The Hawk

Issue date: 4/23/08 Section: Features

Not everyone welcomed the pope to New York City.

The stadium held over 60,000 people on April 20. Everyone in attendance was entitled to receive communion.

If it's a sin to call the Pope "cute," then a significant number of people present at Yankee Stadium on Sunday for the Pope Benedict XVI's Papal Mass are in serious need of going to confession.

As he rolled his way out onto the platform at The House That Ruth Built amid shouts of "Ai, Benedicto!" and "Oh my God, it's the Pope!" it was hard not to bask in the absurdity of the situation. This was the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the Successor of Saint Peter, the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, riding in his bulletproof truck-car around the most famous baseball stadium in history, while people around me called him "such a cute old man" and snipers stared down at us from the stadium roof.

To be fair, it was anyone's guess as to what the mood in and around the stadium would be like for the Pope's visit, short of an all-out crazy nonsense. Sixty thousand of the faithful were descending on New York, all wanting to grace their eyes with a sight of His Holiness. We knew stuff was serious when the Secret Service team scaled the rickety ladder to the roof of the stadium, their duffel bags undoubtedly stuffed with scopes and bullets and bazookas to divert low-flying airplanes.

On the bus ride there, my mind raced with the possibilities of the atmosphere of the epic event-I hoped for a part-pyrotechnified fireworks show, part southern Baptist faint-fest, with the Pope lobbing his Pastoral Staff at a tuxedo-ed Harry Connick, Jr. before tipping his mitre to a hoard of young Catholic girls who would swoon and faint at the sight of him, while the Harlem Gospel Choir sang a funkified version of "Amazing Grace."

Alas, it was not to be.

Even if there was little to no chance that the Pope would tap dance to Connick Jr.'s jazzy version of "How Great Thou Art," there was no question that New York had Pope Fever. To my tummy's dismay, every hot dog vendor around the Stadium had replaced their hot dogs with Pope merchandise-T-shirts, buttons, papal flags. Luckily, many students in attendance were given a "Papal Mass: April 20, 2008, New York" hat as they departed the bus. The Jesuits know how to style for Il Papa.

Once off the bus, it took our group three hours to enter the stadium, which is not to say that there was no entertainment outside. Two sandwich board-wearing protestors hurled their doctrines at the scores of Catholics waiting to enter the stadium. With the sign "Only One God. Only One Savior. Only One Way. Jesus" hanging firmly from his neck, a man in an Indiana Jones hat hoarsely yelled "There's no need for priests anymore!" and "The pope is just a man!" A crowd member yelled back, "You're a curse! Read Galatians: 1!"

Taking advantage of the opportunity, theology major Jeff Wallace, '10, and I went to argue good-naturedly with "Indiana Jones." Needless to say, he was not the sharpest tool in the shed. When Wallace informed Jones that he was baptized as a baby, Jones responded, "How could you repent for your sins then? You were just a baby-wah, wah, wah in your poopy diaper." With no desire to be called poopy babies anymore, we left him to his poopy doctrine and got back in line.

Bomb-sniffing dogs and very angry looking red-haired Irish women greeted us as we cautiously made our way through the metal detectors. Nuns in the next row over were being forced to take off their rosary beads. Assuming it was like the airport, I took my belt off and handed it to the attendant. "Please don't take your belts off," said a nearby policeman.

The Concert of Hope preceded the Mass, and ended up being more patriotic than it was religious. Ronan Tynan of Three Tenor belted out a string-laden but bizarre version of Bruce Springsteen's 9/11 epic "Into the Fire" before closing with "God Bless America." Blind classical guitarist Jose Feliciano led the crowd in a quiet, fist-pumping version of "God Bless the U.S.A." Then they released a flight of doves. Awesome.

And then the Pope showed up. Emerging at a snail's pace from the Yankee's bullpen, Benedict wove his way along the dirt toward home plate, a deafening yell greeting him from the crowd as they spun their white and yellow papal rally towels given out at the door around their heads.

As Mass started, even I had to grant the crowd members a little leniency and note that Benedict's warm but strong Bavarian accent is nothing short of charming. God the Father becomes "God ze Fazah" and his prayers end with "forevah und evah. Amen." It really is hard not to love him.

Mass itself was beautiful, both in its scope and in execution. With parts given in English and others in Spanish, the Mass was beautifully sound-tracked by an orchestra at home plate. In what had to be a logistical nightmare, priests distributed 60,000 Eucharists in 15 minutes. And with one last cheer, he was gone, whisked away in the Mercedes Popemobile back to his Vatican lair.

Say what you want about his age or his background or his health-Benedict can captivate a crowd. As Phil Florio, S.J., told me the next day, Benedict's visit to the U.S. finally aided in his emergence from rock star/pope Pope John Paul II's shadow. Now America knows Benedicto. Maybe if his health improves, next time we can get that tap dance.

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