorcade approached, the policemen linked their white-gloved hands to hold back the crowds. The Pope was standing up in his car, which had a retractable roof and was slowly proceeding along blessing the people lining the one side of the road. When he reached the corner where my mother was holding me, the motorcycle echelon leading the entire motorcade stopped according to a pre-arranged plan. The papal car stopped exactly in front of me with the Pope about two feet away from me at the most. The policemen who had been holding their hands linked together stepped aside on both sides of me and pointed with their white-gloved hands to my mother holding me in her arms.  The Pope looked directly at us, gave a sign of recognition with his head and eyes and then very slowly blessed us three times. Just as he finished, the motorcycle policemen started up again and the motorcade went on its way. After they had gone, those large Polish and Irish policemen came up to us and with tears in their eyes told us how happy they were that they had succeeded.  As for me, I could hardly wait to tell everyone that the Pope had blessed me – three times.