People

By Guy D. Garcia

Somebody up there must love nbc. After three uninterrupted years of being unable to best ABC's Good Morning America, NBC's Today retook the morning ratings lead for two weeks. Last week should turn out to be the third in a row, since Today pulled off something of a programming miracle. Responding to the network's shrewdly written (in Polish) request, Pope John Paul II gave NBC extraordinary, although not unprecedented, access to the Vatican as part of the show's week of live broadcasts from Rome. The Pope extended a personal welcome to the NBC crew at his general audience and expressed his hope that the media exposure in the U.S. during Holy Week would "bear much spiritual fruit." After a semiprivate Mass under Michelangelo's frescoes in the rarely seen Pauline Chapel, the Pope met briefly with Today Hosts Jane Pauley and Bryant Gumbel, both of whom asked the Pontiff to bless their children. Also present was Pauley's usually camera-shy husband, Cartoonist Garry Trudeau, who afterward remarked, with a trace of awe in his voice, "He was not like somebody working the crowd at all. He really greeted each one of us individually."