Notebook
Pope’s music video
Pope John Paul II is often welcomed like a rock star, so it was only a matter of time before he came out with a music video.
Sony Classical and Vatican Radio announced plans this week for the video. It will be a spinoff of their joint release of a music CD titled “Abba Pater.”
“Abba Pater” will combine “original compositions and arrangements of contemporary musical forms with live recordings of Pope John Paul II delivering prayers, homilies and chants,” Sony said. Abba is Aramaic for father; pater is Latin for father.
The video will show John Paul chanting the Pater Noster (Our Father).
The papal recordings - in Latin, Italian, French, English and Spanish - were chosen from Vatican Radio’s exhaustive archives of John Paul’s 20-year papacy.
The CD is scheduled for release in March, ahead of Holy Week and Easter.
Pope meets Rosa Parks
Pope John Paul II, who during his visit to St. Louis repeatedly called for racial harmony, met briefly Wednesday with civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks.
The pontiff shook hands with the 85-year-old Parks at the Cathedral Basilica after an evening prayer service, and the two exchanged a few words. John Paul patted her hand as they parted.
The meeting had originally been scheduled to take place at the home of Archbishop Justin Rigali. It wasn’t clear why the site was changed.
In 1955, Parks, a black seamstress, was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus, touching off the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott - one of the earliest battles of the civil rights movement.
Parks now lives in Detroit.
Get your pontiff chips here
Vendors took full advantage of Pope John Paul II’s trip to St. Louis, hawking everything from Vati-can beer holders to pope potato chips.
Entrepreneurs were out on the streets selling the faithful keyrings, money clips, Pope Tote bags and T-shirts proclaiming in Latin “The Pope came to St. Louis and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.”
St. Louis merchants even offered bags of potato chips called Las Papas del Papa, or The Pope’s Potatoes. Each packet, brought from Mexico, where the pope spent five days before coming to the United States, contained a stamp-size picture of John Paul.
Back when he was a ballplayer
At a farewell ceremony in a hangar at Lambert International Airport here, the pope had a private meeting with Vice President Al Gore. As the two men posed for photographers, the vice president asked the pope about the last time he visited St. Louis, in 1969. The pope replied, “The last time I was here, I was a cardinal.”
Forget Cardinals, it’s Blues time
At the end of Tuesday’s rock-concert-style youth rally, Pope John Paul II was presented with a hockey stick. As he rose from his armchair to leave the podium, he briefly lowered his staff and used it to mime the motion of a hockey pass - winning roars of laughter and applause.