Buongiorno Papa Francesco!

JFRC arranged tickets for all of us students to a papal audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican today. Most Wednesdays the pope is in Rome he gives a papal audience. I think up to 10,000 people attend.

View of St. Peter's Bascilia from my seat

We left around 6am and walked down Monte Mario to the Vatican, which took about 45 minutes. Along the way we stopped at Dolce Maniera (known as the "Secret Bakery" to students as it is conveniently open 24hrs). I got two cornetti con crema (one for now and one for later) and a cappuccino for €1.40!!!

Some students left around 4:30am to get front row seats but they only ended up being a few rows ahead of us. We were probably about twelve or so rows in from the front.

my ticket to the papal audience

The audience was scheduled to start at 10am but because it was so hot it started about fifteen minutes earlier. The pope rode around uncovered in his popemobile and passed every corral where people were sitting or standing twice. He stopped a few times to kiss babies on the head and he never once stopped smiling. It's hard to get shivers when it's 90 degrees but I really did feel like I was in the presence of a great man.

The audience was mostly in Italian but cardinals read a reading from St. Paul to the Galatians in English, French, German, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, Arabic, and Slovakian (I think I got them all...)

The pope gave a speech for about ten minutes in Italian continuing his series on the importance of marriage ("matrimonio") and family ("famiglia") leading up to his visit to Philadelphia for the World Meeting of Families.

What struck me most about his speech was that he would be reading off his papers and then would look up and go off script and say a few things really animatedly which would bring immediate applause from the audience.

big screens on each side projected the pope

The papal audience finished with the entire square reciting the Our Father or "Pater Noster" in Latin (which was printed on the back of the ticket) and the pope blessed us and our families as well as any religious items we brought.

While I wish I understood more Italian, I really enjoyed the papal audience and I am sure I will look back on this day as a special experience to get to see Pope Francis, or Papa Francesco as the Italians call him, who is doing so much to guide the Catholic Church and its followers to a more tolerant understanding of the world we inhabit as one giant "famiglia."

my friend Judy's picture of the pope

my picture of the pope from pretty much the same spot...

Follow the pope on twitter here...

https://twitter.com/Pontifex