Pope’s Replies Often Leaves Reporters Puzzled

Always affable and rarely stumped for an answer, Pope John Paul II works the aisles of his chartered Alitalia Boeing 747 jet like a confident politician dropping campaign quotes that seem to delight the 75 journalists flying with him to America.

But after almost an hour of exposure to one of the most charismatic of international figures whose most casual remarks are scrutinized like Gospel in the spiritual and temporal chanceries of the world, the puzzled reporters gather in his wake and ask, “What did he say? What did he mean by that?”

Unique in the almost 2,000-year history of Popes, John Paul is always responsive. No other Pope has submitted to public questioning as he has done in his almost nine-year papacy. But as the Pope shifts easily, sometimes in mid-sentence, among the seven languages that he speaks fluently, he is not always crystal clear.

Exercising His English

During this 11-hour flight from Rome to Miami to begin his second self-described “pilgrimage” to the United States, for example, John Paul happily breasted his way through scores of clamoring journalists, intent on exercising his English in preparation for his 10-day trip to the South, the West and Detroit. Interrupted by Italian, German, French and Polish speakers as he moved, first down the port aisle and then up the starboard aisle of the airplane, the Pope occasionally hit a verbal hurdle.

“I am going to do my possible to speak to all of them,” he said in response to a question concerning America’s Catholic dissenters.

Asked to make his first public comment on his controversial June meeting with Austrian President Kurt Waldheim, the principal topic of an anguished papal audience last week with nine major Jewish leaders, the Pope said, “It was a good meeting.”

“Do you mean the meeting with Waldheim was good or the one with the Jewish leaders?” a reporter asked.

Pausing a moment before realizing the possible ramifications of what he had said, the pontiff replied, “With the rabbis.”

A Mispronunciation

On an earlier papal flight, in reply to a question concerning the Soviets, the pontiff said: “They are slaves as we Polish people are slaves so we have much in common.” It was generally agreed among English-speaking reporters in his entourage, and confirmed by the Vatican spokesman, that he had merely mispronounced the term Slavs as in Slavic people, but not before an excited radio reporter went on the air with the Pope calling Russians and Poles slaves.

Because of the confusion, journalists on the plane usually huddle after John Paul has done his walkabout in order to compare notes and try to straighten out misunderstandings. Often his remarks, good as they sounded when delivered, cannot be deciphered at all, which may explain why the airborne press conferences that the pontiff conducts on almost every trip abroad rarely appear on television or in news stories.