Chasing After the Shepherd

You just had to be there. Five hundred mangy-looking journalists hanging out in the Volpe International Building at Logan Airport, waiting for the Pope. Journalists from all over the world, all over the country. Rectangular tags with green and yellow markings; rectangular tags with purple and brown markings; diamond-shape tags with yellow and white markings--the Pontiff's colors. Cameras and tape-recorders and typewriters--more than 100 of them lined up like altar boys on about 20 tables in the makeshift filing center--and telex machines. Long-distance and local phones, lots of them, with quadralingual dialing instructions posted strategically. People are chatting in English, Italian, German and Latin. The guy at the front of the room, is telling everybody that "the shepherd has come to see his flock." But he's got it all wrong; the wolves have come to see the shepherd.

Four hours before the Holy Father descends in his 747 Aer Lingus special--which scattered airline press releases describe down to the breakfast menu and the team of 17 stewardesses--there is a press briefing. Father Lynch, who is coordinating the visit for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, tells us that the holy plane will arrive on time. "But it's going to be downhill from there," he says. Look at the times in your "bible" (news lingo for the itinerary); miss the bus and it's your tough luck. "If the buses are scheduled to leave at 3:30, and the Pope doesn't leave until 5:00, the buses will leave at 3:30." The Christian spirit.

Press people are checking in to cover the arrival. Over at gate seven they're giving out United Air Lines boarding tickets for standing room on the press platform. At gate eight they're checking in the people who will travel with the papal party on the week-long trip. A small, balding and very nervous man has been handed the microphone--his voice is a mix of officious timidity. He's losing his audience. Content to find their own information, the crowd drifts away. The reporters gather around the monseigneur and the bureaucrat who are holding the seats for Pool Bus one. There is a friendly reminder that all pool reporters must share their information with each other. There are mild guffaws.

It's only 12 p.m.--three more hours until the "St. Patrick" is scheduled to come down to earth. Journalists are already populating the bar, slugging down the gin and tonics a little too quickly. Most of us are in the "Cloud 9" restaurant, and the three plump waitresses are going mildly mad. In the booth next door, a cameraman for Channel 3 is flashing black pin-stripes and a white bowler. There is a reporter for the Manchester Guardian who asks us if Harvard has started accepting women. There are reporters everywhere, lining the halls, careening into the state police and generally raising hell.

Down the hall at the newstand, they are hawking papal t-shirts, bumper stickers, decals, ribbons, and anything else they can find. It is about 1:45 p.m., and the line-up begins. Cameramen use their tripods and lenses, some big enough to polevault with, to clear away the opposition. But the Secret Service is checking all bags. We descend two very gray, concrete flights of steps and peek out into the mist. God is spitting on Logan airport as we find our places and, like everybody else, go running for the front row. They're not checking boarding passes.

At 2 p.m. they decide it isn't raining hard enough to move the rain canopy over the rostrum. At 2:30 p.m. they decide it's raining hard enough to move the rain canopy over the rostrum. Now the television crews are complaining about the light. At 2:30 p.m., the real dignitaries and the church officials start to arrive. Cardinals and priests garbed in the traditional black and purple robes. Politicians in pin-stripes and whoever else managed to nab a ticket to the airport ceremonies. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54 (D-Mass.) steps in with a big smile, Joan in tow. Gov. Edward J. King rounds the big green flatbed truck that the pool #1 photographers are fighting for space on. The truck and one of the nine press buses will join the motorcade. The rest of us will go right to the Common. A small army of state police and cars stands guard. It's raining harder. The photographers in the back look distraught.

At 2:55 p.m., all eyes look right--the green tail of the Pope's plane comes slowly into view through the mist. It taxis slowly to position but overshoots the steps. The door opens and a stewardess appears. A photographer swears, having wasted two shots on what he thought was the Pope. Humberto Cardinal Medeiros heads up the ramp, the U.S. Chief of Protocol in tow. First Lady Rosalynn Carter is conspicuous in a black skirt-and-jacket-suit with a matching hat that could only be a bowler. The Pope makes his first appearance in the U.S. during his pontiffship and the dignitaries break into respectful applause. The photographers just click away.

Rosalyn steps to the mike and welcomes the Pope to America. It is not a very exciting moment. She talks a lot about "love" and the press pool snickers audibly. The Pope listens thoughtfully--perhaps he is just trying to understand her accent--and then steps forward. He reads his welcoming response. Now the photographers are angry--some idiot had lowered the microphones so they block the Holy Father's face. But at least he's worn his red cape--if he'd been in white the pictures would be horrible.

When he stops and sets off for the limousine, the photographers are up and away. The seats on the press bus are first come, first serve. More journalists have applied for press credentials than they did for John F. Kennedy's funeral. Everybody is clutching cameras and notebooks and pens and their partners. The archdiocese recruit hands out the text of the Pope's address. All that shorthand for nothing.

The bus trip takes only about a half-hour. Police cars and remnants of the crowd that saw the Pope still line the streets. At Beacon and Charles Streets, the Greyhound buses grind to a halt--and the pack is off again. In the Common garage is another press filing center--more typewriters, phones and telexes. And ladies serving food from U-Haul trailers. But there are more police checking the entry points. "Jesus Christ," says the one who looks at my lens, "there are more journalists than Catholics in Boston today."