Ordeal of a Pilgrim

THE PAPACY

Even his most ardent admirers grant that until now Pope Paul has been over shadowed by the memory of his predecessor. Shy, introspective and apparently indecisive at times, Paul seemed to lack the warmth and humanity that made John XXIII so universally loved.

But last week, on a precedent-breaking trip to the Holy Land, his impressive character emerged with clarity. Time and again the frail, 66-year-old Pontiff found himself engulfed by riotous mobs in an almost carnival mood that--in all innocence--threatened his life. It was a severe test. By meeting it with unfaltering patience and good humor, Paul VI appeared before the world as more than merely an intellectual pastor; he stood forth as a man of intense inward dedication, piety and exemplary courage.

Perhaps the Pope suspected that his simple "pious journey" to the shrines commemorating events in Jesus' life might turn into the kind of ordeal usually reserved for Hollywood stars and winning politicians. In preparation for the trip, he canceled most of his public appearances last week, spent three prayerful days in retreat. On the day of his flight to Jordan, he rose before dawn to meditate and celebrate Mass. By 7:30, he had said his farewell to the cardinals of the Roman Curia, and settled down in his black Mercedes limousine for the 16-mile trip to Leonardo da Vinci airport.

Convicts & Jets. Church bells tolled a greeting as the papal entourage passed along the streets of Rome. Despite the tight schedule that Vatican officials had toyed and fussed with all week, the Pope took the journey at his own pace. Once he stopped to greet a delegation of convicts from Regina Coeli prison, another time to bless a crowd gathered in the village of Acilia. At the windswept airport the Pope shook hands with a platform-full of dignitaries, including Italian President Antonio Segni and Premier Aldo Moro. Clearly enjoying his venture, the Pope blessed the crowd (tough old Socialist Pietro Nenni, Italy's Vice Premier, conspicuously refused to cross himself) before taking his seat in the Vatican-chartered Alitalia DC-8 jet.

It was a bitter, blustery, cloud-darkened afternoon when the papal plane arrived at Amman. Because fog and overcast had briefly threatened to divert the flight to Beirut, Jordan's King Hussein, a first-rate pilot, went to the control tower to supervise the landing. Guns barked out a 21-gun salute as the Pope stepped out of the plane; girls from a Roman Catholic school curtsied and offered him bouquets of flowers. In his deliberate, Sandhurst English, the tiny Moslem king welcomed the Pope to Jordan and hailed him as "a great leader in the service of humanity and the service of peace." Answering in English, Paul once more described his trip as "a humble pilgrimage to the sacred places made holy by the birth, the life, the passion and death of Jesus Christ, and by his glorious Resurrection. At each of these venerable shrines we shall pray for that peace which Jesus left to his disciples."

That day, the Pope found no peace himself. King Hussein had tried to provide adequately for the Pope's safety, and an entire brigade of tough Arab legionnaires had been summoned to reinforce police and national guardsmen. But it soon proved not enough. On the 54-mile drive from Amman to Jerusalem, the Pope stopped on the banks of the Jordan, where Jesus had been baptized by John the Baptist. Photographers squirmed through the guarding cordons and jostled the Pope as he walked from his car to the river bank. Hovering over the scene, as a kind of airborne royal patrolman, was Hussein, at the controls of a Jordanian helicopter.

Unexpected Realities. When he entered Jerusalem, the Pope had intended to deliver a few words of greeting to the ancient, holy--and bitterly divided--city. He never got the chance, for the Pope--accustomed to the Byzantine orderliness of Vatican protocol--was brutally brought face to face with some unexpected realities of modern life. When the papal entourage wheeled into the square outside the Damascus Gate, a wave of humanity broke through the guards and surrounded the Pope's car. Newsmen, predictably, were in the lead, but priests, nuns, children, legionnaires and tourists were swept along by the tide. For nearly 30 minutes, the mob blocked the way--cheering so loudly that startled Israelis even risked snipers' bullets by peering across the well-guarded boundary between the two sectors of the city.

Just before he reached the gate, the Pope squeezed out of his car and was immediately hemmed in against his guards by nearly 5,000 people. It was a friendly mob--roaring out "Long live the Pope" in a score of languages, pelting him with cologne-scented water from the Jordan--but the tough legionnaires treated it like an Israeli attack force. Swinging rifle butts and even olive branches snatched from waiting children, the soldiers tried to clear a path so the Pope could walk in prayer along the shabby, bazaar-littered Via Dolorosa, venerated as the street along which Jesus carried his cross to Calvary. The Pope twice stopped to meditate briefly at a station of the Cross and once slipped inside a convent for 25 minutes of rest and prayer, while outside, his security guards attempted to control the screaming, pushing mob. As they hurried the Pope toward the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, his Vatican plainclothes bodyguards openly cursed the crowd. But not Paul: an island of serenity in an ocean of turmoil, he smiled gently as he bobbed along, blessing the mass of onlookers.

"I Can't Take Any More." But Paul found little respite at the Holy Sepulcher--a jumbled, decaying basilica that, like so many of the other holy places in Israel and Jordan, has throughout its history been the focus of countless jurisdictional squabbles among Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Copts and Armenians. Donning white liturgical vestments, the Pope celebrated Mass upon an austere portable altar set up near the place designated as the tomb in which Jesus' body lay between his death and Resurrection. The church, like the streets outside, was jammed to capacity.

During the ceremonies, an aged Franciscan bearing a container of holy water was pummeled so badly that he collapsed and was carried off murmuring: "I can't take any more." A fire started in the power lines brought in to provide additional illumination for TV cameras, electricity was switched off, and the Pope had to finish his Mass by the light of candles alone.

Paul seemed unbothered by the shouting and jostling around him; he recited the prayers rapidly and intently--and some observers noted tears rolling down his cheeks. After the Mass, the Pope entered the tomb to meditate silently for a few mintues.

It was long past nightfall when the Pope at last escaped to the relative quiet of the Apostolic Delegate's residence in Jerusalem for supper and a few moments of rest. There he received courtesy calls from Jerusalem's Armenian Patriarch Yeheshe Dederian and Orthodox Patriarch Benediktos I, who discussed arrangements for the Pope's meeting with Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople after the trip to shrines in Israel. In a departure from his schedule, the Pope returned the call on Benediktos--marking the first time in many centuries that a bishop of Rome had been the guest of an Orthodox patriarch.

The Ultimate Hope. By his own personal dignity, courage and unquestioned sincerity, Pope Paul had brought some semblance of order and meaning to a day marred by the behavior of newsmen, the crowds and bully-boy Jordanian troops. But it was at the last station of Pope Paul's personal Via Dolorosa that the ultimate hope of the trip--the breaking down of the barriers that have for so long separated Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy--emerged from a final scene of confusion.

The Pope's last stop Saturday night, appropriately, was the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus had prayed before the onset of his Passion. Here, still another surging crowd blocked the entrance to the Church of All Nations. A bazooka-bearing Jordanian armored car bulldozed a path, and four burly legionnaires, rifles clasped across their chests, guided the Pope to safety. As had happened before, many of the Pope's retinue were separated from him by the mob: this time, Eugene Cardinal Tisserant, 79, was whacked over the head with an umbrella as he staggered through the melee, shouting "I'm a cardinal! I'm a cardinal!"

Inside the church, the Pope led the congregation of 1,500 in a special 40-minute service of prayer, in which priests chanted the Gospels in six languages. Then the Pope moved among the guests, shaking hands and giving them his blessing. Suddenly, one Greek Orthodox prelate knelt and kissed the papal ring. Pope Paul, in a spontaneous brotherly gesture, lifted the bishop to his feet and joyously kissed him on both cheeks. The church echoed with cheers.

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