Two years a pope

Today is the second anniversary of the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI.



In what is nothing less than a miracle, I was there. When they flash to the overview of St. Peter's Square. You'll notice a huge clearing in the middle left area. At the front of that clearing to the right (halfway between the clearing and the right collonadte), I stood with a large group of seminarians from North American College and a good friend and spiritual director there, Jesuit Father Brendan Lally.

I had moved on (read: begged my boss) to Rome after spending a week in Poland covering the week of mourning for John Paul II for my previous diocesan paper, Texas Catholic in Dallas. My editor, Bronson Havard, generously gave me the green light to book a cheap flight on Alitalia from Krakow to Rome, where I essentially moved in for three weeks with some recently married friends, Matt and Cristina Genung (God bless 'em for their patience) at their new apartment. Matt has been studying for a doctorate at Gregorian University.

I chronicled my stay on the Texas Catholic blog, but it looks like either those posts are erased or inactive. Let me try to find a link to them...

In the meantime, I also wrote some articles for the Web site. It looks like all of them are still archived at TC Online, although the pictures seem to have been removed.

I know we've asked in the past for your conclave memories, but we'd love to hear them again, as well as any new stories. What an amazing time that was.