The Old Man

John XXIII has been on the throne of St. Peter only four months, but he is already the best-loved Pope of modern times. Rome has rarely known anyone like the stout, bustling, punchinello-faced old man, who combines warmth, wit and frankness with a dignity that is free of pomp. He is an able, creative, precedent-breaking administrator with a rare humility and an ever-present concern for people. He has been readier than any other Pope in memory to leave the Vatican, a man about town who likes nothing better than to dodge his chauffeurs and stomp through Roman streets on his own. They call him "Johnnie Walker."

"The Pope Sent You." During the past fortnight, his audiences have included Tibetan Lama Cohimed Rigdzin, two football teams, the children of Vatican City employees, the Italian National Blood Donors Association, Pennsylvania's "flying grandfather," Max Conrad, Mount Everest's Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, Fiat Auto Co. President Vittorio Valletta, the U.S. 686th Air Force band and choir (which serenaded him), the officers and men of his own Swiss Guard, and 30 of the carabinieri and motorcycle police who escort his car around Rome.

But it is not so much whom he sees as how he sees them. After his formal audience with the Swiss Guards, the Pope settled down with them for a cup of tea. "We see each other every day," he said, "but we never get a chance to talk--you because of discipline and I because of protocol. It's about time we got better acquainted." He told the motorcycle cops: "Frankly, I would rather do without you. But you and I are both subject to rules and regulations, and we must try to make the best of it."

The Pope can be counted on to bless anything, from a new U.S. helicopter (the first aircraft ever to land in the Vatican) to a crowd of bicycle racers departing for Sardinia. In his Latin blessing of the "helicopterum," he asked God to "grant that in the same way it rises into ethereal spaces, our minds be elevated toward celestial things and be united by ties of charity." And he advised the cyclists: "When you get to Cagliari, tell the Madonna of Bonaria that the Pope sent you, and she will bless Italy, you and your families."

"Splash!" Speaking to the Sisters of Nevers, the Pope recalled the institute maintained by the same order in Venice. "They enlarged it here and enlarged it there--until finally the good sisters had to stop because Venice is on the sea and splash! they ran the risk of falling in." He concluded: "Now let us pray for you, for your families, and also for the Pope--because, to tell the truth, I want to live a long time. I like to live."

Pope John's love of living sometimes dismays Vatican sticklers for protocol, as in his fondness for inviting old friends to dinner. "I tried to keep to the tradition," he told one intimate, "but it didn't last eight days. After all, nothing in Scripture says that I have to eat alone." The ultra-conservative editors of the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano have even been known to censor what they consider an unseemly papal frankness. When, on a precedent-breaking visit to Rome's Queen of Heaven prison, John told the jailbirds that "one of my relatives who was out hunting without a license was caught by the carabinieri and sent to jail for a month." L'Osservatore reported that "His Holiness recalled the bad impression he received as a boy when someone close to him, though in no serious way, and though unintentionally, transgressed the law."

"Things to Do." The Pope's day usually begins about 4 a.m. He bathes, shaves with his old safety razor, meditates and prays until 7 when he says Mass. Breakfast is at 8; until 10 he answers letters, quickly skims the newspapers. He is busy with audiences until lunch, after which he prays in his private chapel, then works until 7:45, when he returns to the chapel to say his rosary. Dinner is at 8, bedtime about 10. Sometimes he varies the schedule by rising around 2 a.m., working a couple of hours, then going back to his mahogany bed and sleeping later than usual. "He is a man of most irregular work habits," says his Secretary of State, Cardinal Tardini. "The Holy Father seems to have a guardian angel who wakes him up and tells him it's time to go to work."

Though he does not act his age, John knows that at 77 he cannot count on a long reign. "Well, here I am--at the end of the road and the top of the heap," he told visiting Canadian Premier John Diefenbaker. At another audience he said: "I who have come to the pontificate at such an advanced age do not despair of receiving from the Lord at least the time conceded to St. Agatho [Pope from 678 to 681]. There are so many things to do."

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