found this article about thom hartmann meeting withthe pope back in 1998

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

Meeting with Pope John Paul II
by Thom Hartmann

Notes from my 2 August 1998 meeting with Pope John Paul II:

The invitation for a personal meeting with His Holiness Pope John Paul II scrolled off our fax machine, complete with instructions for protocol for meeting the Pontiff, and we at first thought it was a prank. But it was real: a close friend of the Pope had read my book "The Prophet's Way," and suggested that I be invited to meet His Holiness, who agreed based on his friend's recommendation. Honored, we accepted the invitation and booked a flight to Rome.
Castle Gandolfo is the summer residence of the Pope, and has been since the 18th century. It’s a modest castle with a stunning view at perhaps 4000 feet, on the edge of a lake which is the caldera of an extinct volcano. The castle overlooks the lake, where the water at the surface is cold but at depths of several hundred feet is hot from the volcanic activity which still remains, tens of thousands of years since this volcano blew off its top to form the lake.

Standing in the palace, you can see out over the lake and the rim of the volcano, now covered with trees, with mountains in the distance. The air is pleasant and fresh with the smell of pine and the lake, the sky a deep blue. On the far side of the lake was once one of the main Roman temples to Zeus, destroyed just after Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in the 4th century, thus creating the Roman Catholic Church, when then embarked on a 1500-year-long campaign to systematically destroy every non-Christian religious relic they could find, from Rome to Africa to the British Isles to the Mayan and Aztec lands of the Americas. The high-point of the volcanic rim is now an unsightly cowlick of television and microwave antennas.

The air was hot and clear as Louise and I drove the twisting road up the mountainside with Eva, a German tour guide, and Martina, a German/Italian/English translator, provided by our hosts. There’s a small tourist town that’s grown up around Castle Gandolfo, and we arrived at 5pm, two hours early for the 7pm opening of the gates of the castle. Swiss Guards, wearing bring orange and blue pantaloons designed by Michelangelo, stood before the ancient, 30-foot-high brass-covered door to the castle, their lances at arms, and several men with ear-pieces and sharp looks — the Papal equivalent of the Secret Service — milled around the area, their black suits buttoned to conceal the guns they wore in their shoulder holsters.
more at:
http://www.thomhartmann.com/popemtg.shtml

[Bozita]

1. Thom spoke about the visit on his show yesterday

The archive is available at Ben Burch's www.whiterosesociety.org

Good post.