This month’s winner is Custis Haynes of Grass Valley, California:
During the 1953 Easter vacation, my husband, Ed, and I had an audience with Pope Pius XII. We were massed together in the vast Vatican reception hall with a crowd of faithful Europeans and other Americans like us.
The Pope gave a fluent greeting to each nationality in its own language, and each nationality gave a fervent response.
The Italians roared, “Papa! Papa!” and the French, “Vive le Pape!” The German nuns launched into a rousing hymn.
Then he greeted the Americans — an uneasy moment… until an American serviceman rescued us.
He shouted, “Yay, Pope!”