By Ana Rodriguez Soto - Florida Catholic newspaper
Photographer: COURTESY PHOTO
Image Michaela Ecker posted on her Facebook page July 27. She is a St. Thomas Aquinas theology teacher and one of the chaperones of the school group taking part in World Youth Day. They were among the first to see Pope Francis riding through Krakow's streets after his arrival in Poland.
KRAKOW, Poland | Their gamble paid off: St. Thomas Aquinas High School students were the first of Miami’s pilgrims to glimpse Pope Francis after he arrived in Poland July 27.
After attending the morning catechesis led by Archbishop Thomas Wenski, the Aquinas group lingered in St. Joseph Church, looking at the art. They took a tram to Wawel Castle to avail themselves of the lunches given to pilgrims in exchange for vouchers.
They ate under a shade tree and decided, because of the crowds, to go straight from there via tram to the Tauron Center for the concert featuring Matt Maher and other Catholic singers.
On their way to the tram, however, they noticed a heightened police presence, barricaded streets, and a Catholic Television crew parked on a side street. Adding two and two, Michael McCormack, a theology professor at St. Thomas and one of four group chaperones, had to decide whether to stay or to leave.
It was hot. The days have been long and tiring. There was no way to know how long they would have to wait for Pope Francis — even if they would be able to see him, and assuming he would pass by.
“We got all the kids together and said, 'This is your decision,' ” McCormack said. “ 'We can go back to the hotel area. They’ve got barricades up and there are cops around but no one can tell for sure. We may not see him.' ”
The 23 students took a vote. “Everyone wanted to come back here,” he said, referring to the area around their hotel, which is within walking distance of Wawel Castle.
And they did. There were crowds around but still some gaps along the barricades.
“We just told the kids go find a spot,” McCormack said.
A helicopter flew overhead. Then five or six police cars with sirens blaring — then a line of blacks cars traveling fast.
False alarm. No pope.
McCormack noticed a Polish couple with a baby nearby. “Oh, God,” he thought, if Pope Francis does pass by, “let him see the baby.”
Ten minutes later, another helicopter began hovering overhead. More police cars, but this time moving much more slowly. Bingo: Pope Francis.
“You could hear the wave of cheers coming down our way, and then people went crazy,” McCormack recalled. “I’m not a star-struck person; but when he came closer, you could see him so close and I just started crying.”
“Everyone got pictures,” he added.
“We were all screaming: Did we really just see the pope?” said Marcus Mickey, a member of the class of 2016 at Cardinal Gibbons High School who was “taken in” by St. Thomas as one of two representatives from his parish, St. Sebastian in Fort Lauderdale.
“It’s like incredible! We saw the pope!” said Colin Apruzzese, 17, an incoming senior at St. Thomas.
He added that he normally prefers to enjoy the moment rather than worry about snapping a picture. Then he thought, “My parents will kill me if I don’t come back with something.”
Sure enough, when he texted them later that he had seen the pope, their reply was: “That’s incredible. Did you get a photo or video?”
Before they left on the pilgrimage, the students tried to calculate their chances of actually seeing the pope in Krakow.
Mickey calculated the chance at “negative 1,000.”
“I thought maybe I’d be able to see him from like a distance,” Colin said.
“I expected to wait a few more hours,” said Patrick DeFreitas, who had seen the pope at World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro three years ago.
The wait this time? About an hour.
“It went by fast because we were cheering. There were a group of Mexicans that were singing. We were trying to do the wave,” said Patrick, 17, an incoming junior at St. Thomas.
While the students used their cellphones to shoot video as Pope Francis passed, Dee Layman, one of the other St. Thomas chaperones and a theology teacher at the school, prepared to shoot stills. Photography is a hobby for her, and she brought her nice camera.
As she squeezed in near the barricade, she noticed two Polish women, one more elderly than the other. Layman assumed they were mother and daughter. When they saw her with her camera, the younger woman asked her mother to step back, in order to leave an open space up front for Layman.
“I started crying,” she recalled.
Then she saw the pope and got a great picture. “It was just such a feeling of joy. I just kept crying,” she said.
The pope did see the Polish baby, McCormack said, and although he did not stop, he turned to give him a blessing. “I’m hoping the parents saw that. It was specifically for the baby. It was so beautiful to me.”
After all the excitement, it was too late to get to the concert. So McCormack decided to let the group go to Market Hall, the historic center of Old Town Krakow, to buy ice cream and shop for souvenirs.
“Let them bask in it,” he said. “Let them enjoy the glory of what just happened.”
Correction: Michael McCormack's name was originally spelled incorrectly.
