In the midst of a tightly synchronized visit to South Carolina, Pope John Paul II spent a minute on the telephone offering his greeting and blessing to Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan.

The call, anticipated most of the day at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Cancer Home in Atlanta where the archbishop is convalescing, came in precisely at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 11, just before the pope's scheduled appearance before 60,000 people at the Columbia stadium.

When the call came, the archbishop, his sister, Nancy Donnellan, and Sister M. de Paul Mullen were in the room. The archbishop told the pope, "I'm wonderfully moved," Sister de Paul said. Asked if the pope had given him his blessing, the archbishop said that he had.

While he was in Columbia, the pope was within the province of Atlanta and the suggestion of such a call was presented by the archdiocese to the coordinators of the papal trip through Bishop Ernest Unterkoefler of Charleston, Father Peter Ludden said. The archbishop is convalescing from a stroke he suffered May 1.