Our then-pastor, Leigh Lehocky, welcomes Pope John Paul II to St. Peter’s on Sept. 11, 1987. Sadly, I missed this part.
In a comment on a previous post, Doug T. asked me to address the death of Jim Holderman. I did, but it’s one of those things that I know so much about that it’s hard to tell whether what I said would make sense to someone who didn’t live through the same things. So I emailed Doug to ask whether I had adequately addressed his question.
Doug wrote back and mused further on the subject, at one point saying, “Remember when Holderman brought the Pope to Columbia? A really big deal…” He also mentioned something about all the hype about how Columbia would be immobilized, and how that scared people away (Doug included), so that there was just a pitiful few lining his motorcade route…
And I replied as follows…
Oh yeah, I definitely remember the Pope’s visit.
I learned about it the day I came to Columbia to interview for the job of governmental affairs editor at The State. It was like the beginning of July 1987. I’m thinking Tom McLean told me about it over breakfast, which was how I started the long day of interviews.
I also learned that in the next few months Billy Graham would be having a Crusade here. I thought, “Seems like God’s trying to tell me something. Maybe I ought to come here, too.”
Sorry about scaring everybody away like that. I kind of thought my fellow editors were overblowing that, but I was the new guy, and widely regarded as the “Knight Ridder spy,” so who was going to listen to me?
We planned for it like the Normandy invasion. It was the first time I ever used a mobile phone. It was a huge bag phone. I was asked to take it home with me, sometime before the day the Pope came, and try it out. While stopped at the traffic light at Huger and Blossom, I called home and said, “Guess what I’m doing! I’m calling you from the car!”
We got the phones because we assumed our reporters at the Horseshoe and even at the stadium — which was right next to the newspaper building — would be immobilized by the crowds, and this would be the only way we could communicate.
So, you know, we kind of overprepared.
We editors thought we couldn’t leave the building, so I wasn’t able to be there when the Pope visited my church, St. Peters.
Some of us did go up on the roof — only time I was ever up there — and watch the Popemobile approaching the stadium. Couldn’t see much, but that was exciting…
I guess, now that I’ve typed all that, I should post it on the blog…
The huge plaque just inside the front door of St. Peter’s — a few feet from where Msgr. Lehocky welcomed the pontiff.
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His Holiness visited your church and you missed it? That’s a bummer.
Maybe you’ll catch him next time. : )
It’s incredible Holderman pulled that off.
Yeah, that’s why a lot of people defended him for a bunch of years, near as I could tell…
I was a student at USC when he visited. To get into the Horseshoe to see him speak, you had to have a little sticker on your student ID. I still have that ID with the sticker around somewhere. I got the sticker, but chose to skip it. Instead, I bought a small diamond, drove to Charleston, and proposed to the woman whom has been my bride for 33+ years.
I made the right decision.
Now that was one hot Pope
That Frances guy looks like a mule
Remember The Beat on Assembly…