The paradox of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s trip here to meet later this week with Pope John Paul II goes something like this:
Bernardin, who looked happy and healthy as he posed for cameras Wednesday against a backdrop of billowy clouds and the massive dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, has come to talk with the pope about his terminal illness.
The pope, who looked stiff and pained a few minutes later as his open popemobile moved through a sea of reaching hands for his weekly audience in St. Peter’s Square, continues to maintain that he is fundamentally healthy.
Their stances in the face of infirmity represent two different images to the world of the Roman Catholic Church–and perhaps the constraints of their respective roles. In the case of the pope, his conduct might be interpreted as a determination to emphasize the strength of the church. Bernardin, in contrast, has chosen to show the humanity of church leaders and the complicated struggle to accept death with a calm that grows out of faith.
Bernardin arrived Tuesday in Rome in anticipation of a private meeting with the pope, possibly Thursday or Friday. On Wednesday, the cardinal, who is staying at the Villa Stritch, a residence for American priests, held the only public event of his trip so far, a photo opportunity.
He welcomed the media and said he was glad to be in Rome before officials politely made it clear that the gathering was not a news conference.
Just a few blocks away, the pope was preparing for his public audience, which draws tens of thousands of visitors to the Vatican. And though the pope does not often talk openly about his health, some observers believe he answers persistent rumors that his health is failing with physically demanding events like these protracted audiences.
On this day, the pope used 14 languages to bless and exhort the faithful who had gathered in St. Peter’s Square. He then embraced hundreds of people lingering on the stone steps of the basilica for 2 1/2 hours.
As often reported in recent years, the pope’s speech was slightly slurred. He had a cough and appeared to be in pain when he walked.
Yet his endurance Wednesday, after successfully delivering a dozen speeches and homilies during a dizzying four-day tour of France last weekend, has helped to quell the latest flurry of rumors that he is hiding dire health problems. And so the issue may lie, until his surgery for chronic inflammation of the appendix next month . . . or until the next time he slips or misses a sentence in his prepared text.
Bernardin and the pope are men of the same generation, friends growing old together. Both men have become the objects of intense scrutiny, not only for their positions in the church, but because they are strong leaders who have come to personify their ministry.
Yet nowhere is their difference in style more obvious than in their discussion–or silence–on their physical health.
Bernardin, whose belief in discussion of matters big and small has become a trademark of his tenure as archbishop of Chicago, publicly announced his latest diagnosis of cancer as soon as he could notify family, friends and the media. He answered all questions, encouraged reporters to talk to his oncologist, then answered many of the same questions in greater depth in the days that followed.
John Paul II offers only tidbits of information on his health. His trip to the hospital in August was announced by the Vatican Press Office only after it had been independently discovered and reported; his plans for surgery were announced only after unsupported rumors of various ailments–from cancer to mental instability–reached a fever pitch, appearing in several European newspapers.
It is a familiar game of cat-and-mouse for veteran Vatican observers, who have watched sparse information mushroom into frenzied speculation over and over. Only after the fact is the truth usually known, and then it is sometimes in doubt.
The most recent wave of concern began last Christmas, when the pontiff became sick while saying mass. The Vatican chalked that up to a “fever” or mild infection. Officials said the same thing after a similar occurrence in April, and again immediately after his hospitalization for tests in August.
But this month during a papal trip to Hungary, Joachin Navarro-Valls, the pope’s spokesman (who happens to be a physician, though not the pope’s) made some broad comments about “extra-pyramidal” neurological disorders. Some reporters interpreted that as a hint that the pope has Parkinson’s disease, a neurological condition that would explain a persistent shaking in the pope’s left hand.
Then, on Sept. 14, the Vatican Press Office issued a page-long announcement of the appendix surgery. It was unusually detailed for such an announcement and began with specific reference to the “news, suppositions and rumors that have been spread in recent weeks.” Still, the filtered words of the pope’s personal doctor only fanned suspicions that something more was wrong.
Despite the breathless predictions, however, the pope went to France, capping the trip by saying a three-hour mass in the cold outdoors. Again, on Wednesday, he seemed to pick up energy as the ceremony went on.
“There’s something that’s not right, but he’s clearly not at death’s door,” said Philip Pullella, Vatican correspondent for Reuters news service.
For those who have become used to Bernardin’s highly public, first-hand declarations about his own health, the Vatican’s eye-dropper approach to information about the pope’s health may seem unusual.
But around the Vatican, it is Bernardin’s approach, not the pope’s, that surprises people. Observers cite a long tradition of secrecy surrounding the condition of popes.
Nor is that tradition limited to the church. The Kremlin often denied any reports of illness in Soviet leaders until after they had died. In the United States, the medical condition of presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt were shielded from the public for months and years on end.
But there may be more to John Paul II’s reticence about his health than habit. In the newly released biography “His Holiness,” authors Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame and Vatican journalist Marco Politi call John Paul II “the global master of symbols.”
One of the symbols the pope used with great effectiveness, they note, was the image of himself as the mountain-climbing, downhill-skiing pontiff–a man with the energy and strength to reinvigorate the church, to carry it forward. His arduous schedule and devotion to travel also bolster that image, while ill health might undermine it.
In a more overt, and entirely obverse way, Bernardin has used his health in his ministry as well. In several recent interviews, the cardinal has said that he wants to use his impending death to help teach others how to die. The way to do that, he has said, is to talk about his personal journey publicly.
Bernardin’s approach seems to have struck a chord, not only in Chicago, but 3,000 miles away. As the cardinal departed the North American College, the pontifical seminary for Americans in Rome where Bernardin held the photo opportunity Wednesday, second-year seminarian Ryan Lewis was waiting to shake his hand. Lewis, from the Omaha diocese, had never met Bernardin before, but he had been following the news from overseas.
“In these last few events, he’s really shown his sanctity,” Lewis said. “It’s always been there, but now we can see it.”
