The warm sun of an Indian summer in St. Peters Square The warm sun of Indian summer lights St Peters Square; it is the morning of November 11th 1996. It is my first workday at the Secretariat of State and mom wants to be by my side. That is why she has come to Rome. We wake up early in the morning and, after picking her and my uncle Father Luigi up at the Saverian Missionaries General House in Viale Vaticano, we go to St Peters Tomb, where we celebrate the Holy Mass together. After Mass we have breakfast at the Bar San Pietro in Via della Conciliazione. I am very tense and excited; the new environment makes me stand in awe, especially this first time. My dark clergyman suit is in perfect order; I am holding hold my dark brown briefcase in my hands. Mom notices how worried I am. We walk slowly as far as the fountain on the right of the large square. Then we stop and look at the offices of the Secretariat of State, near the Apostolic Palace. Mom asks me which window the Pope appears at for the Sunday Angelus prayer. I lift my arm and point it out. The water gurgling in the beautiful fountain forces us to speak louder. Together we admire the wonderful square: the colonnade, the façade, and the dome. Mom shows us the place where she had sat down to write her postcards on her first visit to Rome, during her honeymoon, right under St. Peters statue. We reach the colonnade, where the Bronze Door is. Mom invites me to go up the steps but before parting, she tells me: Father Gigi ...
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