Every time I walk down the path of Conciliation and I see Saint Peter in the background, I still find it hard to believe that someone I know so well, and in turn knows me so well, occupies the chair of Peter in Rome. After avoiding the rigorous controls and entering Santa Marta where he chose to live, I cross a silent marble hall, a guard accompanies me to the elevator, we go up to the third floor, and then another guard accompanies me to the door of his room that is ajar, and there you hear: “Come in.” The pomp is over, he is sitting in his loose cassock without the sash, he receives with the usual affection and is generous with his time, we chat for a long time, we catch up with everyone’s life, not the public one that everyone knows, domestic, health and friends, he keeps his irony and sense of humor intact, he is one of those who laughs heartily. I ask him if he doesn’t feel overwhelmed by so many problems and he tells me that he sleeps like a log without taking anything. “The Holy Spirit must give me a kind of unconsciousness.” I ask him what he treasures most in his heart and he tells me that his heart is a storehouse full of things, like a collector of people’s gestures and words.
It is a relaxed chat, there is no cell phone or person to interrupt, not because he is not very busy, but because the other is important to him. For me, he is also important, not what he does or what he thinks about Argentina or politics, we talk about God, about prayer, about what he feels about old age and limitations. After an hour I looked at the clock and told him: “Okay, I’m leaving you”, and he told me: “No, I have half an hour more, so now you’re not leaving…”. He had brought my microphones in case he recorded something for my podcast on Spotify (“Marco tu semana”), I proposed it to him and he just took a trip. The talk continued with the same tone of intimacy. It did a lot of people good to know the other side, that of the human being behind the character, a dear friend, who lives in a small room even though he has a palace at his disposalwho did not lose closeness or empathy and who continues to surprise me every birthday with his phone call.
*President of the Institute of Interreligious Dialogue.
by Presbyter Guillermo Marco*
