Kirk Kilgour meets Pope John Paul II

The Call to Vatican City


By Kirk Kilgour

 

Kirk Kilgour meets Pope John Paul II
Kirk Kilgour meets Pope John Paul II

The voice on the phone, a friend I’ve known for 25 years, greets me with the familiar Italian greeting, “Pronto.” It’s not uncommon for me to receive a call from Italy.

I have many friends from having lived there for three years, and I speak conversational Italian but sometimes have trouble with complete comprehension. My friend is explaining that the Vatican wants to pay for me to come to Italy to be part of a celebration involving a television show and a mass.

Not being Roman Catholic, I know nothing of the celebration he’s talking about, which makes me think I’m missing something in translation, but Belinda, my partner, and I start making plans to leave for Rome right away.

We stay in a hotel only several hundred yards away from St. Peter’s Square. It is a converted historic villa, incredibly beautiful, once owned by a powerful Italian family. After we get settled on Thursday, I roll out to St. Peter’s Square to meet the Italian press and be filmed by Rai Uno, the main Italian television channel.

Friday morning is bright and sunny as we leave the hotel to attend the open-air mass. When we enter the street, we’re stunned by the size of the crowd moving toward Vatican City. With the help of an official and the man responsible for bringing me to Italy, we work our way to where we are to sit. I don’t know for certain what my involvement will be, so I am surprised when we keep moving through the crowd and up a large ramp, closer and closer to where the pope will be sitting.

When we finally stop, we are only a few feet to the right of the massive doors of St. Peter’s Basilica, just behind the seated College of Cardinals and a short distance from a large, newly constructed altar and throne. It is here that Pope John Paul II will share the celebration of the mass for the month of February in the Jubilee Year of 2000.

To our right on St. Peter’s Square are Bernini’s statues of apostles and saints arranged in semicircles upon huge marble columns. From our vantage point the columns seem ready to burst. Filling St. Peter’s Square is a moving sea of more than 150,000 people from around the world, including thousands of people with disabilities. February of the Jubilee Year has been dedicated to the sick, people with disabilities and those who are dedicated to their care.

The doors of the Basilica open and the crowd is silenced as Pope John Paul II makes his way forward, followed by cardinals, bishops, priests and others who take their positions to begin the mass. At one point during the mass people are brought to the pontiff to be blessed. People in wheelchairs who can’t walk and people who are too ill to get out of bed are carried upstairs from the audience to receive the papal blessing. As we watch in person, millions of others are watching a live television broadcast.

A television camera is pointed at me and Belinda, who is sitting at my feet. My friends in Italy watch us on split-screen. A picture of a poem I have written is superimposed over the scene of us with the pope. Overwhelming! How did this amazing moment ever come about?

The Fall
Beginning in the late ’60s, I was a member of the U.S. Olympic volleyball team for eight years, and for three years I played and coached professional volleyball for a team in Rome. Our team had won the Italian championship, and in 1975 I was chosen the league’s most valuable player and coach of the year.

Although volleyball, especially in its early years, was a relatively unknown sport in the United States, it was and still is the second most popular sport in Italy, behind soccer. On my return to Italy in 1976, our team was again in first place when the league took a break so the Italian Olympic team could practice together for an Olympic qualifying tournament. The federation had asked me to help coach the team and I agreed. During the first practice on the evening of Jan. 8, while we were warming up, the net broke, so I suggested we do some gymnastic agility drills using a vaulting horse and a springboard.

We took turns running, jumping on the springboard onto the horse and then doing simulated spiking or blocking moves. As happens with world-class athletes, I tend to get competitive in everything I do. The third time through the line I decided to do a more difficult move. While in the air, I decided to flip before landing. When I got halfway around, I knew I wouldn’t make it, so I extended my hands and tucked my head to my chest to roll when I landed. I had done the same maneuver 1,000 times, but 1,001 was one too many. As I hit the mat I heard a loud pop and couldn’t move. I had dislocated my fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae, leaving me paralyzed from the neck down.

Since that day I have returned to Italy every few years to attend a volleyball tournament they hold in my honor. It was during a return trip in 1985 that a friend asked about my philosophy regarding my injury and my life, specifically how I had kept my strength of spirit. He suggested I write down my thoughts. What came of that exchange was a short poem written in Italian. When I returned to Rome three years later, my friends surprised me. The poem had been made into a watercolor painting by a well-known artist. One half of the painting showed me jumping above a net, and in the other half I was sitting on a crescent moon above a mountain top.

The lithograph of the painting had been distributed to schools and organizations throughout Italy and had become well known. About five years later I learned the Vatican had decided to use the poem on a prayer card with a famous painting of Christ by Salvador Dali on the other side. The card and poem were sent to Catholics around the world. I didn’t know the impact of any of this until I arrived for the three days of the Jubilee. Nothing could have prepared me for what was about to take place.

After the mass, dozens of people came to me, to talk, to shake my hand, to touch me, to have their picture taken with me, or to have a copy of the poem autographed. Belinda held pictures while I signed them with my mouth; as fast as one was finished, another request was made. People came up to me crying and telling me how much I meant to them and their families and how much I had inspired them through their illness or disability. I felt humbled, honored and overwhelmed.

I started out achieving fame in Italy as an athlete–a fame that I sought and thoroughly relished. Ironically, I became even more famous for an injury that I did not choose and for a philosophy that I adopted as a means to live with my disability. I did not write the poem to impress or instruct anyone else. I was simply relating my personal feelings to my friends. I had no plan for my words to touch so many lives. I had no way of knowing that my words and my disability would perhaps be even more meaningful beyond the disabled community, to those who are struggling with the universal problem–how to live a meaningful life.

The Musical Festival
It’s Saturday night in the Vatican’s Paul VI Audience Hall, better known as Sala Nervi, after the famous architect. It is a stunning building that holds about 7,000 people. Artists from all over the world have donated their talent to a television program as part of the Jubilee month of February 2000. The pope is supposed to attend the live performance but he isn’t feeling well. However, he watches the program and delivers a recorded special message. Australian actress, singer and breast cancer survivor Olivia Newton-John performs, as does 92-year-old Cuban jazz sensation Compay Segundo, and other famous European singers-both disabled and nondisabled.

Thousands of pilgrims listen attentively as these artists give testimonials of spiritual triumph in the midst of physical pain. At the midpoint of the show, my poem is read by a famous Italian actor. I join him on stage to discuss my philosophy. My Italian is a little rusty and I feel such complex ideas might get lost, so I speak in English and the actor translates. Just before going offstage, I fight back tears, and in my best Italian, I tell the people of Italy how important their support of me has been.

With all we’ve seen and felt over the last three days, it is impossible to expect more as we pack to leave the next morning. When we return from dinner, though, there’s a message that a representative from the Vatican has called, requesting we return his call. He asks if we can delay our return to the states one day. The pope has requested to see me. Who can refuse the pope? “Good,” says the representative, “because we have already changed your flights.”

Audience with the Pope
Sunday we drive into the Vatican past one checkpoint, another, and still another. At each point the Swiss Guard, attired in colorful royal uniforms and standing at attention, look over our passes and point us to the next checkpoint until we arrive in a large courtyard. As we pull up to the entrance of the pope’s private quarters, it becomes obvious that there is no equivalent of the ADA inside the Vatican walls.

The only path to the entrance is up a large flight of ancient stone stairs. We have a brief heated discussion (among Italians all discussions are heated) and we finally formulate a plan. We back the van up to the stairs, which gets rid of two of them. Then we use a combination of a makeshift ramp and the help of four Swiss guards to lift me up the final group of stairs to the entrance. Bear in mind that my power chair and I weigh over 600 pounds combined. Those watching say my ascent looks like a miracle.

While we negotiate the stairs, the other guests arrive. There are about 12 of us in all, including some performers from the musical celebration on Saturday evening. Once inside we take an elevator which leads to a long corridor. Arches frame gold-inlaid walls lined with tapestries, and ornately framed art is naturally lit by stained-glass windows. My mind races with the thought of hundreds of years of history and the amazing people who have walked through these rooms.

Our small group is led into a large rectangular room. The first thing I see is an oversized ornate chair with plush red material and gold trim on a raised platform centered against the near wall. Dozens of antique chairs line the room on both sides. We are asked to stop and line up in front of the chairs nearest the raised platform. Everyone remains quiet, despite the mounting excitement. We are expecting to see Pope John Paul II enter the room at any moment. Instead, after about 15 minutes, we are led through three smaller rooms, each with frescoes and paintings depicting biblical scenes created by some of the great artists of the Renaissance. The last room we enter is small, only about 12 by 15 feet, and devoid of any furniture except another gold-inlaid chair on a raised platform centered on the far wall in front of an open door.

I am amazed by the simplicity of the room. The only art is four stunning oil paintings, each depicting the crucifixion of Jesus. We are informed that this room is adjacent to the pope’s sleeping quarters, where only about a thousand people have been seen by Pope John Paul II. There’s a commotion just outside the door as the pope’s official photographer and a television crew crowd into the room, shooting toward the entrance.

The pope enters, dressed in white vestments, holding a staff with a golden ornament on the top, walking slowly, somewhat hunched over and assisted by two cardinals. He sits on the raised chair. One by one we are called forward to be blessed and to be given a small box with the papal seal on the cover. The boxes contain beautiful rosaries. I am motioned up third, with Belinda by my side. The pope gives me a blessing and starts to hand me the box. Belinda politely reaches out and takes it from his trembling hand. Then she kneels down and gracefully kisses his ring.

I am taken by how beautiful, almost angelic, Belinda looks as she takes her gift, knowing what this must mean to her, a practicing Catholic. She stands and we back up so the next person can move forward. When the last of the guests have passed through, we all stand in silence, taking a personal moment to reflect on the significance of what we have each just experienced. The pope slowly rises from his chair using his staff and the arms of the cardinals at his side. This man, who entered the papacy 20 years ago as a strong, still young man, is clearly very ill. Although the Vatican has never confirmed it, he is rumored to have Parkinson’s disease. There are rumors throughout Italy of his intense physical suffering and how he has transcended that suffering. Many regard him as a saint.

I expect him to turn and leave. Instead, as he stands, I am motioned forward a second time from the small group. I roll toward him and a strange thought flashes through my mind: “Disabled man plows down Pope John Paul II with power wheelchair. News at 11.” Luckily, and because of 24 years of driving my chin-controlled chair, I stop just in front of him, look in his eyes and feel the strength and serenity of this truly incredible man. The pope gives me a special blessing and says a few quiet kind words to me in English. I thank him and back away, with a feeling I will never forget.

He then turns and slowly moves through the door. We all begin to talk quietly and exit the room. Belinda and I take an extra moment to allow everyone to pass when a man who could best be described as the pope’s valet approaches us carrying a copy of the painting with my poem. He says the pontiff has asked if I would sign it for him. As I put the pen in my mouth, this is almost more than I can bear. There are no words to describe what I am feeling.

Arrivaderci, Roma
Strolling the streets of the “Eternal City” that afternoon on our way to the famous Trevi Fountain to toss a coin over our shoulders, a tradition that ensures you will return to Rome another day, we are constantly stopped by well-wishers who have seen reports of the events of the last few days. That night the news services covering the story use the photo and video of the pope standing with me.

We try to get some sleep that night, but with little success. On the long flight back to Los Angeles, it all seems unreal. After all, what would a non-Catholic ex-surfer raised on the beaches of Southern California be doing meeting the pope? If I didn’t have the pictures to prove it, I would swear it was all a crazy dream.


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