A lot has been said and written about how great a personality the Holy Father Benedict XVI was. And especially now, on this sad occasion, even more words will be spoken and written. At this point we can recall his extraordinary fidelity to the deposit of faith, which he guarded as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and then as Pope.
We will remember and admire how he was able to speak about extremely complicated things in a simple and clear way, understandable for every human being. This is his intellectual greatness, or simply talent, or a gift from heaven, which, unfortunately, is not given to all professors. In his life, for this fidelity to Christ and his Church, he had to suffer many unjust accusations and harmful opinions.
On this occasion I would like to mention what a cordial person the late Pope Benedict was in direct contacts between people. As a student in Rome, I happened to meet him, Cardinal Ratzinger at that time, walking from his apartment in Piazza Leonina to the building of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I always greeted him, to which he replied, smiling warmly, even though he did not know me at all. Later, when I started working in the Secretariat of State, I went with my father Józef, in English Josef, to the Wednesday General Audience on June 23, 2010.
At that time, we were granted the privilege of the so-called ‘baciamano’, that is, after the official part of the audience we could approach and greet the Holy Father. For my dad it was the first trip in his life to Rome and abroad in general Polish. Dad always said that the most beautiful in the world is our Małogoszcz, my hometown, and he does not feel any need to make long journeys. But to meet the Pope himself was something else. I thought, then, that we would come up, say hello, take a picture of us and that would be the end of the “baciamano”.
When we approached and greeted me, to my surprise, Pope Benedict began to ask my father what his name was, what region Polish he came from, how many children he had, if he liked him in Rome, etc. At the same time, he was smiling warmly all the time, and his voice sounded simply kind. We felt as if we had visited a distant relative, with whom we often wrote and looked at him in pictures, and only now, years later, we finally met him.
These joyful moments, we were interrupted by His Excellency Archbishop Georg Gänswein, who told me in a quiet voice, “unfortunately Monsignor is time to finish, because others are waiting for their turn”. For Pope Benedict, every person he met was a gift and treated everyone with a priestly heart. Whenever I later met on the occasion of various papal ceremonies, I always saw this smile and warmth when he addressed the people around him. The last time I saw him without that joyful smile was on February 28, 2013, in the courtyard of St. Damasus in the Vatican, when he left the Vatican and went to Castel Gandolfo.
Together with other employees of the Secretariat of State, clergy and laity, I stood silently in the courtyard, watching Pope Benedict get into the car. There was a painful silence that was difficult to express. He greeted the popes in his hands in silence. Tears flowed from many eyes. And now they are flowing again.
We said goodbye to the old year and said goodbye to the late Benedict with prayer, entrusting our past, present and future to Divine Providence.
