Pope John Paul’s secret escapes from the Vatican

Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow, who was Pope John Paul II’s longtime secretary has a new book called “A Life with Karol” and one of the early anecdotes to come out of it is the story of how the Holy Father used to sneak out of the Vatican to go skiing and hiking.

In the winter of 1981, the pope, his secretary and two of his Polish aides decided to make a “getaway” to the mountains from the papal villa in Castel Gandolfo.

They packed into a car owned by one of the priests, in order not to raise suspicions, and when they passed the Swiss Guard post one prelate opened wide a newspaper to hide the pontiff in the back seat.

Then they drove to the central Italian ski town of Ovindoli without an escort, winding through mountain towns and carefully respecting the speed limits.

Once they arrived, they chose a deserted slope and the pope was able to ski all day long. On the way back, the pope smiled and said, “We did it!” It was the first of many such escapes, the papal secretary said.

[...] One of the first people to recognize the pope was a young cross-country skier, a boy no more than 10 years old, who was lagging behind the rest of his family when he came upon the papal party. He asked them if they had seen his family go by, and one of the priests pointed to the trail.

At that moment, the pope arrived at the bottom of the slope.

The boy looked astonished, pointed to the pontiff and began yelling, “The pope! The pope!”

One of the pope’s aides intervened quickly: “What are you saying, silly! You’d better think instead about hurrying up, you’re going to lose your group.”

The boy skied away, and the pope and his friends quickly returned to their car and headed for Rome before the word got out.

The poor kid. I bet he spent the rest of the day trying to convince his family he had seen the Pope on the ski slopes. He’d be about 45 years old today. I can imagine him crowing aloud as he reads the newspaper, “I knew it! I was right all along!”

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