AmericanPapist Comments
I donīt like it. Itīs the Popeīs call, of course, and I respect his decision, but I think in the long run it can do harm to the decorum of the Papacy.
In the future, we can have a pope being "forced" by the circumnstances to give an interview to deal with a certain crisis, or a Pope on Oprah, Larry King, or David Letterman.
Thatīs why Queen Elizabeth II, the King of Spain, etc, donīt ever give interviews. I believe that the informal interviews recorded in planes during Papal Apostolic Jorneys were more than sufficient. This is a bit too much exposure.
It is something that is lost in the aura of mistique, of awe, of respectfull distance, that must surround Godīs representative.
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My parish priest (Mons. José Roberto Davellard) once told me that, several years ago, he, a few months after his ordination, and some other priests of our Archdiocese that were in pilgrimage in Rome went with then Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro, Cardinal Sales, to meet Pope John Paul II. Cardinal Sales, elevated to the Sacred College by Paul VI, had of course met with the Pope several times. They were all in a room in the Papal Apartment waiting for the Pontiff to arrive. All were standing and Cardinal Sales then knealt and began praying. After a few minutes he turned his head facing the priests that were with him and those were still standing, chatting in a low voice with each other, and then the Cardinal said: "Are you really going to meet the Holy Father without praying first???" My parish priest told that he, who in the date of the meeting with the pope was a recently ordained priest, was there standing, looking at the furniture, as if meeting the Pope were not a spiritual event. And Cardinal Sales, who had easy access to the Pontiff, and who had been with Him several times, was there kneeling, praying, concious that, even if he and the Pope were somewhat close, he was still meeting Christīs Vicar on Earth. Then the priests somewhat ashamed knealt and began praying, until they were called to the room where the pope was.
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