John Paul II referred to him as “my travelling manager”. Benedict XVI, with a hint of irony, called him “Reisemarschal”, travel marshal in German. He has officially been in charge of organising international papal visits but he for the past ten years but has worked in the Vatican since 1982, as the Jesuit Roberto Tucci’s deputy Alberto Gasbarri, who turns 70 this February, a gentleman’s temperament but a true Roman by birth, is about to retire. He leaves Vatican Radio’s administrative management and his role as papal “tour operator” and will be replaced by a Colombian monsignor currently serving in the second section of the Secretariat of State, Mauricio Rueda Beltz (born in 1970), who worked as part of the Vatican diplomatic corps in the US and Jordan. The Vatican “minister for foreign affairs”, Paul Richard Gallagher, announced the news regarding the imminent appointment just before Christmas.
Francis’ upcoming trip to Mexico from 12 to 18 February will therefore be the impeccable “Reisemarschall” Gasbarri’s last. His role involved spending at least half of the year abroad, in order to carry out all necessary verifications and prepare the ground for the Pope’s visit to whichever country he was going to. He is also used to dealing with government authorities, protocol chiefs, police and secret services around the world. The papal trip organiser, who is married and father of two, is an expert of labour law and graduated with a degree in Economics in the 1960’s, along with the economist Federico Caffè. He joined Vatican Radio at the age of 23 and went on to become its administrative director. In 1979, he and Fr. Tucci began to deal with the radio coverage of Wojtyla’s visits which at the time were organised by Bishop Paul Marcinkus. Then the American prelate famously fell into disfavour because of his involvement in Italy’s Banco Ambrosiano scandal: The then Secretary of State, Cardinal Agostino Casaroli summoned Gasbarri and Tucci and put them “temporarily” in charge of the globetrotter Pope’s travels – Wojtyla once visited as many as eight countries as part of one single trip. As is sometimes the case in the Holy See, what was meant to be a temporary assignment turned into 37 years spent between organising the work of the Vatican Radio and working out every detail of each papal visit, with constant last minute change of plans. Like that time in 1988 when Wojtyla’s flight was headed for Lesotho but had to land in Johannesburg, South Africa, due to bad weather, meaning that Gasbarri immediately had to organise the transfer of 200 people, on a 600 kilometre journey via Marsu. A couple of years before that, the same thing happened upon arrival in Italy: the papal flight was on its way back from India, but a snowstorm prevented the plane from landing in Rome. After failed attempts to land in Pisa, the jet eventually touched ground in Naples and the “Reisemarschall” had to organise the Pope and his entourage’s train travel. John Paul II was big on gestures and last minute changes of plan, under Benedict XVI’s pontificate, everything always went according to schedule, with everything planned down to the last minute, now with Francis, it’s back to the last minute changes of schedule.
Like the one Gasbarri had to deal with in Rio de Janeiro, to grant the Pope’s wish to meet 5000 fellow countrymen. Or the time when the Pope refused outright to cancel his visit to Tacloban in the Philippines a year ago, defying an approaching typhoon to bring comfort to victims of another devastating typhoon, Hayan, which had left thousands dead in 2013. On that occasion, Gasbarri was in constant radio contact with the military pilots in charge of the papal plane which took off at the last minute, just in time to avoid the oncoming storm. The “Reisemarschall”, who is nearing retirement, often talked to his closest collaborators and his deputy, Paolo Corvini, who will continue to work with Gasbarri’s successor, about a common attitude that connected the three Popes he so loyally served: their calm, even during the toughest or most dangerous moments of each visit. Always impeccable in his blue double-breasted suit, at any latitude, no matter what the time of day and whatever the temperature, Gasbarri has always considered the Jesuit Roberto Tucci a teacher and a spiritual father and remained at his side until the very end. When, in 2001, John Paul II created Tucci a cardinal, the Pope’s secretary, Mgr. Stanislao Dziwisz said to Gasbarri: “How many buttons does a cardinal’s dress have? Well, at least eight of the buttons on Tucci’s dress are yours!”. This was a way of saying to him that the recognition he received was also down to the Jesuit’s invaluable service in organising the papal visits. Last April, when Tucci died, his historic number two man took eight buttons from the cardinal’s cassock, which he has since kept on his desk where he can see them.
