Seattle sisters became ‘rock stars’ at school after meeting Pope Francis

SEATTLEBy Kevin Birnbaum

Ken Pretti assumed he and his family would be shut out of the seating area for Pope Francis’ first general audience March 27. After all, they’d arrived at St. Peter’s Square without tickets.

“However, thanks to the inability of the Italians to follow procedures, our ability to speak Italian, and (middle daughter) Sofia using a wheelchair, it turned out much better than expected!” he later recounted.

When Ken and his wife, Stacy, members of St. Benedict Parish, realized their family’s Holy Week/spring break trip to Italy would coincide with Pope Francis’ first general audience, they decided to be there for the occasion.

They reserved tickets, but then learned they’d need to pick them up the night before at Santa Susanna Church in Rome. The Prettis were staying in Spoleto, a two-hour train ride away, so they never got the tickets.

They showed up anyway, having heard they could get tickets at a particular location from the Swiss Guards.

“We couldn’t find the spot, but while asking the various policemen where to go, they started to let us past to get in,” Ken told The Progress. “So we went through about four or five different checkpoints, and ended up clear up in the front.”

Ken and Sofia, a second-grader at St. Matthew School who has cerebral palsy, got to sit in a special section for people with wheelchairs.

Close encountersBefore the audience began, Pope Francis drove right past them.

“So we saw him really close then and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s pretty good,’” Ken said.

It was about to get better.

“At the conclusion (of the audience), the ushers and policemen started coming along and saying, ‘OK, you’ve got to get moving and go up to get a blessing from the pope.’”

Ken and Sofia rejoined Stacy and Sofia’s two sisters, Isabella and Giulia. But a guard stopped them and said only Sofia and one of her parents could meet the pope.

“And my wife asked, ‘Well, what about her sisters?’ and he said, ‘OK, they can go, but you have to stay.’ So my wife stayed and I took the other two with my middle daughter.”

They watched Pope Francis make his way down the line, blessing each of the people in wheelchairs.

When he arrived at the Prettis, the pope asked Sofia her name.

Then “he gave her a kiss and then blessed her and blessed the other two girls,” Ken said.

The whole interaction lasted maybe a minute or two.

“It wasn’t any extended period of time, but he wasn’t rushing,” Ken said. “He definitely was not a person in a rush. He was taking his time with all the people.”

The main thing Ken noticed about the pope was his smile.

“When he’s giving the blessings, he’s very, very happy. It wasn’t like he was just doing some task that he just had to do. It was something that he truly was enjoying,” he said.

Sofia and fourth-grader Isabella had already been planning to video-chat with their classmates at St. Matthew’s the next day via Skype, to tell them about their trip to Italy. Stacy emailed photos ahead of time, including some of the blessing from Pope Francis.

“By the time the Skype session happened, (the pictures) had already spread through the school and (the girls) were a little bit of rock stars for having met the pope,” Ken said.

April 25, 2013