By Father Noel C. Burtenshaw

It was like the return of DiMaggio. It was like the Yankee Clipper was still on his never-to-be-broken hitting streak. Yankee Stadium was packed, alive and gathering in frenzy.

But it had nothing to do with the national game of baseball. No stars were playing center field on that chilly evening in October 1965. Rather it was the Prisoner of the Vatican, small in stature, dressed in white, stealing all the bases with the mere flash of his kindly smiling eyes. Paul the Sixth was out of the Vatican and on parole.

It was the plan of his pontificate. Conservatives smugly staked their claim to primacy upon his election. Liberals contradicted the claim. Both, he ignored as unimportant. Firmly he demanded reform, while tenaciously he nurtured tradition. And his real plan was parole for himself. He took it.

He filled the friendly skies like no other Pope. And friendly faces faithfully responded. In Jordan, where Catholics are desert dry, he was deliriously mobbed. The little cautious nation of Israel dropped its barbed border in wild welcome. Like Jesus, he paddled his feet in the gaping waters of the Dead Sea. Then on to the pandemonium of the South Americas. Again, the smiling faces -- even in the drowning waters of a poverty he would never forget. India was next and his magic hypnotized this ancient home of the professional mystic. His title was Pastor and his parish was the world.

Everywhere his message was unmistakingly precise. On every continent it was his calling card. Peace -- Dignity -- Brotherhood. "If mankind will not destroy war, war will destroy mankind." Almost fisting the podium at the UN, he dictated, "No more war. Never again war. Peace. It is peace which must guide the destinies of peoples." He never stopped.

But the race against oncoming death slowed him down. Continental travel and the crowd crush halted his missionary journeys. Still he shunned the bars of his Vatican prison. Almost unannounced, his white robe would appear at fiesta celebrations in the Italian countryside. The smiling faces were still his mania.

Paul the Sixth died outside his Prison -- still on parole. His final foray forged the den of assassins. The refusal of the Red Brigade to grant reprieve to Aldo Moro was a deadening disappointment. Paul lit up the smiles of others; for him there was no such light.

Now he is gone. The Prisoner of the Vatican is no longer on parole. He has at last received a full and final release.