Earlier risers follow the pope to Birmingham for an ‘amazing and wonderful experience’
HER NAME was Mary George, though she didn’t look like a George, and she was furiously waving a Union Jack as she rushed to her group gathering under two enormous Indian flags for a photograph. A banner announced “Urbi et Orbi”, that they were “Liverpool Kerala Catholic Community”.
The choir sang Oh Happy Daysas nuns in habits, young and old families, and priests in various shades of black picnicked at leisure as the rain held off and others went to and fro in the afterglow of "Benedetto", as the Italians call him. He was backstage divesting after the beatification ceremony.
Her name before marriage was Mary Methai and she is a catechist in Liverpool where she has been a nurse for eight years, since she left India. Her husband’s name is George – “his surname”, she added with a giggle at her own wit. She was so “very glad” to be there. It was such “a very blessing day for us”, she said. They had left at 4am yesterday to be in Birmingham.
Every bit as happy was Sr Mary Pieta from Leeds, waving a papal flag. She and the other young Franciscan Sister of the Renewal there had been following the pope around in a car since early Saturday. They had been at the Mass in Westminster on Saturday morning and that evening at the vigil in Hyde Park and, “after a few hours’ sleep”, they drove to Birmingham.
“It has been incredible,” she said. “The pope is doing an incredible job trying to bring about renewal in the church.” She is from Kansas and joined the sisters in New York five years ago. She has been in Leeds for a year. And she was off with the other sisters in their grey habit and chunky woollen jumpers.
Debbie Furey was suddenly shy and clung to her tricolour and the arm of her friend Seán McGee with such determination it seemed either would crack.
So Seán, from Loughrea, Co Galway, did the talking. It was “amazing, a wonderful experience”.
An accountant, he has been in London 15 years. Debbie recovered her poise to say she was a sales manager and had been in Wembley when Pope John Paul visited in 1982.
She was from London. It was agreed “nobody’s perfect”, but she added hastily, “my parents are from Donegal and Mayo”. It hardly gets better.
All were members of “SS Michael and Martin RC Church, Hounslow” as their banner said, and all had been up at 1.45am yesterday for the drive to Birmingham. They had been to the vigil in Hyde Park on Saturday evening. “I didn’t get any sleep at all,” said Seán.
And there was Anthony Hofler from Wolverhampton whose father was German and mother from Tuam. Wearing a Celtic jersey inside his jacket and a woollen Celtic hat, he stood beside his massive banner which read “Catholic uber alles”. He thought “it might please the pope”.