Me and the Pope: Photo jogs memory

Sydney
24 August 2003

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Me and the Pope: Photo jogs memory

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Me and the Pope: Photo jogs memory

Jozef Drewniak and the future Pope in 1973.

By Chris Lindsay

A photograph in the Remember when … section of The Catholic Weekly this month has jogged the memory of Polish-born actor and singer Jozef Drewniak about the day he took Pope John Paul II, then Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, to visit the Little Sisters of the Poor nursing home in Randwick.

And the future pope knelt to receive a blessing from a 100 year old woman.

The picture (above), published in our August 10 issue, shows Jozef in an earlier visit to the home where he used to go regularly to entertain the residents.

The event has more than one connection with The Catholic Weekly.

Jozef, who spent 50 years in the theatre, had been approached by Bob Gould (not the Sydney bookseller), then a film director, artists’ agent and chief photographer for The Catholic Weekly when Cardinal Gilroy was in charge, and asked if he would visit the nursing home because some of the residents were Polish.

“I would go every second month and put on a concert,” said Jozef. “Bob Gould was responsible for lots of artists from the club circuit, including the singer Kathleen McCormick, and he would get some of them to perform at the concerts for free.

“I became very friendly with Sr Mary John who ran the home.

“When we heard Cardinal Wojtyla was coming for an ecumenical congress in Melbourne in 1973 we thought it would be good if we could get him to visit the Mt St Joseph’s nursing home and speak to the Polish residents, as well as the others.

“He was the first cardinal from behind the Iron Curtain to visit Australia and there was much excitement in the Polish community.

“I met Cardinal Wojtyla at Sydney airport and approached him. I reminded him we went to school together in Wadowice in Poland, and he remembered me from then.

“We had a long talk before the press conference he had to give, and Cardinal Gilroy supported me in the request.

“I was amazed how helpful he was. I said to him ‘will you come to visit the Little Sisters of the Poor tomorrow?’ and he said ‘Yes, I will be there at 11am’.

“As a coincidence, Pope Paul VI had been there before him on a previous trip to Australia, but, of course, we had no idea Cardinal Wojtyla would also become Pope.

“He met the sisters and the residents and visited the retired priests’ home. The Polish people and the others there thought this was the greatest thing that had happened to them.

“There was a lady there who was 100 years old. She came up and asked him for a blessing. He said: ‘No, but would you bless me?’, and knelt down before her and she blessed him. It was a wonderful gesture and showed just what kind of man he was.

“I remember very little of him at school, but he had contact with my family in Poland while I was in Australia. When we met at the airport he said ‘I buried your parents’ and I thanked him for that.

“As a cardinal he was very friendly and easy to get on with. I met him again at the congress in Melbourne and we kept in contact after that.

“We would exchange cards at Christmas and Easter, but after he became Pope I had to deal with the bureaucracy. I sent him congratulations on being made Pope but I just got a formal reply from one of his assistants.

“Of course, by that time he was a very busy man.

“I think he has been a wonderful Pope. He really has been the ‘people’s pope’. He looks very frail now but he is mentally alert. If he hadn’t been wounded in the assassination attempt he would be much better. It was a miracle he survived.

“But he was a great sportsman in his youth and that has kept him going.”

Jozef’s career as an actor and entertainer began in Australia in 1953. A baritone, he sang in many operas (including with Pavarotti) and performed with the Elizabethan Theatre Trust and JC Williamson’s.

He appeared in TV dramas, including The Petrov Affair, and in films. He also starred in musicals such as Fiddler on the Roof and The Sound of Music.