My memories of the Pope

When the Pope was in Ottawa, he presided over a Mass in Lebreton flats, right behind my house. seven hundred thousand people were gathered back there. I watched from my window, and had a better view than most of them. I remember to my chagrin (I wasn't Catholic at the time, so I did not know better), ascending the altar structure one night a few weeks later and pretending to be the Pope giving a homily in front of my friends.

However, I was not completely disrespectful. I also stood beside the Rideau canal a day before the Mass when the Pope went by in an aquatic version of his Pope-mobile, a Pope-boat. His deft nod to my city's culture (downtown life revolves around the canal) taught me something valuable that I also learned in Cursillo - the importance of meeting people where they already are. Our archbishop, Marcel Gervais, recalls that whenever he met the Pope, the Pope always reminisced about that boat ride.