Today was the Pope's last audience. Tomorrow he resigns.
I'm sorry, I'll start earlier, when Aleth, Gracie, Mary and I departed, well before sunrise, and watched the sun come up from the bus on our way to St. Peter's. It was already riot-level crowded when we arrived and still had a couple of hours to wait until the gate opened, let alone the audience began. We had to form a tiny phalanx to make it through the gates together. We found a spot on the side aisle standing section, where the curve of the colonnade on the left, facing the basilica, turns sharply. We were right on the banister; behind us was the screen. We waited for an hour in the crowd before standing any more felt impossible and the four us plonked where we were.
It is much quieter on the ground.
We sat for maybe half an hour until we realized the crowd was closing closer and closer around us; then we struggled back up, throwing a few elbows in the process. The audience began shortly after that. The Pope drove directly by us, though (a little disappointed to say), he didn't look in our direction. He did kiss a fair number of babies, including Mr. Arrington's boy, we learned after the audience. Luckily for us there was a priest with an American group next to us who quietly translated bits of the Pope's main Italian address. At the end, he (the priest) said, "That is a leader." It is so true. What little I understood I certainly understood to be exactly what needed to be said (not to be confused with what we may want to hear); it rang with sincerity and truth. Benedict is a tiny man, he is an old man, he is a strange-looking man, but above all he is a great man.
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