Little cancer patient knocks, and pope's hospital door finally opens

Published: 2005-02-09

ROME (CNS) -- A little boy with cancer knocked -- more than once -- and Pope John Paul II's door was finally opened to him. While the spokesman for Rome's Gemelli Hospital, Nicola Cirbino, explained in detail how the Feb. 9 visit came about, he did not give details about the boy, other than to say he was a patient in the pediatric oncology unit. Catholic News Service was told later that the boy in question was a 7-year-old undergoing cancer treatment. Pope John Paul was hospitalized at Gemelli Feb. 1 in a suite of rooms next to the children's cancer ward. The boy's adventure began when the pope's personal secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, went to visit the children on the unit and their families "to bring them the greeting of the Holy Father," Cirbino said. The archbishop gave the children and their parents a rosary from the pope and stopped to visit with "the little patients and to express words of encouragement," the spokesman said. "Before Archbishop Dziwisz left," Cirbino said, "a little patient went up to him and with simple candor told him, 'I've been knocking on that door since yesterday,' pointing to the door to the pope's suite ... 'but no one answered me.'" The pope's secretary replied, "Do you want to go see the pope?" The little boy nodded, and the two set off. Cirbino said the pope was surprised by "the visit of this unexpected guest." The spokesman also said that the boy asked the pope, "Make me well."

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